Buying IP Bandwidth Across a Peering Exchange

Tue Nov 25 21:29:17 UTC 2014

Hi Colton,

The primary challenge in buying IP Transit across a Peering Exchange is not so much of a technical configuration challenge, but rather a 'how do we keep track of how much IP Transit you are using' ..a billing challenge.

and additionally, one is making the assumption that there is capacity to do so on the IP Transit Providers Peering Port Connection.

While it is possible to deal with such issue, but you need someone willing and able to do so, on the other side.

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> I think the way most providers would do this would be to get a rack and
> power with Equinix. Pay a cross connect fee from the wave provider to our
> rack. Pay for an exchange port (which includes a cross connect to the
> exchange) for the 5GBPS of traffic going to Netflix, Google, etc. And then
> pay for yet another cross connect going to HE.net's cage to get pure IP
> from them.
-------------------------

Yes, you are right, this is the traditional way of doing so, and yes, it can get expensive.. For this exact reason, folks such as us and others who are willing to provide access via their existing resources at different facilities.

We are facilitating flexible connectivity needs of folks who are running remote (from major metro areas) such as yours, in Miami, Atlanta, and I know others who are doing so in Equinox Chicago, one in Texas and a couple of the West Coast.

Feel free to ping me off list if you are interested in additional details.

Regards

Faisal Imtiaz
Snappy Internet & Telecom
7266 SW 48 Street
Miami, FL 33155
Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232

Help-desk: (305)663-5518 Option 2 or Email: Support at Snappytelecom.net 

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Colton Conor" <colton.conor at gmail.com>
> To: "Ammar Zuberi" <ammar at fastreturn.net>
> Cc: "NANOG" <nanog at nanog.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 2:51:47 PM
> Subject: Re: Buying IP Bandwidth Across a Peering Exchange
> 
> The exchange in question is Equinix. Their sales team is leading me
> to believe there are multiple exchange products. One where you can peer
> with providers (Google, Netflix for example) and then one where you can
> create virtual private layer 2 vlans between providers. Then there is also
> the traditional cross connect fee of $350 if you want to go from one
> cage/rack to the other.
> 
> So in a situation where we are getting a 10Gig transport wave to Equinix,
> we would ideally like to split this wave's use to 5Gbps of traffic going to
> the peering exchange for traffic going directly to Google, Netflix, and
> other CDN's, and then 5Gbps of pure IP transit going to a low cost provider
> like HE.net. Of course providers like HE.NET are also peers on the peering
> exchange, so it seems possible that we could just opening a peering
> conenction with them.
> 
> I think the way most providers would do this would be to get a rack and
> power with Equinix. Pay a cross connect fee from the wave provider to our
> rack. Pay for an exchange port (which includes a cross connect to the
> exchange) for the 5GBPS of traffic going to Netflix, Google, etc. And then
> pay for yet another cross connect going to HE.net's cage to get pure IP
> from them.
> 
> If I can buy transit directly I avoid the expenses of having to pay for
> space, power, another router/switch, plus a second cross connect. Thats
> quite a bit of money saved.
> 
> Are exchanges really that unreliable compared to a traditional cross
> connect?
> 
> On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 12:52 PM, Ammar Zuberi <ammar at fastreturn.net> wrote:
> 
> > Hi Conor,
> >
> > I know this is possible since Hurricane Electric does it for IPv6 transit,
> > however, I'm not sure if it violates any exchange rules or if it's even a
> > good idea.
> >
> > > On 25 Nov 2014, at 10:47 pm, Colton Conor <colton.conor at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > I know typically peering exchanges are made for peering traffic between
> > > providers, but can you buy IP transit from a provider on an exchange? An
> > > example, buy a 10G port on an exchange, peer 5Gbps of traffic with
> > multiple
> > > providers on the exchange, and buy 5Gbps of IP transit from others on the
> > > exchange?
> > >
> > > Some might ask why not get a cross connect to the provider. It is cheaper
> > > to buy an port on the exchange (which includes the cross connect to the
> > > exchange) than buy multiple cross connects. Plus we are planning on
> > getting
> > > a wave to the exchange, and not having any physical routers or switches
> > at
> > > the datacenter where the exchange/wave terminates at. Is this possible?
> >
> 