On Oct 30, 2008, at 10:49 AM, Todd Underwood wrote:
so far there have been some good values articulated and there may be more (reach, latency, diversity of path, diversity of capacity, control, flexibility, options, price negotation) and some additional costs have been mentioned (capex for peering routing, opex for the peering itself + cross connects + switch fees + additional time spent troubleshooting routing events).
are there others?
Almost certainly. But I'm sure the OP has a nice list to at least get him started of peering benefits. Interestingly, no one has mentioned the downside of peering. Just to play devil's advocate, allow me to mention some "cons" about peering: If you drop all peering and push traffic to transit providers, you can frequently get lower price per bit. Picking 2/3/4 transit providers and committing large amounts to them gives you flexibility, control, reliability, lowers your CapEx, and lowers your network complexity which can (should) lower your OpEx. There are others, but you get the point. Just be sure to consider everything when deciding whether to peer. -- TTFN, patrick P.S. Obviously, I think peering is better for the "network" I run, but that cannot and should not be generalized to every network on the Internet.