The MPLS-OPS Archive

[Roger Clark Williams <rogwilli@cisco.com>]

Ahmad, one reason for route reflectors is basically to keep unnecessary 
traffic in check. If you have 100 routers all peering with each other, 
there is a lot of updating of route tables and such. If there are two RR on 
the network, generally speaking the RRs do the peering and the other 98 
routers don't say much (or as much), and don't talk at all to the other 
routers on the network, only to the RRs.

Area, relative to route reflection, come in at least two types. There are 
BGP areas that use route reflectors for IP traffic, and when using MPLS 
VPNs there are VPNv4 route reflectors. The reason for areas is that no one 
group can manage all the routers in the world, so they break their 
management into areas that tend to follow corporate lines and international 
boundaries. Verizon manages theirs, British Telecom manages theirs, and so 
forth.

The questions at the end of your note are really more "Layer 8" problems: 
It is a people or corporate issue more than a hardware issue. The issues 
around end-to-end performance can all be worked out assuming (in my example 
above) that Verizon and BT communicate and do things that allow for perfect 
end-to-end QoS. In the real world, as with many things, it depends

I hope that helps

Roger Williams


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>Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 02:45:14 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Ahmad Suzaili Shaari <suzaili@yahoo.com>
>To: mpls-ops <mpls-ops@mplsrc.com>
>Subject: [MPLS-OPS]: Route Reflector and Areas
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>Hi,
>
>I'm new in IP and MPLS and a little bit confuse with the existence of 
>Route Reflectors (RR) and segmenting the network into multiple areas. My 
>questions are as follows:
>
>1. Why do we need to have multiple areas in the network?
>2. If we have RR implemented in the network, can we maintain a single area 
>in the network.
>3. Is it true that, if the network is segmented into multiple areas, it is 
>difficult to perform the following:
>    * Supporting end-to-end services requiring QoS guarantees
>    * –Perfoming network resource optimisation
>    * Providing fast recovery –
>  Thank you.
>–
>
>
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Roger Clark Williams
Network Consulting Engineer
Global OSS/NMS Practice
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Cisco Systems, Inc.
phone: 802.221.1104
cell: 802.355.9933
email: rogwilli@cisco.com

Leave it, change it, or accept it. Anything else is madness.  


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