Peering. Internet Exchange.

Peering is the arrangement of traffic exchange between Internet service providers (ISPs). Larger ISPs with their own backbone networks agree to allow traffic from other large ISPs in exchange for traffic on their backbones. They also exchange traffic with smaller ISPs so that they can reach regional end points. Essentially, this is how a number of individual network owners put the Internet together. To do this, network owners and access providers, the ISPs, work out agreements that describe the terms and conditions to which both are subject.Peering requires the exchange and updating of router information between the peered ISPs, typically using the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).

Inter-ISP Interconnect
Peering:

• two ISPs agree to provide access to each others’customers commonly no money changes hands: “settlement free”
• barter of perceived equal value
• simple commercial agreements

Public Interconnect:

• Internet Exchange Point (“IXP”or “NAP”)
• multiple parties connect to shared switched fabric
• commonly Ethernet based
• open, many-to-many connectivity
• traffic exchange between consenting pairs of participants

IXP Advantages

• Keeps local traffic within a region without having to take indirect long-haul route
• Typically 20-35% of traffic can be local
• Reduced bandwidth costs
• Improved throughput and latency performance
• Economies of scale
• Commercial basis of traffic exchange between ISPs across IXP usually via cost-saving peering
• Critical mass of ISPs in a single location creates competitive market in provision of capacity, transit and services

Internet Exchanges in Europe

• IXP operators are typically:
• neutral
• nonprofit membership organizations
• do not run hosting/co-location facilities
• not same organization as co-location provider
• Major cities, e.g. London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris
• switch pan-European traffic
• have multiple exchange operators
• have multiple co-location facilities
• each have several to 10s of Gb/s of traffic
• Usually one smaller national exchange per country for domestic traffic

Internet Exchanges in US

• Major IXP operators typically:
• data center providers
• e.g.Equinix, Switch & Data, Terremark
• run co-location facilities
• are not ISPs themselves (neutral)
• IXP is run one as one more service within data center
• Main IXPsin major metro areas e.g.
• SF Bay area
• Washington DC
• New York
• Chicago
• Los Angeles

Successful IXP Neutrality Principles

• Does not compete with its ISP members/customers
• Does not discriminate between its ISP members/customers
• Does not move traffic between cities or countries
• Does not make exclusive arrangements with:
• ISPs
• Carriers
• Co-lo Providers
• Does not provide IP transit routing
• Does not take share of ISPs’transit revenues
• Only interconnects between metro area co-lo sites
• May be present at multiple co-lo sites and providers

IXP Customer Requirements

• Your own Autonomous System (AS) number
• you need this if you take service from >1 ISP anyway
• Your own IP address space
• need to become “registrar”of NRO member registry e.g. ARIN, LACNIC, RIPE NCC

• Router(s) which can do BGP
• most Cisco/Juniper routers
• also open-source based *nix PC platforms (bgpd, quagga)
• Space in one of the co-lo facilities at which it is present

Global IXP Directory
http://www.ep.net
Packet Clearing House
http://www.pch.net
Euro-IX Association of IXP Operators
http://www.euro-ix.net
RIPE EIX (European InterneteXchange)
Working Group
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/wg/eix/

01. AMSIX (Amsterdam, NL)
02. DECIX (Frankfurt, DE)
03. Espanix (Madrid, ES)
04. LINX (London, UK)
05. NOTA (Nap of the Americas, Miami, FL)
06. PAIX (New York, NY)
07. PAIX (Palo Alto, CA)
08. PARIX (Paris, FR)
09. SFINX (Paris, FR)
10. FREEIX (Paris, FR)
11. GIGAPIX (Lisbon, PT)
12. BNIX (Brussels, BE)
13. CIXP (Geneva, Switzerland)
14. VIX (Vienna, Austria)
15. ECIX (Dusseldorf, DE)
16. WORKIX (Hamburg, DE)
17. DIX (Copenhagen, Denmark)
18. INXS (Munich, Germany)
19. MIX (Milan, Italy)
20. NETNOD (Stockholm, Sweden)
21. TIX (Vienna, Austria)