Production Users

ExaBGP in Production

Who is using ExaBGP?

ExaBGP is deployed in production environments ranging from small networks to hyperscale infrastructure. This page highlights documented production use cases and organizations that have publicly discussed their ExaBGP deployments.

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Table of Contents

• Documented Use Cases
• Organizations Using ExaBGP
• Production Deployment Patterns
• Industry Adoption
• Add Your Organization

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Documented Use Cases

Facebook/Meta - DHCP Load Balancing (DHCPLB)

URL: https://code.fb.com/data-infrastructure/dhcplb-server/ Scale: Hyperscale (billions of requests)

Use Case: DHCP load balancing using ExaBGP for BGP-based anycast announcement

• Anycast DHCP servers announced via ExaBGP
• Health check integration for automatic failover
• Geographic load distribution

Impact: Demonstrates ExaBGP at hyperscale (Meta/Facebook infrastructure)

Facebook/Meta - Katran L4 Load Balancer

URL: https://engineering.fb.com/2018/05/22/open-source/open-sourcing-katran-a-scalable-network-load-balancer/ Scale: Hyperscale

Use Case: Layer 4 load balancer with ExaBGP-based service announcement

• XDP/eBPF-based packet processing
• ExaBGP for BGP route advertisement
• Production deployment across Meta's infrastructure

Impact: Validates ExaBGP for mission-critical infrastructure at hyperscale

Dailymotion - Hybrid Kubernetes Platform

URL: https://medium.com/dailymotion/how-we-built-our-hybrid-kubernetes-platform-d121ea9cb0bc GitHub: https://github.com/pyke369/exabgp-helpers

Use Case: Kubernetes service announcement with ExaBGP

• Anycast service IPs for Kubernetes workloads
• Health-check based route advertisement
• Multi-datacenter deployment

Impact: Production Kubernetes + BGP integration

Blablacar - BGP Routing to Containers

URL: http://previous.blablatech.com/blog/bgp-routing-to-containers

Use Case: Direct container routing using ExaBGP

• Per-container IP announcement
• Dynamic route advertisement
• Container-level traffic engineering

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Organizations Using ExaBGP

The following organizations have spoken about, presented on, or are known to use/have used ExaBGP in production:

Internet Exchanges & Network Operators

• AMS-IX - Amsterdam Internet Exchange (route server testing)
• RIPE NCC - Next-generation RIS route collectors

Technology Companies

• Cloudflare - FlowSpec-based DDoS mitigation (APF 2013 presentation)
• Microsoft - Brainslug: Reliable Flooding Mechanism (NANOG presentation)
• Dailymotion - Kubernetes service announcement
• Facebook/Meta - DHCPLB and Katran load balancers
• Cisco Systems - StarOS platform (open source components)
• Blablacar - Container routing

Service Providers & CDN

• BBC - Broadcasting infrastructure
• OpenDNS - High availability with anycast routing
• Oracle Dyn - DDoS response automation
• PowerDNS - DNS infrastructure

Telecommunications & Networking

• Alcatel-Lucent - Traffic diversion (NANOG presentation)

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Production Deployment Patterns

Pattern 1: Anycast Service Announcement

Common at: Facebook, Dailymotion, OpenDNS, BBC

Architecture:

┌─────────────┐
│ Service(s)  │
│ + Health    │
│   Check     │
└──────┬──────┘
       │
       v
  ┌─────────┐      BGP      ┌─────────┐
  │ ExaBGP  │────────────────│ Router  │
  └─────────┘   Announce    └─────────┘
                10.0.0.1/32
                when healthy

Use Cases:

• Load balancer VIPs
• DNS resolvers
• API endpoints
• DHCP servers

Pattern 2: FlowSpec DDoS Mitigation

Common at: Cloudflare, Oracle Dyn

Architecture:

┌──────────────┐
│ DDoS         │
│ Detection    │
└──────┬───────┘
       │ Attack detected
       v
  ┌─────────┐   FlowSpec   ┌─────────┐
  │ ExaBGP  │──────────────│ Router  │
  └─────────┘   Rules      └─────────┘
                            │
                            v
                        Drop/Rate-limit
                        attack traffic

Use Cases:

• Automated DDoS mitigation
• Traffic filtering
• Rate limiting

Pattern 3: Container/Kubernetes Routing

Common at: Dailymotion, Blablacar

Architecture:

┌─────────────────────┐
│ Kubernetes          │
│ ┌─────┐  ┌─────┐   │
│ │ Pod │  │ Pod │   │
│ └─────┘  └─────┘   │
│   10.1.1.1  10.1.1.2│
└──────────┬──────────┘
           │
      ┌────────────┐
      │  ExaBGP    │
      │  Watcher   │
      └─────┬──────┘
            │ Announce /32
            v
       ┌─────────┐
       │ Router  │
       └─────────┘

Use Cases:

• Direct pod routing
• Service mesh integration
• Multi-datacenter Kubernetes

Pattern 4: ECMP Load Balancing

Common at: Facebook (Katran), Microsoft

Architecture:

Multiple ExaBGP instances announce same prefix:

ExaBGP-1 ──┐
ExaBGP-2 ──┼─> Announce 10.0.0.1/32 ─> Router (ECMP)
ExaBGP-3 ──┘

Router spreads traffic across all paths

Use Cases:

• Layer 4 load balancing
• Geographic distribution
• Capacity scaling

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Industry Adoption

By Scale

• Hyperscale: Facebook/Meta, Microsoft, Cloudflare
• Large Enterprise: BBC, Cisco, Oracle
• Service Providers: AMS-IX, RIPE NCC, PowerDNS, OpenDNS
• Startups/Scale-ups: Dailymotion, Blablacar

By Geography

• North America: Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, Cloudflare, OpenDNS
• Europe: BBC (UK), AMS-IX (NL), RIPE NCC (NL), Dailymotion (FR), Blablacar (FR), PowerDNS (NL)

By Use Case

• DDoS Mitigation: Cloudflare, Oracle Dyn → FlowSpec
• Load Balancing: Facebook (DHCPLB, Katran), Microsoft
• Anycast Services: OpenDNS, BBC, PowerDNS
• Network Automation: Dailymotion, Blablacar, AMS-IX
• BGP Monitoring: RIPE NCC

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Add Your Organization

Using ExaBGP in production?

Help the community by sharing your use case!

How to Add Your Organization

1. Document your use case (blog post, presentation, or GitHub repo)
2. Open an issue at https://github.com/Exa-Networks/exabgp/issues
3. Include:
   • Organization name
   • Link to public documentation (blog, presentation, repo)
   • Brief use case description (1-2 sentences)
   • Scale (optional: # of routes, traffic volume, etc.)

What to Share (Optional)

• Architecture diagrams
• Configuration examples (anonymized)
• Lessons learned
• Performance metrics
• Integration patterns

Benefits:

• Help others learn from your experience
• Validate ExaBGP for similar use cases
• Build credibility for ExaBGP adoption
• Contribute to the community

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Therefore...

You Should Use ExaBGP Too! 🚀

With proven deployments at:

• ✅ Hyperscale (Facebook/Meta infrastructure)
• ✅ Mission-critical services (DNS, DHCP, load balancing)
• ✅ Security operations (DDoS mitigation, FlowSpec)
• ✅ Modern infrastructure (Kubernetes, containers)

ExaBGP is battle-tested and production-ready for networks of all sizes.

📊 Bandwagon Effect: Join the community of network operators who have successfully deployed ExaBGP!

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See Also

• Community Projects - Tools and integrations built with ExaBGP
• Use Cases: DDoS Mitigation - FlowSpec implementation guide
• Use Cases: Service High Availability - Health check patterns
• Integration: Kubernetes - K8s deployment guide

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👻 Ghost written by Claude (Anthropic AI)