North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Coop Peering Fabric??

  • From: Jim Mercer
  • Date: Tue Aug 12 11:09:08 2008 
On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 10:11:13AM -0400, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
> Several small IXes have grown quite a bit with no or very small  
> membership fees.  Look at the ones I mentioned.  I think SIX is the  
> largest, but they're all not that tiny.

TorIX, for many years, was financed by announcing an upcoming expediture, and
waiting to see if one of the members stepped up (or usually, the member
suggesting the expenditure, also covering its cost), and if no-one was
willing to foot the entire bill, the hat was passed around until it filled
sufficiently.

they have since formalized into a not-for-profit (i stepped away,
physically and involvement-wise), but my understanding is that financially,
it is using the same funding model.

TorIX was initially founded by driving a stake (a single Cisco 2900 as i
recall) in the ground and inviting all-comers (each having to simply pay
to drag connectivity to the stake).

the initial membership was small to medium (quasi-large) ISP's, the largest
of which were finding they were locked out of the incumbent IX (CanIX) for
various financial and political reasons.  (that CanIX appears to have
vaporized, and its name now taken by some colo provider)

some joined for monetary reasons, some for the fun of it, others because it
became a cost effective way to shunt packets (even when weighed against the
"best-effort" management)

TorIX is now sustaining 10Gbps across some 90+ peers, with a decent spectrum
of eyeballs, content-only providers and transit providers.

i would bet that if someone analyzed the data, that it has maintained 5 9's
reliability too, or pretty damn close for a best-effort facility.

-- 
Jim Mercer        [email protected]        +971 55 410-5633
"I'm Prime Minister of Canada, I live here and I'm going to take a leak."
   - Lester Pearson in 1967, during a meeting between himself and
    President Lyndon Johnson, whose Secret Service detail had taken over
    Pearson's cottage retreat.  At one point, a Johnson guard asked
    Pearson, "Who are you and where are you going?"