Thomas Holterbach – Expanding Routing Visibility at IXPs with BMP
Thomas Holterbach is a computer networks researcher currently building bgproutes.io, a platform for collecting, monitoring, and analysing BGP routing data. He received his PhD from ETH Zurich in 2021 and went on to work as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Strasbourg and Georgia Tech. His research focuses on internet routing, BGP monitoring, network measurement, and routing security. In 2024, he received the ACM SIGCOMM Best Paper Award, and he was a 2023 MANRS Ambassador.
At BalticNOG 2026, Thomas will bring this research to the stage with his talk, “Expanding Routing Visibility at IXPs with BMP.”
What Route-Server Looking Glasses Already Give You
Route-server looking glasses already provide real visibility into routing at internet exchange points, typically by querying route-server software directly, the way Alice Looking Glass does, or through dedicated BGP monitoring sessions. These tools let operators and participants inspect advertised prefixes, troubleshoot connectivity, and understand route-server behavior. Thomas’s talk starts here, then asks what’s still missing.
Where BMP Fills the Gap
Thomas will introduce BMP as a complementary way to monitor BGP at IXPs. Unlike a standard looking glass, BMP can expose routes both before and after policy application, including routes that get filtered out or aren’t selected as the best path, while also reporting peer and session state. BIRD and FRRouting can already export BMP data when running as route servers, though Thomas will be direct about the current limitations: neither implementation exposes every standardized BMP view yet.
Introducing the bgproutes.io IXP Explorer
Thomas will present the new bgproutes.io IXP Explorer, which combines BMP data from route servers with routing data contributed by IXP participants. The result is near-real-time and historical visibility into routes learned over both route-server and bilateral BGP sessions, enriched with RPKI route-origin validation and ASPA validation results.
The data is openly accessible through the IXP Explorer dashboard and the bgproutes.io public API, so you can explore it interactively or pull it into your own analysis.
Why You Shouldn’t Miss This Talk
If you’ve ever hit the limits of what a standard looking glass can tell you about routing behavior at an IXP, this talk shows you what a more complete picture looks like, and gives you a real, open tool to go get it. Thomas brings research-grade rigor to a problem every IXP participant runs into.
Whether you operate a route server, peer at an IXP, or just want better visibility into BGP behavior, this talk gives you both the concepts and a working platform to apply them with.
đź“… When: 23-24 September 2026
đź“Ť Where: BalticNOG 2026, Riga, Latvia
đź”— Don’t miss BalticNOG! Register today: https://balticnog.org/tickets/
