Peering

Wed Dec 15 23:55:30 UTC 1999

>At 10:23 AM 12/15/99 +0200, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
>At 19:30 14/12/99 -0500, David Diaz wrote:
>
>For peering, the most recent thorough analysis would be:
>http://www.data.com/issue/991007/peering.html
>They cover private and public peering.  Too bad Data Communications is now
>defunct and folded into some other network wannabbe rag.

Robin did a nice job of raising some of the peering politics in this
article. The positioning of the peering issues however as "the little guys
vs. big guys" is counterproductive. It makes for good drama, but doesn't
get us closer to a scalable well-connected well-engineered global Internet.
There continue to be movements backstage to break the free peering vs. paid
transit extremes into more of a continuum of options (like real cheap
peering or settlement-based transit). This is where the parameters quantify
"value" each ISP brings to the table. (But we won't go there lest I fetch
my asbestos attire ;) )

>-Hank
>
>>
>>Well at the last nanog there was a get together to exchange peering 
>>contract info.  Bill Norton has compiled that into a list.  That 
>>would get you a long way there for getting peering information.

Right. The URL below includes the slides and an early draft of the paper
that is basically the narrative that describes the Peering Process slides:

http://www.nanog.org/mtg-9910/peering.html

The paper describes (in rough terms) the peering coordinator mindset - how
they think of and approach peering, the decision-making process, etc. This
paper was initially written for some non-US ISP friends who were interested
in establishing a US presence to use the US as a backhaul to another
continent and obtain peering as an aside. 

If any ISP Peering Coordinator wants to get listed and obtain a copy of the
Peering Contact Database, send me e-mail (wbn at umich.edu) with the relevant
contact information (Contact Name & Title, Company Name, address, AS #,
peering@<ispdomain>.net address for peering, phone numbers, etc.). I'll
send back the Peering Contact Database & the latest version of the Peering
Decision Tree document (v1.1 now). Note: These are Excel & Word documents
today.

>>The major backbones usually have peering@  setup.  That along with 
>>the boardwatch should be a good start.

Agreed - as a side note, I found it interesting that almost all ISP listed
have a peering at ispdomain.net pseudo-standard in addition to their own
e-mail address. Peering is both a systematic and personal interaction
today. I'm also seeing a lot more AP ISPs coming in.

Hope this helps -

Bill