North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Exchanges that matter...
Wayne Bouchard <[email protected]> wrote: >Actually... many of the private exchanges are there for several other >reasons as well. First, it can be convenient to set up a connection >with a net you're passing lots of traffic to so you can go direct to >them instead of through 7 or 8 odd routers outside your >net. (obviously) We were talking about tier 1 exchanges (i.e. between nation-wide and world-wide backbones). They by definition pass a lot of traffic between each other. >Second, it can be significantly cheaper to split the costs between the >participants and not have to pay a third party for access to the >exchange. (heck of a lot easier too..) Well, if you have 6 providers you'll need 15 private two-party exchanges to accomodate full connectivity in a region, vs a single public facility. It is a classical example of economies of scale. Consolidation of exchange facilities makes things a lot cheaper. (Providing there's a way to sustain that much traffic in one place). >Third, and going along with the first point, private exchanges can >help to more geographically orient your local corner of the >network. That way, to get across town, you don't have to go to >mae-west, over to denver, and back down to phoenix to travel 6 miles. > >This also serves to take a little traffic AWAY from the public NAPs >and can help reduce congestion and problems there. That would be fine, if traffic had high locality. As is, practically all Internet traffic is long-haul. I.e. i strongly doubt benefits of micro-exchanges will outweigh their drawbacks. >The principle disadvantage of lots of small exchange points, as far as >I see it, is that there may well be potential for A) many more paths >to get from A to B, meaning that each router will hold that many more >BGP entries and B) possibly a greater potential for route flap. C) a lot more facilities not generating revenue. --vadim - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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