BGP peering question

Tue Jul 11 17:33:54 UTC 2017

On Mon, Jul 10, 2017 at 4:12 PM, craig washington <
craigwashington01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Newbie question, what criteria do you look for when you decide that you
> want to peer with someone or if you will accept peering with someone from
> an ISP point of view.

I assume you mean "reciprocal peering" in the sense of shortcut from your
customers to their customers rather than the more generic sense that any
BGP neighbor is a "peer".

1. What does it cost? If you and they are already on an IX peering switch
or you're both at a relaxed location where running another cable carries no
monthly fee, there's not much down side.

2. Is the improvement to your service worth the cost? It's not worth buying
a data circuit or cross-connect to support a 100kbps trickle.

3. Do you have the technical acumen to stay on top of it? Some kinds of
breakage in the peering link could jam traffic between your customers and
theirs. If you're not able to notice and respond, you'd be better off
sending the traffic up to your ISPs and letting them worry about it.

If the three of those add up to "yes" instead of "no" then peering may be
smart.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/>