BGP makes the Internet go. No matter what you think about sending traffic from an on-premises data center to users or putting it all in the cloud and letting them sort it out, you’re going to be using routes shared by BGP at some point. And as traffic increases on the modern Internet you’re going to find that you need to start optimizing the traffic in different ways to ensure your users and customers are getting the level of service they need.
Dr. Peter Welcher is no stranger to BGP. He’s put together a great article about how to correctly configure and plan BGP traffic engineering to help you figure out how best to make your traffic flows work optimally. Here’s a taste of his sage-like knowledge:
The conclusions I reach from that and other readings on the subject are that there are a few things we can do to control egress traffic, fewer and less effective controls over inbound traffic, and cooperation and win-win with your upstream providers is a good thing. Also, things change, and your upstream providers may have different incentives than you.
Make sure you check out more of his blog at NetCraftsmen on the subject of BGP Traffic Engineering
