Route-server looking glasses already provide valuable visibility into routing at Internet Exchange Points, either by querying the routing software directly, as Alice Looking Glass does, or through dedicated BGP collection sessions. They help operators and participants inspect exchanged prefixes, troubleshoot connectivity, and better understand route-server activity.

In this presentation, we introduce BMP as an alternative and complementary approach to monitoring IXP routing. BMP can provide visibility into pre-policy, filtered, and non-best routes, together with detailed information about peers and session state. Both BIRD and FRRouting can export BMP data when deployed as route servers, although their current implementations have limitations and do not support every BMP monitoring view.

We then present the new bgproutes.io IXP Explorer. By combining BMP data from route servers with routing data contributed by IXP participants, it provides real-time and historical visibility into routes exchanged through both route servers and bilateral sessions. The platform also includes RPKI ROA and ASPA validation results. All data is openly accessible through the IXP Explorer dashboard and the bgproutes.io public API for programmatic analysis.