Informational BGP Communities: Origin tagging

The DE-CIX route servers tag all prefixes with certain BGP Communities to indicate their origin. You can use this information to determine where a certain prefix has been injected into the DE-CIX switching platform. This gives you the possibility to filter routes learned from the route servers based on geographical location. 

Route origin tagging

Currently we tag the following information:

Switch: Indicates at which switch a prefix has been injected into the DE-CIX platform. We tag the corresponding edge switch of the port.

  • Example: edge01.fra2

Metro: The metropolitan region corresponding to the switch.

  • Example: Frankfurt

Country: The country corresponding to the above (in M.49 format).

  • Example: Germany

Continent: The continent corresponding to the above (in M.49 format).

  • Example: Europe

This means that every prefix you learn from the route servers has four (additional) BGP Communities attached which indicate location information.

BGP Community Graph

The route server tags all prefixes with certain BGP Communities to indicate their origin

To avoid ambiguity about the semantics of a certain BGP Community, especially when being present multiple times, we strip all BGP Communities from the range that we use for route origin tagging on import. This is:

  • 65101:*
  • 65102:*
  • 65103:*
  • 65104:*

Overview

Edge switchSwitch CodeSwitch BGP ComMetro Metro CodeMetro BGP ComCountryM49 Region Code (Country)Country BGP ComContinentM49 Region Code (Continent)Continent BGP Com
edge01.fra2100165101:1001FRA 1000 65102:1000 Germany 276 65103:276 Europe 150 65104:150 
edge01.fra6100265101:1002
edge01.fra9100665101:1006
edge01.fra12108565101:1085
edge02.fra12108265101:1082
edge01.nyc1203865101:2038NYC 2000 65102:2000  US 840 65103:840  Americas  019  65104:19
edge01.nyc2203965101:2039
edge01.nyc8205365101:2053
edge02.nyc3208665101:2086
edge02.nyc5208765101:2087
edge02.nyc6208365101:2083
edge01.muc1306865101:3068MUC 300065102:3000  Germany 27665103:276 Europe 150 65104:150 
edge01.muc2307265101:3072
edge02.ham1408165101:4081HAM 4000 65102:4000 Germany  27665103:276 Europe 150 65104:150
sw001.dxb1505065101:5050DXB 5000 65102:5000  UAE 784 65103:784  Asia  142  65104:142 
edge01.dxb1507965101:5079
edge01.dxb2508065101:5080
edge01.mrs1605465101:6054MRS 6000 65102:6000 France 250 65103:250 Europe 150 65104:150
edge01.pmo1705265101:7052PMO 7000 65102:7000 Italy 380 65103:380 Europe 150  65104:150
edge01.ist1805665101:8056IST 8000 65102:8000 Turkey 792 65103:792 Asia 142 65104:142
edge01.dus1906565101:9065DUS 9000 65102:9000 Germany 276 65103:276 Europe 150 65104:150
edge01.dfw11007365101:10073DFW 10000 65102:10000 US 840 65103:840 Americas 019 65104:19
edge01.mad3 1108465101:11084MAD 11000 65102:11000  Spain  724 65103:724  Europe  150 65104:150
edge02.mad11107765101:11077
edge01.lis1208865101:12088LIS 12000 65102:12000 Portugal 620 65103:620 Europe 150 65104:150
            
Unknown6553565101:65535  65535 65102:65535   65535 65104:65535  65535 65104:65535

Please note: If the exact location of a customer cannot be determined from the DE-CIX database, or in certain special cases, we tag the routes with 6510{1-4}:0, meaning "unknown". One of these special cases is our site NYC, where due to a redundant failover connection for customers at enabled sites NYC{4,7,10,12,13} to edge01.nyc1 and edge01.nyc2 the current active connection is unknown to the database.

Examples

Example 1
A prefix has the following BGP Communities attached to it:

  • 65101:3068
  • 65102:3000
  • 65103:276
  • 65104:150

From these BGP Communities you can deduce that this particular prefix has been injected at edge01.muc1 (65101:3068) in metro region Munich (65102:3000) which is in Germany (65103:276), Europe (65104:150).

Example 2
A prefix has the following BGP Communities attached to it:

  • 65101:0
  • 65102:2000
  • 65103:840
  • 65104:019

From these BGP Communities you can deduce that this particular prefix has been injected at a unknown location (65101:0) in metro region New York (65102:2000) which is in the USA (65103:840), Americas (65104:019).

In this case, the customer is located at a site in NYC for which the current corresponding edge switch cannot be determined (see note above).

Example 3
A prefix has the following BGP Communities attached to it:

  • 65101:8056
  • 65102:8000
  • 65103:792
  • 65104:142

From these BGP Communities you can deduce that this particular prefix has been injected at edge01.ist1 (65101:8056) in metro region Istanbul (65102:8000) which is in Turkey (65103:792), Asia (65104:142).

Origin communities table from the Academy Knowledge Card: continent, country, and metro area (without origin edge device)

Origin communities table from the Academy Knowledge Card: continent, country, and metro area (without origin edge device)