BGP Private Peers

Catchpoint's BGP offering provides real-time monitoring of BGP routing and alerts for BGP prefix hijacks and misconfigurations. By integrating data from multiple sources, including Route Views and RIPE RIS, it offers comprehensive insights into BGP routing, helping to ensure network reachability and a seamless digital experience for end users.

Catchpoint's BGP service also supports Private Peers, enabling you to access routing information for your privately owned networks in addition to publicly available network routes.

This is beneficial for the following applications:

1. If you aim to supplement public BGP routing data by incorporating sources of your choice for improved visibility.
2. If your organization has a global presence and relies on private networks for daily operations.
3. If your organization employs a third-party service (like Office 365), and needs to ensure that the routing from your internal network to the service's prefix is accessible.

These scenarios can be accommodated with Catchpoint by setting up a private BGP peer, where your organization's BGP speaker communicates with a Catchpoint-owned private collector to share routing information. This enables you to monitor your private network prefixes.

Prerequisites to Set Up a Private Peer

• BGP Test and Private Peer Enabled
  You will need to reach out to your CSM to enable the BGP test type and BGP Private Peer option for your account, if not already enabled. Private Peers can be used with both the BGP Standard and Basic package.
• Available Private Peer Limit
  For new Private Peer creation, ensure that there is an available limit to add more BGP Peers.
• Permission to manage Private Peers in Catchpoint
  Your user account must have the necessary permission to manage Private Peers.
• BGP Speaker
  Your organization must own a BGP speaker, which will be configured to share routing data with the Catchpoint-owned collector.

Setting up a Private Peer

1. Navigate to the BGP Private Peers page through Nodes in the left menu.
   
2. Click on the Create Private Peers button to open the Private Peer Properties blade.
   
3. Complete the fields and submit the request for approval.
   • Name: Name of the BGP Private Peer, a required field.
   • IP Address: IP address of the BGP Private Peer, a required field.
   • ASN: ASN of the BGP Private Peer, a required field.
   • MD5 Password: MD5 Password if applicable.
   • City: City of the BGP Private Peer, a required field.
   • Status Alert Receipient: Recipient of email alerts/notifications.
     
4. Click on the Request Peer button after filling in the details.

The Catchpoint team will review the request to make sure there aren’t any security vulnerabilities. Request will typically be approved within 24 business hours, during which time the Private Peer status will be shown as "Pending."

Once approved, you will receive notification at the email address you input in the Alert field, along with instructions to complete the setup. Once you complete the steps in the notification email, your Private Peer will be fully configured, and BGP tests can be set up to monitor prefixes with data from the Private Peer. In the BGO Smartboard, Private Peers will be displayed with the green badge icon as shown below. Data from each Private Peer is only available within the client or division where it is set up.