Hello Deepak: -----Original Message----- So here is an idea that I hope someone shoots down. We've been talking about pseudo-wires, and the high level of expertise a shared-fabric IXP needs to diagnose weird switch oddities, etc. As far as I can tell, the principal reason to use a shared fabric is to allow multiple connections to networks that may not justify their own dedicated ($$$$) router port. Once they do, they can move over to a PNI. However, an IXP is (at the hardware level at least) trying to achieve any-to-any connectivity without concern for capacity up to the port size of each port on every flow. Scaling this to multiple pieces of hardware has posed interesting challenges when the connection speed to participants is of the same order as the interconnection between IXP switches. So here is a hybrid idea, I'm not sure if It has been tried or seriously considered before. Since the primary justification for a shared fabric is cost savings.... What if everyone who participated at an IXP brought their own switch. For argument's sake, a Nexus 5xxx. It has 20+ ports of L2, wire speed 10G. [Michael K. Smith - Adhost] This sounds like fertile ground for unintended consequences. Unmanaged spanning tree topological changes as three people, previously connected to their own switch and to others, now decide to connect to each other as well, using those inexpensive L2 ports. Regards, Mike