On the impact of route monitor selection

Abstract

Several route monitoring systems have been set up to help understand the Internet routing system. They operate by gathering real-time BGP updates from different networks. Many studies have relied on such data sources by assuming reasonably good coverage and thus representative visibility into the Internet routing system. However, different deployment strategies of route monitors directly impact the accuracy and generality of conclusions. Our work is the first to critically examine the visibility constraints imposed by the deployment of route monitors on various applications. We study the difference due to diverse deployment schemes on three important classes of applications: (1) discovery of relatively stable Internet properties such as the AS topology and prefix to origin AS mappings, (2) discovery of dynamic routing behavior such as IP prefix hijack attacks and routing instability, and (3) inference of important network properties such as AS relationships and AS-level paths. We study several simple schemes of route monitor selection and provide insights on improving monitor placement.