Middle Eastern Exchange Points

Wed Feb 8 07:25:24 UTC 2006

At 01:11 AM 2/8/2006, Joe Abley wrote:

>On 7-Feb-2006, at 20:50, Martin Hannigan wrote:
>
>>>As Joe's pointed out, what's available in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and
>>>Kuwait are governmental monopoly incumbent transit services, a la
>>>STIX, as
>>>opposed to Internet exchanges where peering takes place.  There are
>>>several private colocation facilities which sell transit, but are not
>>>IXes, in Dubai and Kuwait.
>>
>>ISC has equipment out here. 192.228.85.0/24 is being announced out
>>of emirates.net
>>can't be that bad. :-)
>
>The F-root node in Dubai is facilitated by Emirates 
>Telecom/Etisalat/ EMIX, as per <http://f.root-servers.org/>. At the 
>time we installed
>there was no facility available for peering or other multi-point
>interconnect with operators in UAE. I am not aware that this has
>changed. Woody's comparison with the STIX is spot on, as far as I know.

Guys, are you being semantic? I'm *agreeing with you and
Woody here. Just not re: Kuwait and Egypt. You keep saying EMIX
and you're confusing me. Peering or no? "IX" naturally insinuates
yes regardless of neutrality.

>In pragmatic terms, due to the local regulatory environment and in
>the absence of a neutral exchange point, obtaining transit from EMIX
>in Dubai is the best approximation to a comprehensive set of
>bilateral peering arrangements with local ISPs. However, it's not
>peering in a topological/routing policy sense. The fact that F-root's
>covering prefix doesn't propagate beyond the region is due to special
>handling of that prefix by our colleagues in AS 8966.

That's what I was interested in, and found. I appreciate
the political explanation. I saw ASN 8966 and behind that ASN 5384
w/55 prefixes. 5384 looks like a choke point.

>ISC's intention in Dubai, as in all regions, was to provide the best
>access possible to F-root within the immediate surrounding region. I
>believe we achieved that goal.

What is the benchmark of speedy resolution vs. application i.e. how fast
do you resolve before it's irrelevant, if at all?

-M<

--
Martin Hannigan                                (c) 617-388-2663
Renesys Corporation                            (w) 617-395-8574
Member of Technical Staff                      Network Operations
                                                hannigan at renesys.com  