an overview of peering; benefits of peering andrew ogilvie managing director, xtraordinary networks...
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An Overview of Peering; Benefits of Peering
Andrew Ogilvie Managing Director, Xtraordinary Networks Ltd www.xtrahost.co.uk
Why am I here today? (Very briefly)
Xtraordinary Networks
Cloud Hoster - HQ in Edinburgh
Hosting in Edinburgh (Gyle) & London (Interxion)
Member of LINX since 2005
How does the Internet work? The Internet is a 'network of networks' “Internet was designed to survive a nuclear
attack” - not true. But work did consider robustness and survivability, including the capability to withstand losses of large portions of the underlying networks
What do we mean by a network?
What is a Network?(According to the pedants on Wikipedia)
An Autonomous System is a collection of connected Internet Protocol (IP) routing prefixes under the control of one or more network operators that presents a common, clearly defined routing policy to the Internet
What is a Network? (In plain English) Autonomous System – typically an ISP, hosting
provider, content provider, datacentre or large organisation
Normally used to 'multi-home' – connect to multiple Internet providers and/or for 'peering'
Approx 25,000 Autonomous Systems or 'Networks' form the Internet
Example Network AS Numbers
BBC AS2818
Brightsolid AS5564
BT (UK) AS2856
Hurricane Electric AS6939
IFB AS8902
Fluency AS56595
Janet AS786
Pulsant AS12703
Xtraordinary AS30827
So how does one Network communicate with one of the other 25,000 Networks around the world?
Peering is part of the answer
Peering is where two networks exchange traffic
Either at an Internet Exchange (e.g. LINX) Or directly, between routers Larger networks will peer at lots of different
locations
Why would you peer? More control – direct exchange of traffic with
nobody else in the way Improve quality – direct physical route, quicker
path, lower latency, no contention Reduce costs – peering is normally cheaper
than buying 'IP transit' – the alternative to peering
Diversity and resilience – another route for traffic to follow – spread the load
Technical Contacts - if there are problems you can talk to the exchange tech staff or directly to contacts at other networks
If the exchange breaks - be in the know! Peering brings technical and marketing kudos
Austria Telekom Austria TA AG 8447
Germany Telefonica Deutschland GmbH 6805
Germany Vodafone D2 GmbH 3209
Greece OTEGlobe S.A. 12713
Iceland Iceland Telecom 6677
Ireland Eircom Group Plc 5466
Israel 013 Netvision Ltd 1680
Malaysia Telekom Malaysia Berhad 4788
Romania RCS & RDS S.A. 8708
Russia CJSC Company TransTeleCom 20485
Russia Golden Telecom 3216
South Africa Internet Solutions (PTY) Ltd. 3741
South Korea SK Broadband Co., Ltd. 9318
Turkey Turk Telekom 9121
UAE etisalat 8966
Latency – Round Trip Time Latency – London to Edinburgh 10-16
milliseconds Computer gaming, video, VOIP, remote
desktop, applications – can be sensitive to latency
An Exchange Can Be Where 'eyeballs' meet 'content'
Eyeballs e.g. consumer ISPs – BT, Talk Talk, Sky, Virgin Media, Mobile Networks
Content – iPlayer, Netflix, hosters, applications
Not All Peering Occurs on an Internet Exchange
Peering across the LINX 'fabric' is known as public peering.
The alternative is private peering directly between networks - 'sling us a cable'
What do you need to peer on an exchange?
- An Autonomous System (AS) number
- A router
- Routes & traffic
- Some money
- Technical clue – BGP4 routing
You Don't Have to Peer With Everyone
Choice of
- Open Peering (with anyone, often via a route-server)
- Selective Peering (pick your partners)
- Very Restricted Peering (Tier-1 big boys)
Why we welcome Scottish IX initiative Establishing a Scottish Internet Exchange is
long overdue It makes technical sense for Scottish Internet
traffic to be 'peered off' in Scotland, not sent down to London and back again
Growing rise in traffic – e.g. iplayer, downloads, backups – maybe now is the time
Strategic economic benefits
Why have LINX run Scottish Internet Exchange?
Credibility Brings large audience and contacts of existing
LINX members Technical experience Benefits of scale Legal, billing, admin covered Manchester exchange is active & growing