Method and apparatus providing prioritized convergence in border gateway protocol

A computer system, comprising:

• one or more route processors;
• an electronic digital memory that is communicatively coupled to the route processor;
• a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) process that is executed by the one or more route processors, wherein the one or more route processors host a plurality of BGP routing tables each associated with a specified sub-address family (SAFI);
• one or more sequences of instructions stored in the memory which, when executed by the one or more route processors, cause the one or more route processors to perform the steps of:
• creating and storing a convergence priority order value in association with each routing table;
• as part of performing a convergence phase of BGP processing, obtaining the convergence priority order value of each routing table;
• performing the convergence phase for the routing tables only according to an order that is represented by the convergence priority order values.

A computer system, comprising:

• means for performing a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) process that is executed by a digital electronic route processor in a telecommunications network, wherein the processor hosts a plurality of BGP routing tables each associated with a specified sub-address family (SAFI);
• means for creating and storing a convergence priority order value in association with each routing table;
• means for obtaining, as part of performing a convergence phase of BGP processing, the convergence priority order value of each routing table;
• means for performing the convergence phase for the routing tables only according to an order that is represented by the convergence priority order values.