I'm glad we are having this discussion. I want to clarify something, since I'm not sure I'm following the terminology. What Max referred to as "VLAN exchange" is what Equinix markets as "*private VLAN"*, right? I just copy-pasted a portion of Equinix's IX brochure that covers the services that they offer [ http://www.equinix.com/resources/data-sheets/equinix-internet-exchange/] Standard Equinix Internet Exchange Features • Public VLAN — offers access to all peering participants • Supports industry standard IEEE 802.1Q trunking encapsulation • Redundant MLPE route servers at each IX Point enabling efficient open peering • *Private VLAN* (Required: Unicast Peering VLAN enabled) — create a private broadcast domain over the public switched infrastructure that can be used for direct bi-lateral peering or to create a community of interest My question is what is the point of having such an option for peering? I understand the argument that Owen and Leo have, which is to move the bigger portion of traffic away from the IX fabric and keep the IX for smaller flows. but why would a pair of networks want a private point-to-point connection on a shared switching fabric. Is this just because that shared fabric has geographical reach, as in the case of IXReach? I also see that links provided in this discussion show Europe based networks that are using this peering type more often. Is this widely accepted that US market is totally different from Europe? Best Regards Reza Motamedi (R.M) Graduate Research Fellow Oregon Network Research Group Computer and Information Science University of Oregon On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 9:50 AM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:
As mentioned by others, they do exist, but usually not for exactly the reason you state.
In most cases, peers go to PNI instead of peering via the exchange when it does not make sense to grow laterally at the exchange for significant bilateral traffic. It’s much less expensive to get a cross-connect from my router to your router than for both of us to add a cross-connect to the exchange and each pay for an additional exchange port.
Example: If I have 12.5 gigs of traffic to the exchange and 8 gigs of that is to autonomous system X while the remaining 4.5 G goes to random other peers, then it makes much more sense for both X and I to connect directly (PNI) than for each of us to order an additional exchange port to support that traffic.
Owen
On May 21, 2016, at 23:33 , Max Tulyev <maxtul@netassist.ua> wrote:
Hi All,
I wonder why a "VLAN exchange" does not exists. Or I do not know any?
In my understanding it should be a switch, and people connected can easily order a private VLAN between each other (or to private group) through some kind of web interface.
That should be a more easy and much less expensive way for private interconnects than direct wires.
Dear Nanogers,
I have a question about common/best network interconnection practices. Assume that two networks (let's refer to them as AS-a and AS-b) are
in a colocation facility say Equinix LA. As many of you know, Equininx runs an IXP in LA as well. So AS-as and AS-b can interconnct 1) using private cross-connect 2) through the public IXP's switching fabric. Is it a common/good practice for the two networks to establish connections both through the IXP and also using a private cross-connect?
I was thinking considering the cost of cross-connects (my understanding is that the colocation provider charges the customers for each cross-connect in addition to the rent of the rack or cage or whatever), it would not be economically reasonable to have both. Although, if the cross-connect is
primary method of interconnection, and the IXP provides a router-server
On 16.05.16 20:46, Reza Motamedi wrote: present the the
public-peering over IXP would essentially be free. So it might makes sense to assume that for the private cross-connect, there exists a back-up connection though the IXP. Anyway, I guess some discussion may give more insight about which one is more reasonable to assume and do.
Now my last question is that if the two connections exist (one private cross-connect and another back-up through the IXP), what are the chances that periodically launched traceroutes that pass the inter-AS connection in that colo see both types of connection in a week. I guess what I'm asking is how often back-up routes are taken? Can the networks do load balancing on the two connection and essentially use them as primary routes?
Best Regards Reza Motamedi (R.M) Graduate Research Fellow Oregon Network Research Group Computer and Information Science University of Oregon