BGP Local-AS

When an ISP acquires a network that belongs to a different autonomous system (AS), there is no seamless method for moving the BGP peers of the acquired network to the AS of the acquiring ISP. The process of configuring the BGP peers with the new AS number can be time-consuming and cumbersome. Sometimes customers do not want to or are not immediately able to modify their peer arrangements or configuration. During this kind of transition period, it can be useful to configure BGP-enabled devices in the new AS to use the former AS number in BGP updates. This former AS number is called a local AS number. Using a local AS number permits the routing devices in an acquired network to appear to belong to the former AS.