Routing information exchange

In an internetwork comprising a plurality of coupled autonomous systems, wherein the plurality of coupled autonomous systems communicate routing information via a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), and the internetwork includes a routing overlay network to communicate routing parameters between the plurality of coupled autonomous systems, a method of identifying a classless network address as a member of an equivalence class, the equivalence class comprising a plurality of classless addresses, wherein a route for the classless address has already been advertised to the plurality of coupled autonomous systems, the method comprising:

• generating a BGP update message, the BGP update message including:
• a destination network for the classless address;
• a network mask for the classless address;
• an Autonomous System (AS) Path attribute, the AS Path attribute having a value of the route for the network destination;
• and
• a first community attribute, the community attribute including:
• an identifier for a private autonomous system from the plurality of coupled autonomous systems;
• and
• forwarding the BGP update message from the routing overlay network to the plurality of coupled autonomous systems.

In an internetwork comprising a plurality of coupled autonomous systems, wherein the plurality of coupled autonomous systems communicate routing information via a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and the internetwork includes a routing overlay network to communicate routing parameters between the plurality of coupled autonomous systems, a method of communicating network performance parameters for a route in the internetwork, the method comprising:

• advertising a BGP update message from a point of presence in the internetwork to the routing overlay network;
• and
• prior to advertising the BGP update message, generating the BGP update message, the BGP update message including:
• a classless address for a network destination of the route, the classless address further including:
• an identifier for the network destination;
• and
• a mask for the network destination;
• an autonomous system path attribute, indicating a chain of autonomous systems from the plurality of coupled autonomous systems traversed by the route;
• and
• a community string including:
• a first hop autonomous system indicating an ISP coupled to the point of presence;
• and
• one or more value pairs including:
• a type, indicating a type of performance measurement of the route;
• and
• an argument, indicating a value of the performance measurement of the route.

In an internetwork comprising a plurality of coupled autonomous systems, wherein the plurality of coupled autonomous systems (ASs) communicate routing information via a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and the internetwork includes a routing overlay network to communicate routing parameters between the plurality of coupled autonomous systems, a method of exchanging routing information between a source network and a destination network coupled to the internetwork, the method comprising:

• inserting a BGP community into a BGP feed, the BGP community including:
• a cooperative private autonomous system field, the cooperative private autonomous system field being between 65001 and 65100;
• and
• a corresponding value corresponding to the cooperative private autonomous system field;
• and
• exchanging the BGP feed between the source network and the destination network via the routing overlay network.