Bill, On lördag, jan 11, 2003, at 01:38 Europe/Stockholm, William B. Norton wrote:
If what you are saying is true, I'd really like to hear just a couple of insurmountable technical problems with WAN L2.5 infrastructure interconnecting IX switches. For the sake of argument and to clarify the discussion (Paul) let's make a few assumptions:
1) We are talking about an operations model where IX switches are operated by a single company. 2) The IX switches are interconnected by MPLS by a transport provider offering that service. 3) An ISP on one switch creates a VLAN for peering with ISPs on any of the other switches. This ISP VLAN is only for peering with the ISP that created this VLAN. Since he is paying for the VLAN traffic he has this right. 4) The cost of transporting the traffic between the switches is bourne by a transport provider who in turn charges the ISP that created the VLAN in question.
I can articulate a half dozen reasons why this is a good idea. Please share with us why this is a such a bad idea. If it has been tried before, it would be helpful to point to specific the case and why it failed, the technical failure scenario. I'd like to hear why/how it was worse by the distance between switches.
How do you see the failed AMS-IX expansion fit into this? My (very simplified) summary of what happened was that : a) ISPs where worried of the stability of the exchange (if I remember correctly Jesper Skriver made a good mail on this) b) The large operators saw that AMS-IX would be directly competing with them on transit and transport revenues and therefor in the end where not interested in AMS-IX. Note that there still was many (mostly small) ISPs that where in favour of the expansion. At the time of the origin of the discussion I was peering co-ordinator at KPNQwest, and would have pulled-out of AMS-IX if the plans (and KQ ..:) ) would have moved on. Best regards, - kurtis -