Re: FRR for BGP route reflectors?

[Douglas Fischer via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>]

Perhaps these excellent publications by Justin Pietsch can help you decide:
https://medium.com/the-elegant-network/performance-testing-of-commercial-bgp-c3b93424dd6d
I suggest reading the entire set of posts.

I don't know if anyone has done analyses of this same type recently.
If so, I'd like to read them.


Em ter., 2 de jun. de 2026 às 18:14, Tom Samplonius via NANOG <
nanog () lists nanog org> escreveu:

>   Well, while I’m curious about FRR specific characteristics, I think the
> typical BGP CPU advice still applies:
>
>
> 1. Fastest possible cores.  While there are techniques to process BGP in
> parallel (ex. sharding), BGP often tends to serialize updates.  Faster
> cores are always better for BGP.
>
>
> 2. Virtualization is just a tax.  Assume it takes 10% of your performance,
> which is probably on the high-end for a RR.  RRs don’t forward packets, so
> XDP and DPDK and all that stuff, do not apply.
>
>
>
>   Juniper says their container routing protocol daemon (cRPD):
>
> Junos cRPD is designed to maximize routing performance. For example, it is
> capable of reflecting 10 copies of Internet routes to 1000 BGP peers in
> less than 60 seconds.
>
>
>
>   I’m curious if FRR can do that, and what hardware that would be.
>
>
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> > On Jun 2, 2026, at 7:30 AM, Owens, Richard A. via NANOG <
> nanog () lists nanog org> wrote:
> > I have had this question also before. Also importantly, if you would,
> what kind of hardware specs do your RR's have and are they physical or
> virtual?
> > ---
> >
> > Richard Owens
> >
> > Network Automation and Wireless Engineer | Information Technology
> Services
> > Old Dominion University
> >
> > 4300 Engineering and Computational Sciences Building
> >
> >
> >
> > https://www.odu.edu/its
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: fritz--- via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>
> > Sent: Tuesday, June 2, 2026 10:09
> > To: nanog () lists nanog org <nanog () lists nanog org>
> > Cc: fritz () init7 net <fritz () init7 net>
> > Subject: Re: FRR for BGP route reflectors?
> >
> > EXTERNAL to ODU: This email is not from an ODU account. Do not click
> links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the
> content is safe.
> > Hi Tom!
> >
> > We are using FRRouting on Linux VMs as dedicated BGP route reflectors
> for AFs vpnv4, vpnv6 and evpn.
> > Having around 1000 RR clients connected with a handful of L3VPN and a
> few dozen EVPN instances.
> > We don't keep the full routing table on them, but that should cause no
> problem, just throw a bit more memory onto the VMs.
> > BGP works like a charm on FRRouting and is also pretty good on
> supporting recent BGP features.
> > We can absolutely recommend it.
> >
> > As a sidenote: IGPs at FRRouting seem to get a bit less love, so don't
> be too sophisticated there...
> > BR,
> > Thomas
> > Senior Network Engineer
> > Init7 (AS13030)
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-- 
Douglas Fernando Fischer
Engº de Controle e Automação
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