IP Announcement and Private AS BGP

IP Announcement (IPAN) enables you (if you have your own AS (Autonomous System) and IP Ranges) to have your IP addresses announced by Guardfox. This allows you to use a larger amount of IPs on a rack or server (than the standard allocation of Guardfox) and keep the IPs when moving to another provider.

The announced IP addresses will be advertised from a Guardfox AS number. The IP prefix size needs to be greater than or equal to a /24 in order for us to advertise the prefix to our upstream providers. To be able to announce your IP ranges, we need an accepted authorization method. For example, for RIPE ranges, we need you to delegate “mnt-routes” to GuardFox.

If the organization and/or individual does not own the IP prefix that needs to be advertised, we will require a Letter Of Authorization ( LOA ) from actual owner of the IP prefix. There are no limits set for the amount of announced prefixes. Guardfox prefers to aggregate the announced prefixes as much as possible. However, there are scenarios when this may differ and Guardfox can look at per case if there is a valid technical reason.

The IP Announcement service is available for dedicated servers in private/shared racks and colocation services.

IP Announcement  for dedicated servers in private racks and colocation

For dedicated servers in private racks and colocation (half/full racks), we announce the IP addresses from our network. The IP addresses will be advertised from a Guardfox AS number and, they are available to be used in the racks (private or colocation) that you have.

The minimum subnet that we can announce is /24. We do allow splitting IP space across the network in the same data center to as small as /26 per rack.

How IP Announcement works for dedicated servers in private racks and colocation

In order to proceed with the IP Announcement service, we need the following information:

  1. What is/are the prefix(es) you want us to announce?
  2. In case of /23 (IPv4) and bigger, do you want the IP range in one large subnet or divided up in multiple /24 subnets? (we will aggregate the announcement to the Internet, and do not permit de-aggregation)
  3. Which IP addresses do you prefer for router and default gateway addresses? (i.e. .252 for rtr1, .253 for rtr2 and .254 for def. gw. , preferable the last addresses in the subnet)
  4. Please provide us with a complete description of the network setup
  5. Do you want Guardfox also to announce the rDNS records? Please announce our authoritative nameservers in the address space.
  6. Depending on which location you want us to announce the prefix(es) (EU/NorthAmerica), route records need to be created with the appropriate registry (RIPE, ARIN). Please let us know the original registry that assigned the prefix(es) and from which Guardfox location you would want us to announce the prefix(es)

Once we have the above information and if needed a Letter Of Authorization (LOA) from the actual owner of the IP prefix, we can proceed with the steps to announce the IP addresses.

The IP addresses will be registered under the private rack or colocation service (half/full racks), and you can find them under these services in the customer portal.

IP Announcement for dedicated servers in shared racks

For dedicated servers in shared racks, we announce the IP addresses from our network. The IP address will be advertised from a Guardfox AS number and they are available to be used on any dedicated server in a shared rack.

How IP Announcement works for dedicated server in shared racks

In order to proceed with the IP announcement service, we need the following information:

  1. What is/are the prefix(es) you want us to announce?
  2. Do you want Guardfox also to announce the rDNS records? Please announce our authoritative nameservers in the address space.
  3. Depending on which location you want us to announce the prefix(es) (EU, US), route records need to be created with the appropriate registry (RIPE, ARIN, ). Please let us know the original registry that assigned the prefix(es) and from which Guardfox location you would want us to announce the prefix(es)

Once we have the above information and if needed a Letter Of Authorization (LOA) from the actual owner of the IP prefix, we can proceed with the steps to announce the IP addresses.

The IP addresses will be registered as FloatingIP in our systems and would be static routed to customer infrastructure with Guardfox.

Private AS BGP

Definitions

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing and reachability information among autonomous systems (AS) on the Internet. BGP learns and exchanges path information regarding the route to a given destination network by keeping lists of AS numbers and associating them with destination networks. This is why AS numbers should be unique. BGP makes certain that an AS number does not appear in a path more than once, thereby preventing routing loops.

Autonomous system (AS) is a connected group of one or more IP prefixes run by one or more network operators which has a SINGLE and CLEARLY DEFINED routing policy. (RFC1930) The AS must be globally unique so that IP address blocks appear to come from a unique location that BGP can find and route to. BGP uses Prefixes and Autonomous System Paths (AS Paths) to determine the shortest path to a destination where a prefix is located.

Description

Private AS BGP is a service which we assign a Private AS Number (64.512 – 65.534) and we enable BGP sessions with our network. A customer will have a default route, full routing table is not in scope. BGP capable switches and knowledge how to manage BGP are required.

Private AS BGP is only available in private environments (eg, full rack colocation). It can be combined with IP Announcement to have full control over the announcement.

IP Announcement conditions and requirements apply, if it is combined with Private AS BGP.

Private AS BGP is also available in combination with Guardfox IP addresses. With Guardfox addresses, the IP subnet can be less than /24, if it is used in racks within the same Guardfox data center.

If Guardfox IP addresses will be used in racks in two data centers within the same metro area, then the minimum subnet that we can assign is /24.

FAQs for IP Announcement

Can I announce my IP addresses to Guardfox network?

Yes, you can announce the IP addresses, however they will be advertised from a Guardfox Autonomous System (AS) number.

Which products support IP Announcement?

The following products can support IP Announcement:

  • Dedicated servers in private and shared racks
  • Colocation