Route reflector
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A route reflector is a technique for interconnecting Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routers, inside an autonomous system, to improve scalability.[1] Route reflection improves iBGP scalability by removing the need to have a full mesh of BGP sessions among all routers in the AS; it allows the creation of hierarchies of routers, with full mesh only on the "route servers" in each "cluster" of BGP speakers.
Basic cluster structure
Hierarchies of clusters
Pathologies of route reflection
Route reflectors and confederations
While both techniques allow increased iBGP scalability, they do it in different ways, and indeed the two techniques may be used in the same AS. Confederations give more policy control than do route reflectors, but with greater complexity.