RFC 890 (rfc890) - Page 2 of 3

Exterior Gateway Protocol implementation schedule

RFC 890                                                    February 1984
EGP Implementation Schedule


   The factoring of the old set of smart gateways into a number of
   autonomous systems allows more flexibility for the development and
   testing of improved routing procedures.  Different autonomous systems
   can adopt different routing procedures internally, as long as they
   communicate with other autonomous systems via the EGP.

The Transition Situation

   The first step in the transition from the current situation to the
   future situation is the replacement of all dumb gateways with
   gateways that implement at least a subset of the EGP.

      This subset is called the "Stub Exterior Gateway Protocol", and is
      described in RFC-888 [1].

   The second step is to factor the existing smart gateways into
   autonomous systems.  The gateways programmed and maintained by
   different groups will become distinct autonomous systems.  As things
   are, this will result in one fairly large autonomous system and three
   or four small autonomous systems.  At this step the large autonomous
   system will be referred to as the "core" autonomous system.  All
   other autonomous systems will be stubs attached to this core via EGP.

   The third step is to specify the full EGP protocol, and to allow a
   rich connectivity between co-equal autonomous systems.

Policy Statement

   After 1-Aug-84 there shall be no dumb gateways in the Internet.
   Every gateway must be a member of some autonomous system.  Some
   gateway of each autonomous system must exchange routing information
   with some gateway of the core autonomous system using the Exterior
   Gateway Protocol.

Implication

   If you have a dumb gateway now, you should start doing something
   today to get it upgraded to, or replaced by, an EGP gateway.

Help Available

   There may be a gateway you can use already developed by someone.
   People at the following places are working on EGP gateways:  BBN,
   MIT, Linkabit, ISI, Honeywell, and Symbolics.  For more information
   send a message to Joyce Reynolds at mailbox "JKReynolds@USC-ISIF".

   There are plans to provide EGP functionality in Berkeley 4.2 Unix.


Postel