Buying IP Bandwidth Across a Peering Exchange

Sun Nov 30 23:51:07 UTC 2014

We peer at TorIX and Equinix.  I have to say that despite the fact that
Equnix charges us more for our port, we're getting far more value from it
than TorIX.  Around double the traffic, and they don't have silly punative
measures like locking your port if you leak a MAC address other than the
one you registered with them (Equnix filters the MAC, but doesn't apply a
60 minute port shut down penalty if you leak like TorIX does).

----- Original Message ---------------

Subject: Re: Buying IP Bandwidth Across a Peering Exchange
   From: Justin Wilson <lists at mtin.net>
   Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 18:41:23 -0500
     To: NANOG <nanog at nanog.org>

Having run an exchange, I can speak to a couple of points.

1.An exchange is only as good as any other provider.  If they don¹t have a
redundant design then you have more room for failure.  Same can be said
about good staff behind it.  If they know what they are doing and keep it
simple, then it can be a very advantageous thing to you.

2.An exchange really shines in data centers where you have to pay for
cross connects.  I can buy 1 10 gig connection to an exchange in Chicago
and peer with 30 other providers easy. If I were to run a cross connect to
each provider directly that would cost me between 7 and 9 grand a month in
an Equinix data center.  Instead I am paying $1300 for the same thing.  If
I want a private vlan add on a little extra.

3.Some exchanges carry weight with the folks like Netflix and others. In
most cases, they will peer with you easier on an exchange than a direct
connection.  Keep in mind switch ports cost money, especially in a dense
data center.

Justin

--
Justin Wilson <j2sw at mtin.net>
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