Deployment Guide

Figure 20. BGP Local Preference
Multi-Exit Discriminators (MEDs)
If two ASs connect in more than one place, a multi-exit discriminator (MED) can be used to assign a preference to a preferred
path.
MED is one of the criteria used to determine the best path, so keep in mind that other criteria may impact selection, as shown in
the illustration in Best Path Selection Criteria.
One AS assigns the MED a value and the other AS uses that value to decide the preferred path. For this example, assume the
MED is the only attribute applied. In the following illustration, AS100 and AS200 connect in two places. Each connection is a
BGP session. AS200 sets the MED for its T1 exit point to 100 and the MED for its OC3 exit point to 50. This sets up a path
preference through the OC3 link. The MEDs are advertised to AS100 routers so they know which is the preferred path.
MEDs are non-transitive attributes. If AS100 sends an MED to AS200, AS200 does not pass it on to AS300 or AS400. The MED
is a locally relevant attribute to the two participating ASs (AS100 and AS200).
NOTE: The MEDs are advertised across both links, so if a link goes down, AS 1 still has connectivity to AS300 and AS400.
160 Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)