Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Abstract
As network scale and complexity grow, the need for real-time, vendor-neutral BGP control-plane observability has moved from a luxury to an operational necessity. The BGP Monitoring Protocol (BMP), originally designed to replace inefficient CLI scraping and proprietary telemetry formats, is currently undergoing a significant architectural evolution within the IETF
This presentation provides a deep dive into the foundational BMP RFCs and explores the cutting-edge drafts currently transforming the protocol into a comprehensive, high-scale observability framework.
Extensible Protocol Foundation
• BMPv4: We explore the transition to version 4, which solidifies the protocol’s foundation by making encoding extensible for all message types.
• Path Marking: This draft aids in troubleshooting and traffic analysis by defining exported path statuses
• Structured Timestamps: Moving beyond misused timestamp fields, this update defines ways to prevent collector misguidance
Event-Driven Observability & Synchronization
• Generic Event Notification (GEN): We examine the new infrastructure for non-route specific operational events, such as policy triggers, administrative interventions, and state management notifications.
• Route Event Logging: This draft targets alerting and on-change analysis, providing real-time notification for policy discards, validation failures, and unstable routes.
• BMP Snapshots: To address stream processing and historical archiving, this draft enables collectors to synchronize mid-stream and provides a basis for time-binned data storage
Operational Scale
• We will discuss new methods to reduce CPU and message overhead on the router and collector using innovative methods defined in Route Monitoring Aggregation, Common updates and Multi-Peer headers drafts designed to reduce CPU consumption and message overhead on routers and collectors by up to n-fold.
Operational Manageability & Security
• Manageability: Discussion on the BMP YANG Model, which empowers operators with granular control over network instances, RIBs, address families, and peers.
• Security & Emerging Frontiers: We will cover using TCP-AO for BMP, the proposal for BMP over QUIC to leverage multi-streaming and early-stage discussions for monitoring RPKI via BMP
• Operational Considerations
The session will conclude with an invitation for the NANOG community to help shape these standards to ensure they meet the rigorous demands of modern production networks.
Narasimha Prasad S:
About Narasimha Prasad - A System Architect with over 20 years of experience in the design and development of Network Operating Systems. For the past decade, he has focused on BGP and, more recently, the evolution of the BGP Monitoring Protocol (BMP). He is a co-author of multiple IETF drafts within the GROW working group. When he is not at the whiteboard or in a working group, you can find him exploring new destinations around the globe or on the tennis court.
nanog.org/events/nanog-96/content/5660
Abstract
As network scale and complexity grow, the need for real-time, vendor-neutral BGP control-plane observability has moved from a luxury to an operational necessity. The BGP Monitoring Protocol (BMP), originally designed to replace inefficient CLI scraping and proprietary telemetry formats, is currently undergoing a significant architectural evolution within the IETF
This presentation provides a deep dive into the foundational BMP RFCs and explores the cutting-edge drafts currently transforming the protocol into a comprehensive, high-scale observability framework.
Extensible Protocol Foundation
• BMPv4: We explore the transition to version 4, which solidifies the protocol’s foundation by making encoding extensible for all message types.
• Path Marking: This draft aids in troubleshooting and traffic analysis by defining exported path statuses
• Structured Timestamps: Moving beyond misused timestamp fields, this update defines ways to prevent collector misguidance
Event-Driven Observability & Synchronization
• Generic Event Notification (GEN): We examine the new infrastructure for non-route specific operational events, such as policy triggers, administrative interventions, and state management notifications.
• Route Event Logging: This draft targets alerting and on-change analysis, providing real-time notification for policy discards, validation failures, and unstable routes.
• BMP Snapshots: To address stream processing and historical archiving, this draft enables collectors to synchronize mid-stream and provides a basis for time-binned data storage
Operational Scale
• We will discuss new methods to reduce CPU and message overhead on the router and collector using innovative methods defined in Route Monitoring Aggregation, Common updates and Multi-Peer headers drafts designed to reduce CPU consumption and message overhead on routers and collectors by up to n-fold.
Operational Manageability & Security
• Manageability: Discussion on the BMP YANG Model, which empowers operators with granular control over network instances, RIBs, address families, and peers.
• Security & Emerging Frontiers: We will cover using TCP-AO for BMP, the proposal for BMP over QUIC to leverage multi-streaming and early-stage discussions for monitoring RPKI via BMP
• Operational Considerations
The session will conclude with an invitation for the NANOG community to help shape these standards to ensure they meet the rigorous demands of modern production networks.
Narasimha Prasad S:
About Narasimha Prasad - A System Architect with over 20 years of experience in the design and development of Network Operating Systems. For the past decade, he has focused on BGP and, more recently, the evolution of the BGP Monitoring Protocol (BMP). He is a co-author of multiple IETF drafts within the GROW working group. When he is not at the whiteboard or in a working group, you can find him exploring new destinations around the globe or on the tennis court.
nanog.org/events/nanog-96/content/5660
