Peering - Benefits?

Thu Oct 30 13:49:35 UTC 2008

HRH Sven Olaf Prinz von CyberBunker-Kamphuis MP wrote:
> internet exchanges are not per-se "redundant"
> they basically are a switch which actually, because of the many connected
> parties, most of which do not have enough PAID transit to cover any
> outages on it, causes more problems than they are good for.
> (the amsix with their many outages and connected parties that rely
> primarliy on it's functionality is a prime example here)
>   
> internet exchanges usually are some sort of hobby computer club, you
> cannot rely on them to actually -work-, but when they do work that's
> "nice" (always make sure you have enough paid capacity to cover for it
> when they do not work however!)
>
> peering on only one of them therefore does not make your network more
> reliable in any way (it becomes a different story when you connect to like
> 10 or so worldwide).
>
> as for "peering" agreements, just implement an open peering policy
> (doesn't nessesarily have to take place over an ix, also applies to pieces
> of ethernet running from your network to others).
>
> those basically are contracts that force anyone who has also signed one to
> peer with your network, wether they like you or not (saves the trouble
> when you are a content provider and others do not want to peer with you
> because they provide content too and you are a competing party etc).
>   
Dear me, that smells of extreme ignorance of the design and management 
of the major exchanges.

LINX and AMS-IX for example go to great lengths to make sure their 
exchanges have high availability. I've had far fewer issues with 
individual exchanges with 100s of members than I have with single 
transit providers. The LINX for example provides TWO fabrics, and 
encourage members to peer on both of them. My transit providers have a 
single network which they break from time to time. It's far harder for 
an IX to break anything as they're less involved in the whole process.

It is true, of course, that there are tiny badly-run exchanges run as a 
hobby, but just as it's best not to buy transit from a bargain-basement 
transit provider, I wouldn't trust any important traffic to one of the 
tiny exchanges. I'd say that LINX/AMS-IX are amongst the most reliable 
places you can pass your traffic.

Since you bring up the "PAID" issue, as if to suggest that people who 
peer are cheap and don't care about their traffic, most organisations 
who peer do so to *improve* the performance of their networks. The 
cheaper route for me is not to buy a bunch of peering routers to manage 
1000s of peering sessions, but I spend the extra cash to make the 
service I provide to my customers better. If you don't have the 
understanding or desire to provide the best service you can to your 
customers, perha1ps you'd like to become a politician?

Peering on one would make youre network more reliable if you have 
sufficiently burstable transit links. Only a fool would try to offload 
180mbit of traffic via 100mbit of transit and 100mbit of peering. User 
stupidity isn't the fault of the exchanges and certainly don't diminish 
the viability of internet exchanges as a concept.

I think others have already rubbished your contracts nonsense, so I 
won't even bother.

adam.