Category: Routing and Peering

Border Gateway Protocol, or BGP, is often the focal point of discussions about routing in the context of peering and inter-domain connectivity. However, the broader routing ecosystem includes numerous protocols that play critical roles within networks, ensuring efficient, reliable, and scalable data movement. These protocols operate at different levels of the routing hierarchy and serve…

Anycast DNS is a cornerstone technology for delivering fast, reliable, and resilient domain name resolution services. By leveraging the principles of anycast routing, DNS operators can route user queries to the nearest or most optimal DNS server based on network conditions and geographic proximity. This approach significantly reduces latency, enhances redundancy, and improves the overall…

Peering at Internet Exchange Points, or IXPs, is a critical activity in the realm of networking and interconnection. By facilitating the direct exchange of traffic between multiple networks, IXPs reduce costs, improve latency, and enhance the overall efficiency of internet communication. For network operators and peering coordinators, the process of establishing peering at an IXP…

Traffic engineering via BGP, or Border Gateway Protocol, is a critical technique for optimizing the flow of traffic across the complex networks that make up the internet. As the primary protocol for inter-domain routing, BGP provides network operators with powerful tools to influence path selection and manage how traffic enters and exits their networks. By…

Monitoring the health of routing systems is a fundamental aspect of managing modern networks, ensuring that data flows seamlessly and securely between endpoints. As the backbone of internet connectivity, routing involves complex interactions between protocols, devices, and networks. A well-monitored routing environment enables network operators to detect anomalies, maintain performance, and mitigate risks such as…

Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS, attacks are among the most disruptive threats to modern network operations, capable of overwhelming systems and rendering critical services unavailable. These attacks flood a target with excessive traffic, exhausting its bandwidth, processing capacity, or both. To mitigate the impact of such attacks, network operators employ a variety of strategies,…

Latency and jitter are critical factors influencing the performance and reliability of DNS queries, and their effects are often felt in ways that ripple through the broader internet ecosystem. As the foundation of domain name resolution, DNS is the first step in nearly every online interaction, translating human-readable domain names into machine-usable IP addresses. Even…

The root zone is the cornerstone of the Domain Name System (DNS), serving as the starting point for resolving domain names into IP addresses. It acts as the authoritative source for the top-level domains (TLDs), such as .com, .org, and country-code TLDs like .uk or .jp, and provides the foundation upon which the entire DNS…

Network convergence is a critical concept in routing and peering, directly affecting the stability, reliability, and performance of the internet. It refers to the process by which a network’s routing tables stabilize after a change in topology, such as a link failure, a new route advertisement, or the withdrawal of an existing route. During convergence,…

DNS caching is a fundamental mechanism that enhances the efficiency and speed of the Domain Name System (DNS), the internet’s system for translating human-readable domain names into IP addresses. By temporarily storing DNS query results, caching reduces the need for repeated lookups, minimizes latency, and decreases the load on authoritative DNS servers. While its primary…