When deploying a nationwide network of routers, what is the benefit of using BGP confederations?

Question

Options

• Aavailability
• Bscalability
• Csecurity
• Dautomatability

• A
  2% (1)
• B
  90% (37)
• C
  2% (1)
• D
  5% (2)

Explanation

Scalability is correct because BGP confederations solve the iBGP full-mesh problem in large networks. Without confederations, every BGP router in an AS must maintain a session with every other iBGP router - an O(n²) scaling problem. Confederations divide a single large AS into smaller sub-ASes, dramatically reducing the number of required peering sessions and making nationwide deployments manageable.

• Availability (A) is wrong - confederations don't inherently improve uptime or redundancy; that's addressed by features like route reflectors or dual-homed links.
• Security (C) is wrong - BGP security is handled by mechanisms like RPKI, BGPsec, or MD5 authentication, not confederations.
• Automatability (D) is wrong - confederations are a manual topology design choice, not an automation feature.

Memory tip: Think "confederation = breaking a big country into states." A nationwide election (full-mesh BGP) is chaos; state-by-state voting (sub-ASes) scales the process down to something manageable.

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