This project, providing data in the form of views of routing tables ordinarily hidden inside of autonomous systems (ASes), contributes to the work of researchers interested in evaluating routing protocols. The Oregon Route-Views project (conceived in 1995 as a tool for Internet operator), accessible from any Internet connected hosts, provides a real-time view of the Internet routing table from the perspective of the ASes that provide their routing tables (referred to as "peering") via Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Route-Views has afforded operators access to this data, and thus the ability to see the state of their routes in order to make educated decisions about routing policy or route announcement changes. The effect of those changes can be seen immediately; hence routing problems may be quickly diagnosed. Routing Information Base (RIBs), or routing tables and BGP update packets to support fine grained monitoring and research efforts is kept in the Route-Views Archive providing a unique view of Internet topology. Planned work includes studying the challenges that affect the quality and usefulness of its products: Servers are distant from the data sources, leaving BGP sessions vulnerable to outages that affect the data path and result in loss of data. A distributed set of collection servers addresses the problem. Commercial routers are not designed for data collection tasks; the Cisco Systems 7206 router has been the primary server. A software solution, called Zebra, might be used to overcome limitations; but has current code base scaling issues. Some new data point of interest will be added. Since the data sets are quite large, a flexible mechanism is needed to extract subsets, based upon, for example, a period of time or a particular prefix. Package tools and APIs (Application Programming Interface) are required for these operations. Data collection and archiving were not part of the original design. Efforts are needed to improve the speed, accuracy, and reliability of collection, and additional hardware to archive the massive data sets. Tasks include: regular backups, restoring from tape, monitoring and logging network events, managing configuration changes, adding and deleting peers, user support, software upgrades, and dissemination of Route-Views operational information to users.
Broader impact: The service data that this project provides will continue to be the basis for growth statistics, global connectivity mapping, research of dynamics and vulnerability of the global routing system, and many other research efforts nationwide. The expansion of data collection sites and additional archives should improve the platform for researchers and operators.
