Not that we have expected everyone we talked to would join our IX, but the answer that some gave puzzled me. There have been a few variations of "We don't have a peering router in that market." All routers peer, so what does that mean to you? How do people use that term? ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com
Lots of networks segregate duties, so they may not want a peering connection a router they primarily use for downstream client connections. Translated, they sell services in that market, but don’t want to transit traffic on that same router. Shane
On Apr 30, 2026, at 8:41 PM, Mike Hammett via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
Not that we have expected everyone we talked to would join our IX, but the answer that some gave puzzled me. There have been a few variations of "We don't have a peering router in that market."
All routers peer, so what does that mean to you? How do people use that term?
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com
Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com
_______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/RZNU5QMB...
On 1/5/26 11:27 am, sronan--- via NANOG wrote:
Lots of networks segregate duties, so they may not want a peering connection a router they primarily use for downstream client connections. Translated, they sell services in that market, but don’t want to transit traffic on that same router.
It doesn't even need to be a "want". We reduced what types of peering we took on AS15169 core routers (and later eliminated all of them entirely) not only for reasons that would fall under "want", but we'd also started running into various memory limitations (ACL programming, etc.) on our core boxes due to the breadth of configs, and eliminating them meant we didn't need to replace line cards or worse in boxes that were otherwise trivially handling their traffic needs. This was all well over a decade ago now, but my vague memory is at the time there were only an extremely small number of sessions with non-Google entities (probably less than five) that were actually turned down because of this instead of just shifted to another router in the area (or possibly nearby metro). The other annoying one you can sometimes hear is that a network won't peer with you in a certain facility even though you can see transport kit that's clearly theirs present. Can be many reasons for that too.
I had that last one once. The IP guy really wanted to join us, but he didn't have the capability in that facility. He wanted us to go to a tier 3\4 market where he had a ton of capacity. His company's transport team had available capacity, but they didn't want to give it to the IP guy. I thought it was a BS answer at the time, but as time has gone on, I've learned that silos in companies really can be that bad. ----- Mike Hammett FD-IX https://fd-ix.com/ DNA Communications https://www.dnacom.com/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Julien Goodwin via NANOG" <nanog@lists.nanog.org> To: "North American Network Operators Group" <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: "Julien Goodwin" <nanog@studio442.com.au> Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2026 8:49:47 PM Subject: Re: "Peering Router" On 1/5/26 11:27 am, sronan--- via NANOG wrote:
Lots of networks segregate duties, so they may not want a peering connection a router they primarily use for downstream client connections. Translated, they sell services in that market, but don’t want to transit traffic on that same router.
It doesn't even need to be a "want". We reduced what types of peering we took on AS15169 core routers (and later eliminated all of them entirely) not only for reasons that would fall under "want", but we'd also started running into various memory limitations (ACL programming, etc.) on our core boxes due to the breadth of configs, and eliminating them meant we didn't need to replace line cards or worse in boxes that were otherwise trivially handling their traffic needs. This was all well over a decade ago now, but my vague memory is at the time there were only an extremely small number of sessions with non-Google entities (probably less than five) that were actually turned down because of this instead of just shifted to another router in the area (or possibly nearby metro). The other annoying one you can sometimes hear is that a network won't peer with you in a certain facility even though you can see transport kit that's clearly theirs present. Can be many reasons for that too. _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/J52MV5ET...
To learn, not to argue: Why? ----- Mike Hammett FD-IX https://fd-ix.com/ DNA Communications https://www.dnacom.com/ ----- Original Message ----- From: sronan@ronan-online.com To: nanog@lists.nanog.org Cc: "Mike Hammett" <nanog@ics-il.net>, nanog@lists.nanog.org Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2026 8:27:41 PM Subject: Re: "Peering Router" Lots of networks segregate duties, so they may not want a peering connection a router they primarily use for downstream client connections. Translated, they sell services in that market, but don’t want to transit traffic on that same router. Shane
On Apr 30, 2026, at 8:41 PM, Mike Hammett via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
Not that we have expected everyone we talked to would join our IX, but the answer that some gave puzzled me. There have been a few variations of "We don't have a peering router in that market."
All routers peer, so what does that mean to you? How do people use that term?
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com
Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com
_______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/RZNU5QMB...
To ask it better. If a POP has multiple routers, segmenting makes sense. If a POP only has a single router, that's the only sword you have to do battle with, so it's the sword you use. ----- Mike Hammett FD-IX https://fd-ix.com/ DNA Communications https://www.dnacom.com/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Hammett via NANOG" <nanog@lists.nanog.org> To: sronan@ronan-online.com Cc: nanog@lists.nanog.org, "Mike Hammett" <nanog@ics-il.net> Sent: Monday, May 4, 2026 8:07:25 AM Subject: Re: "Peering Router" To learn, not to argue: Why? ----- Mike Hammett FD-IX https://fd-ix.com/ DNA Communications https://www.dnacom.com/ ----- Original Message ----- From: sronan@ronan-online.com To: nanog@lists.nanog.org Cc: "Mike Hammett" <nanog@ics-il.net>, nanog@lists.nanog.org Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2026 8:27:41 PM Subject: Re: "Peering Router" Lots of networks segregate duties, so they may not want a peering connection a router they primarily use for downstream client connections. Translated, they sell services in that market, but don’t want to transit traffic on that same router. Shane
On Apr 30, 2026, at 8:41 PM, Mike Hammett via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
Not that we have expected everyone we talked to would join our IX, but the answer that some gave puzzled me. There have been a few variations of "We don't have a peering router in that market."
All routers peer, so what does that mean to you? How do people use that term?
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com
Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com
_______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/RZNU5QMB...
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I’ve seen networks deploy dedicated peering routers (or VRFs), carrying only the routes that network intends to deploy, in order to prevent other peers from dirty-defaulting to them. -Chris
On May 4, 2026, at 07:02, Mike Hammett via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
To ask it better.
If a POP has multiple routers, segmenting makes sense. If a POP only has a single router, that's the only sword you have to do battle with, so it's the sword you use.
----- Mike Hammett FD-IX https://fd-ix.com/
DNA Communications https://www.dnacom.com/
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Hammett via NANOG" <nanog@lists.nanog.org> To: sronan@ronan-online.com Cc: nanog@lists.nanog.org, "Mike Hammett" <nanog@ics-il.net> Sent: Monday, May 4, 2026 8:07:25 AM Subject: Re: "Peering Router"
To learn, not to argue:
Why?
----- Mike Hammett FD-IX https://fd-ix.com/
DNA Communications https://www.dnacom.com/
----- Original Message ----- From: sronan@ronan-online.com To: nanog@lists.nanog.org Cc: "Mike Hammett" <nanog@ics-il.net>, nanog@lists.nanog.org Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2026 8:27:41 PM Subject: Re: "Peering Router"
Lots of networks segregate duties, so they may not want a peering connection a router they primarily use for downstream client connections. Translated, they sell services in that market, but don’t want to transit traffic on that same router.
Shane
On Apr 30, 2026, at 8:41 PM, Mike Hammett via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
Not that we have expected everyone we talked to would join our IX, but the answer that some gave puzzled me. There have been a few variations of "We don't have a peering router in that market."
All routers peer, so what does that mean to you? How do people use that term?
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com
Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com
_______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/RZNU5QMB...
_______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/R4DQS65H...
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Most larger operators have dedicated routers for peering, where peering means exchanging routes with a router they don’t own, for a variety of reasons. Having a local device at a specific location, security, cheaper due to reduced feature sets, separation of functions for things like software qualification, different management teams, etc. However, if you are talking service provider those routers often have customers or other services on them because they happen to be there at the same facility a customer is located. If a port is sitting free and you have enough of them, might as well connect a customer to it. Phil From: Mike Hammett via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Date: Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 7:41 PM To: North American Network Operators Group <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: Mike Hammett <nanog@ics-il.net> Subject: "Peering Router" Not that we have expected everyone we talked to would join our IX, but the answer that some gave puzzled me. There have been a few variations of "We don't have a peering router in that market." All routers peer, so what does that mean to you? How do people use that term? ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/RZNU5QMB...
On 4/30/26 17:40, Mike Hammett via NANOG wrote:
Not that we have expected everyone we talked to would join our IX, but the answer that some gave puzzled me. There have been a few variations of "We don't have a peering router in that market."
All routers peer, so what does that mean to you? How do people use that term?
I personally don't mix transit and peering duties on the same device. I have a dedicated router for peering sessions and a dedicated router for each transit provider. I find it easier to manage and it limits scope if one of them has a problem or needs an update since it only affects its own playground.
On 08/05/2026 22:12, Seth Mattinen via NANOG wrote:
I personally don't mix transit and peering duties on the same device. I have a dedicated router for peering sessions and a dedicated router for each transit provider. I find it easier to manage and it limits scope if one of them has a problem or needs an update since it only affects its own playground.
This. A dedicated peering router also ensures you eliminate providing transit to a peer if you make a configuration error, as the peering router neither carries the DFZ nor 0/0, ::/0. Mark.
On 5/12/26 7:49 AM, Mark Tinka via NANOG wrote:
On 08/05/2026 22:12, Seth Mattinen via NANOG wrote:
I personally don't mix transit and peering duties on the same device. I have a dedicated router for peering sessions and a dedicated router for each transit provider. I find it easier to manage and it limits scope if one of them has a problem or needs an update since it only affects its own playground.
This.
A dedicated peering router also ensures you eliminate providing transit to a peer if you make a configuration error, as the peering router neither carries the DFZ nor 0/0, ::/0.
Mark.
100% -- we do this too. In a pinch we've done "peering in a VRF", but I wouldn't recommend it. It's a pain in the ass to set up, and an even bigger pain to troubleshoot if you don't understand how it works. Plus it doesn't scale.
On 12/05/2026 06:49:40, "Mark Tinka via NANOG" <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
A dedicated peering router also ensures you eliminate providing transit to a peer if you make a configuration error, as the peering router neither carries the DFZ nor 0/0, ::/0.
The reason we started doing that way back was IX used to be quite fragile with regular storms that would often take out connected routers too. We still have a frangible peering router per IX port limiting blast radius. brandon
participants (9)
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Brandon Butterworth -
Bryan Holloway -
Chris Woodfield -
Julien Goodwin -
Mark Tinka -
Mike Hammett -
Phil Bedard -
Seth Mattinen -
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