North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Internet Exchange Questions
On Tue, Mar 19, 2002 at 08:53:23AM -0800, Jon Bennett <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Is there a need for additional IXs or are there too > many today and some should be consolidated or shut > down altogether? If there is a need for new IXs, where > do you put them? Who decides where to build a new IX > and how do you get service providers to show up there > once it is built? > > Thanks. There are many types of IXes built around many different needs, just as there are with ISPs. Large IXes: =========== Tend to have a number of Tier1/2/3 ISPs participating in a wide range of peering capacity (from 10meg to GigE/OC48), via either switch fabric (like LINX), or via mix of switch-aggregated and private peering. Where are these located? Generally in areas of high traffic pass-through due to continental or inter-continental fiber routing or teledensity: Silicon Valley, Washington DC, Chicago, NYC Metro, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo Drivers for these large IXes tend to follow the need of Tier1/2 networks to have multiple locations to peer so traffic engineering can be regionalized with robust alternate paths. For U.S. continental footprint, I would say the following list is important for good regional granularity: Silicon Valley, Wash D.C. Metro, NYC Metro, Dallas, Chicago, LA, and secondary: Atlanta, Boston, Seattle, Denver. For Europe, I believe you are seeing similar emergence of additional large IXes in other key cities, reducing the dependence on London and Amsterdam. Historical IXes: ================ Peering locations that had high historical value, but are no longer as significant as requirements and technology changed. Local IXes: ============ Many of these are so local-to-local entities can peer without going across more expensive regional or out-of-country links. Common participants may be local dial providers, local small web hosters, universities, local business and govt institutions. For many of these players, a T1 or E1 or 10-meg port may be considered a large investment, especially if hauled half way across a country with low teledensity. These exchanges may be critical to the Internet economics of these locations. Transit IXes: ============= These are often local IXes, where a larger ISP has also setup shop to offer transit for non-local traffic. Cheers, -Lane Lane Patterson Research Engineer Equinix, Inc. > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Sports - live college hoops coverage > http://sports.yahoo.com/
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