Peering - Benefits?

Thu Oct 30 16:15:11 UTC 2008

On Oct 30, 2008, at 10:49 AM, Todd Underwood wrote:

> so far there have been some good values articulated and there may be
> more (reach, latency, diversity of path, diversity of capacity,
> control, flexibility, options, price negotation) and some additional
> costs have been mentioned (capex for peering routing, opex for the
> peering itself + cross connects + switch fees + additional time spent
> troubleshooting routing events).
>
> are there others?

Almost certainly.

But I'm sure the OP has a nice list to at least get him started of  
peering benefits.  Interestingly, no one has mentioned the downside of  
peering.  Just to play devil's advocate, allow me to mention some  
"cons" about peering: If you drop all peering and push traffic to  
transit providers, you can frequently get lower price per bit.   
Picking 2/3/4 transit providers and committing large amounts to them  
gives you flexibility, control, reliability, lowers your CapEx, and  
lowers your network complexity which can (should) lower your OpEx.   
There are others, but you get the point.

Just be sure to consider everything when deciding whether to peer.

-- 
TTFN,
patrick

P.S. Obviously, I think peering is better for the "network" I run, but  
that cannot and should not be generalized to every network on the  
Internet.