CMU's Nick Feamster et.al. [6] proposed an RCP (Route Control Platform) architecture. RCP allows the route decision
process for inter-domain routing to be removed from routers
into a logically centralized control function. RCP
communicates with the network elements using standard
protocols, such as the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). The
RCP can use BGP to send and receive routes for any defined
address family, such as IPv4 or VPN, and set route attributes to
drive the routers' decisions. Matthew Caesar et.al. [7] presented
the design and implementation of an RCP prototype on
commodity hardware. Using traces of BGP and internal routing
data from a Tier-1 backbone, they demonstrated that RCP is
fast and reliable enough to drive the BGP routing decisions for
a large network.