Recommended L2 switches for a new IXP

Mon Jan 12 15:44:04 UTC 2015

Substantial amounts of hive mind went into this topic in the formation of
Open-IX and particularly around optimizing costs and maximizing traffic.
See http://bit.ly/N-OIX1 for a reference.

Best,

-M<

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 10:34 AM, Justin Wilson - MTIN <lists at mtin.net>
wrote:

> Like Mike says, it depends on your market.   Are these markets where there
> are existing exchanges?
>
> Cost per port is what we always look at.  If we are going into a market
> where there won't be much growth we look at Cisco and Force 10.  Their cost
> per port is usually cheaper for smaller 10 Gig switches. You need something
> that is fairly robust.
>
> Reliability in an exchange is a key component.  If you go with a
> non-chassis switch make sure you have redundancy in your design.  We like
> Chassis based switches because they tend to be more robust.  But thats just
> my take on it.
>
> Justin
>
> ---
> Justin Wilson j2sw at mtin.net
> http://www.mtin.net
> Managed Services - xISP Solutions - Data Centers
> http://www.thebrotherswisp.com
> Podcast about xISP topics
> http://www.midwest-ix.com
> Peering - Transit - Internet Exchange
>
> > On Jan 12, 2015, at 10:24 AM, Aaron <aaron at wholesaleinternet.net> wrote:
> >
> > We used to use Brocade FastIrons until we needed more 10G port density.
> We moved to Brocade SX's.
> >
> > Originally, when it was 2 or 3 peers, we used an old Netgear switch. :)
> >
> > Aaron
> >
> > On 1/12/2015 7:07 AM, Mike Hammett wrote:
> >> I look forward to this thread.
> >>
> >> I think one important thing is who is your addressable market size? I'm
> working with a startup IXP and there's only 20 carriers in the building. A
> chassis based switch would be silly as there would never be that many
> people present. 2x 1U switches would be more than plenty in their
> environment.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> -----
> >> Mike Hammett
> >> Intelligent Computing Solutions
> >> http://www.ics-il.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >>
> >> From: "Manuel Marín" <mmg at transtelco.net>
> >> To: nanog at nanog.org
> >> Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 12:35:15 AM
> >> Subject: Recommended L2 switches for a new IXP
> >>
> >> Dear Nanog community
> >>
> >> We are trying to build a new IXP in some US Metro areas where we have
> >> multiple POPs and I was wondering what do you recommend for L2
> switches. I
> >> know that some IXPs use Nexus, Brocade, Force10 but I don't personally
> have
> >> experience with these switches. It would be great if you can share your
> >> experience and recommendations. There are so many options that I don't
> know
> >> if it makes sense to start with a modular switch (usually expensive
> because
> >> the backplane, dual dc, dual CPU, etc) or start with a 1RU high density
> >> switch that support new protocols like Trill and that supposedly allow
> you
> >> to create Ethernet Fabric/Clusters. The requirements are simple, 1G/10G
> >> ports for exchange participants, 40G/100G for uplinks between switches
> and
> >> flow support for statistics and traffic analysis.
> >>
> >> Thank you and have a great day.
> >>
> >> Regards
> >>
> >>
> >
> > --
> > ================================================================
> > Aaron Wendel
> > Chief Technical Officer
> > Wholesale Internet, Inc. (AS 32097)
> > (816)550-9030
> > http://www.wholesaleinternet.com
> > ================================================================
> >
>
>