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.