Evaluating the Performance of Locator/ID Separation Based on LISP Map Cache Emulation

The BGP routing system today faces a serious scaling problem caused by the linear growth of the global routing table. To overcome the routing table explosion, the IETF is in the process of standardizing a new routing protocol, called Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol (LISP). The protocol is expected to shrink the routing table size by orders of magnitude. However, its deployment relies on the performance of the Map cache function that maintains bindings of locators and identifiers. In this paper, we emulate the Map cache function and evaluate its performance when deployed in large ISPs using real packet level traffic traces. Our measurement results show that LISP has the potential to decrease the routing table size by several orders of magnitude. We also show that small percentage of cache entries carry large volume of traffic and that majority of the cache entries are poorly utilized.