Coop Peering Fabric??

Tue Aug 12 15:47:47 UTC 2008

Speaking of AtlantaIX, the new business model seems less attractive for
customers than the old one.  Can anyone speak to why it got sold?  Was it
failing financially or someone just wanted to cash out?

On 8/12/08, Patrick W. Gilmore <patrick at ianai.net> wrote:
>
> On Aug 12, 2008, at 3:37 AM, Paul Wall wrote:
>
> If it were as easy as you make it sound, I can assure you people would
>> be doing it.
>>
>
> People are.  I (and others) mentioned SIX & TorIX, plus I mentioned PaNAP.
>  Then there's AtlantaIX, although that recently got slurped by TelX.
>  (Hrmmm, could one of the "dangers" of a coop be "borg'ed by for-profit
> entity looking to rip out every cent they can"? :)
>
> Tons of others exist, in big and little markets.  There's one in 365 Main
> SF, there's KleyReX in the same building as DE-CIX, Big APE in 111 8th, NYCx
> there too, ChicagoIX just opened, etc., etc.
>
> Trust me, it _is_ being done.
>
>
> Also, does your Equinix MSA contain a non-compete clause, which could
>> be interpreted to mean you can't run a competing IX (metro fabric,
>> exchange, whatever) out of their facilities?  I hear many do.
>>
>
> So don't run it in an Equinix or S&D cage.
>
> --
> TTFN,
> patrick
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 11:15 PM, Deepak Jain <deepak at ai.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Warning: This may actually be operational too.
>>>
>>> Given Cogent (and others) recent pursuit of sub $4/mb/s transit... and
>>> the
>>> relatively flat cost of a "paid" peering fabric (even at 10G) and the
>>> O(N)
>>> costs for cross-connects, the thought of revisiting the old peering coops
>>> presented itself again.
>>>
>>> Assuming 10G PNI model: Assuming even nominal cross-connect fees of
>>> $100-$300/month per fiber pair, plus router port costs for each private
>>> peer
>>> (assuming you aren't at >10% utilization on the port) at a commercial
>>> exchange, you are eating a pretty significant cost per megabit you are
>>> actually moving. (plug in your numbers here). Assumption: Above 1Gb/s
>>> utilization, this makes sense or you are counting on growth.
>>>
>>> Below 10% you would normally go to a paid peering fabric where you are
>>> paying cross connect + a flat port charge + router port for 1->N peers
>>> and
>>> hoping that enough utilization occurs that you get >10% utilization (to
>>> recover capex, opex, etc) and then whatever additional utilization you
>>> need
>>> to cover the flat port charge or you are counting on growth.
>>>
>>> A "coop", best-effort switch fabric colo'd at a few sites would allow
>>> participants to peer off traffic at a price of the order of a single
>>> cross-connect (~$500/month per 10G port is possible, maybe less),
>>> private-VLANs all-around, or to only-mutually approved peers (e.g. via an
>>> automated web interface, prior art) to avoid many of the /old/ issues. No
>>> requirement for multi-lateral peering. You could peer, sell transit, buy
>>> transit, multicast, etc.
>>>
>>> The way I figure it, it removes approximately an order of magnitude from
>>> the
>>> operational cost of peering with more than a handful of your largest
>>> single
>>> talkers. Especially as 100G LAN Ethernet becomes production before 100G
>>> WAN
>>> connections become commonplace. Economic theory (assuming that worked on
>>> the
>>> Internet) suggests this would allow for the increase in number of peers
>>> by
>>> approximately an order of magnitude (maybe more).
>>>
>>> Does this actually improve the present-day "rationale" to peer, or are
>>> most
>>> operations' costs so far above (from long haul, etc) or so far below
>>> (since
>>> the cost of transit has dropped so much) that this is no longer a
>>> relevant
>>> part of the equation?
>>>
>>> Warning: This may actually be operational too.
>>>
>>> Deepak Jain
>>> AiNET
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>