Cisco Enterprise Networks: Influencing Outbound Traffic Flow with BGP Path Attributes

Influencing Outbound Traffic Flow with BGP Path Attributes

Question

A network solution is being designed for a company that connects to multiple Internet service providers.

Which Cisco proprietary BGP path attribute will influence outbound traffic flow?

Answers

Explanations

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A. B. C. D. E.

C.

In this scenario, the company is connecting to multiple Internet service providers (ISPs) and needs to influence the outbound traffic flow. This can be achieved using BGP path attributes. Among the options provided, the Cisco proprietary BGP path attribute that will influence outbound traffic flow is the Local Preference attribute.

The Local Preference (LP) is a BGP path attribute used to indicate the degree of preference for an advertised BGP route. This attribute is local to the router and is not propagated to other BGP routers in the autonomous system (AS). The higher the value of the Local Preference, the more preferred the route is.

In the context of connecting to multiple ISPs, the Local Preference attribute can be used to influence the outbound traffic flow. For example, if the company wants to prefer one ISP over the other for outbound traffic, the routes learned from that ISP can be assigned a higher Local Preference value. This will make the routes more preferred and traffic will be routed out through that ISP.

To implement this, the company can configure a BGP outbound policy on the border routers to set the Local Preference value for the learned routes from each ISP. For example, if the routes learned from ISP A have a Local Preference value of 200 and the routes learned from ISP B have a value of 100, traffic will prefer ISP A for outbound traffic.

In summary, the Cisco proprietary BGP path attribute that will influence outbound traffic flow in a scenario where a company connects to multiple ISPs is the Local Preference attribute. By assigning higher Local Preference values to routes learned from preferred ISPs, traffic can be directed out through those ISPs.