About BFD Routing

BFD is a detection protocol designed to provide fast forwarding path failure detection times for all media types, encapsulations, topologies, and routing protocols. BFD operates in a unicast, point-to-point mode on top of any data protocol being forwarded between two systems. However, in threat defense, BFD is supported on BGP protocols only. Packets are carried in the payload of the encapsulating protocol appropriate for the media and the network.

BFD provides a consistent failure detection method for network administrators in addition to fast forwarding path failure detection. Because the network administrator can use BFD to detect forwarding path failures at a uniform rate, rather than the variable rates for different routing protocol hello mechanisms, network profiling and planning are easier and reconvergence time is consistent and predictable.