OUTPUT STATE SYNCHRONIZATION FOR BORDER GATEWAY PROTOCOL (BGP) PROCESSES

A networking system may facilitate Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) switchover between an active BGP process and a standby BGP process. A method is provided that includes using the active BGP process to establish a communication session with a peer, to add the peer to an outbound update group listing one or more peers sharing the same outbound policy, and to add a dummy peer corresponding to the peer to the outbound update group in response to receiving a synchronization request from the standby BGP process. The active BGP process can advertise a collection of routes to the standby BGP process in accordance with the dummy peer being listed in the outbound update group. The active BGP process can then perform outbound BGP message hairpinning operations with the standby BGP process.