BGP can be used as an alternative to PCEP for distributing SR Policies to headend routers. Compared to PCEP, which relies on a dedicated PCE–PCC relationship and maintains per-peer control-plane state for path setup and updates, BGP follows a route-based distribution model to propagate policy intent across the network using the BGP SR Policy address family. With the SR Policy extensions, policies can be advertised to multiple headends using standard BGP procedures. This reduces dependence on session-based per-path control and enables more scalable distribution of traffic-steering policies across the network.
The testing validated BGP-based signaling and policy installation. SR Policies were advertised to headend routers, and the correct reception, parsing, and instantiation of these policies were verified. The validation included both SR-MPLS and SRv6 data planes, including SRv6 with both full SIDs and µSIDs. We tested candidate paths carrying multiple Segment Lists for multipath forwarding.