On 18/07/2022 12.50, [email protected] wrote:
As you developed Bird, that is used by most of the major players in the
IX market, we want to ask you for information about usage BIRD as
route-server in our IX. Following come in my mind at first hand
·What hardware did we need for accommodate 2 Route Servers with Bird ,
taking into consideration following:
oDouble the number of prefixes and customers
TLDR; No prob.
DE-CIX runs Bird 1.6.8 at the Frankfurt IX location with ~1K connected
BGP peers.
The typical setup is one BIRD instance per Route Server IP(v6+v4). Bird
1.6.x is two daemons, one for v6 and one for v4. Bird >= 2.0.0 is one
daemon for both v6 and v4.
IX.br does the same, ~1K connected BGP peers, albeit their RS setup with
BIRD is slightly different. "Multi-bird" I found it called in this
presentation.
http://slides.lacnic.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/multi-bird-lacnic.pdf
Multiple BIRD instances running a full-mesh topology between all
instances. And load-sharing BGP connections from IX connected networks
between all the BIRD instances. Benefits from core count. As each
instance is it's own process.
E.g. could have a config in place so that each BIRD instance does not
run on the same core. Preventing competition for clock cycles on the
same CPU core.
oWe use the hardware for Route Servers and if possible for other tools
that is related as reporting , looking glass and others if are
available. Did you know about integrations of your software with other
reporting/configuration tools ?
Alice LG as the looking glass, is an option.
https://github.com/alice-lg/alice-lg
oWe have an mixed environment and we need to make customization of the
service
·Is bird Software free? Do you developed other tools related to usage
of this software as Route Server.
TLDR; Yes
https://www.bizety.com/2018/09/04/bgp-open-source-tools-quagga-vs-bird-vs-exabgp/
"CZ.NIC provides a support programme for BIRD, with prices ranging from
5,000 to 50,000 Euro per year. Current customers are primarily IXPs and
large CDN/cloud providers. These fees cover all development costs."
It's free to use the software. There do exist a support program to
support the continued development of the project.
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/document/bird-manages-routing-worlds-largest-internet-exchanges-bird
·What are requirements regarding Operating System and Hypervisor
TLDR; Linux based OS (my choice) and Full Kernel Virtualization (e.g.
KVM/QEMU based VM)
Standard virtualization will do. With adequate HW resources allocated to
the VM. Your main concern will of course be Memory and CPU resources as
the number of peers and prefixes growing over time (this is a long-term
consideration). Note, if selecting BIRD, it is a single-threaded daemon,
and clock speed versus core count should be considered, when selecting
what HW and operational model (the single BIRD per RS or similar to
IX.br's multi-bird setup).
Also we appreciate any info regarding Bird and also comparison with
other alternatives for this role.
