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The purpose of this reference book is to explore the ins and outs of interdomain routing network designs. It is a comprehensive resource for Internet routing solutions and scenarios. By presenting practical addressing, routing and connectivity issues both conceptually and in the context of practical scenarios, the book aims to foster your understanding of routing so that you can plan and implement major network designs in an objective and informed way.

Introductory aspects of the contemporary Internet with respect to its structure, service providers and addressing are covered in the first part of the book. The necessary and valuable criteria, which differentiate one Internet Service Provider from another, are also explained.

Routing protocol basics are then explained together with why they are needed and how they work. These topics are covered with specific reference to the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), the de facto standard interdomain routing protocol of today. BGP's particular capabilities and attributes are thoroughly covered.

The later chapters delve into the practical, design-oriented applications ofBGP:A variety of network scenarios are presented. BGP's attributes are put to work in implementing design goals such as redundancy, symmetry and load balancing. The challenges of making intradomain and interdomain routing work in harmony, managing growing or already large autonomous systems and maintaining stability are addressed. Numerous code examplesof BGP's attributes and the various routing policies are also included to give practical examples.

The book works hard not to withhold protocol details and design-oriented information, while at the same time recognising that building general and conceptual understanding comes first. To this extent, at the end of each chapter there is a set of FAQs to help out in the practical-oriented work.

Even though the book is aimed at varying levels of expertise, it does not assume any level of knowledge in TCP/IP or routing. It explains all the concepts, from the simplest one right up to the most demanding, in a fluent way. Organisations who are involved in Internet service provision or who are connected to an Internet Service Provider should have this book on their repertoire.