The internet’s decentralized nature, while enabling global connectivity, also creates significant challenges in securing its routing infrastructure. The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which facilitates the exchange of routing information between autonomous systems (ASes), was not designed with robust security features. This lack of inherent safeguards makes BGP vulnerable to issues such as route hijacking, route…

Establishing a point of presence (POP) in a remote region is a critical step for network operators, content providers, and enterprises seeking to expand their geographic reach, improve service delivery, and enhance connectivity. A POP serves as a localized hub for routing, caching, and delivering internet traffic, bringing services closer to end users in underserved…

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the cornerstone of inter-domain routing, responsible for determining how traffic traverses the internet. At its core, BGP relies on a set of rules and attributes to select the most optimal path among multiple available routes. Understanding the step-by-step process of BGP path selection is essential for network engineers, as…

The exhaustion of IPv4 addresses is a significant milestone in the evolution of the internet, with far-reaching implications for domains, networks, and global connectivity. IPv4, the fourth version of the Internet Protocol, has been the backbone of internet communication since its inception in the early 1980s. With a theoretical limit of approximately 4.3 billion unique…

BGP flapping is a phenomenon that occurs when a route repeatedly alternates between availability and unavailability, causing instability in the internet’s routing infrastructure. This behavior can lead to increased convergence times, degraded performance, and even temporary outages for affected networks. Debugging BGP flaps is a critical task for network operators, requiring a methodical approach to…

Round Robin DNS (RRDNS) and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) are two distinct mechanisms used to distribute and route traffic across the internet. While they operate at different layers of the network stack and serve separate purposes, they can complement one another to enhance scalability, redundancy, and performance. Understanding how RRDNS and BGP interact and the…

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are critical contracts in the world of networking, particularly in peering and transit arrangements. These agreements establish the performance expectations, responsibilities, and remedies between parties involved in the exchange of internet traffic. For networks, content providers, and enterprises, SLAs provide a framework to ensure reliability, define accountability, and protect business interests.…

Latency in DNS resolution can have a profound impact on user experience, particularly in scenarios where fast and reliable access to online resources is critical. DNS, as the foundational system for translating human-readable domain names into machine-readable IP addresses, is the first step in nearly every internet interaction. Latency in this process can introduce noticeable…

The rapid expansion of cloud computing has transformed the global networking landscape, with major cloud providers offering services that underpin a significant portion of the internet’s infrastructure. Providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, and others rely on extensive interconnection strategies to deliver their services reliably and efficiently. At the…

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) serves as the backbone of internet routing, dynamically exchanging information about network reachability among autonomous systems (ASes). Each BGP update provides a snapshot of routing changes, reflecting how networks adapt to shifts in topology, policy, or connectivity. By analyzing these updates, network operators and researchers can uncover patterns and anomalies…