The Case for Pluginized Routing Protocols

Routing protocols such as BGP and OSPF are key components of Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks. These protocols and the operator’s requirements evolve over time, but it often takes many years for network operators to convince their different router vendors and the IETF to extend routing protocols. Some network operators, notably in enterprise and datacenters have adopted Software Defined Networking (SDN) with its centralised control to be more agile. We propose a new approach to implement routing protocols that enables network operators to innovate while still using distributed routing protocols and thus keeping all their benefits compared to centralised routing approaches. We extend a routing protocol with a virtual machine that is capable of executing plugins. These plugins extend the protocol or modify its underlying algorithms through a simple API to meet the specific requirements of operators. We modify the OSPF and BGP implementations provided by FRRouting and demonstrate the applicability of our approach with several use cases.