Folks, Wishing to set up an alternative peering point in our fair city, we have run into a problem with the data center administration. The data center prohibits direct cabling between clients cabinets, even if the clients agree. Our peering point is not in the data center, but is in the same building, and will necessitate data center clients separately running fibre to our room, and paying not only for installation but also monthly fees proportional to bandwidth carried. We are in South Africa, the monthly fees are related to wireline costs, even though the monopoly wireline provider, Telkom, is not involved. Without this rule, we would run one fibre between the datacenter and the peering point, and have peers in the datacenter hop on that fibre. While acknowledging that a data center may make any rules it likes, I am asking nanog how common this practice is. If people mail me offlist, I would be willing to summarise if there is enough interest. Cheers, Andy!
> The data center prohibits direct cabling between clients cabinets, > even if the clients agree. They require that all cables from customer racks go to a "meet-me room" and crossconnect there? If so, are you also allowed into the meet-me room? Or are they simply not allowed to purchase "unlit" service at all? That is, are tenants in the data center only allowed to purchase circuits from the telco, as opposed to crossconnects? > While acknowledging that a data center may make any rules it likes, I > am asking nanog how common this practice is. This is very uncommon. Rules like these do exist, but facilities with such rules very rarely attract enough customers to be worthy of interest to people building exchanges. -Bill
On Wed, 17 Apr 2002, Bill Woodcock wrote:
Or are they simply not allowed to purchase "unlit" service at all? That is, are tenants in the data center only allowed to purchase circuits from the telco, as opposed to crossconnects?
This is not the Telco - this is a commercial, large, datacenter. No connections between cabinets. Period.
> While acknowledging that a data center may make any rules it likes, I > am asking nanog how common this practice is.
This is very uncommon. Rules like these do exist, but facilities with such rules very rarely attract enough customers to be worthy of interest to people building exchanges.
That is exactly why we are locating the exchange outside the datacenter. However, we are still a prisoner of this rule, as peers must separately 'purchase' connectivity to us - basically a fee for connectivity. South Africa has few large colo facilities. Because of the large expense of cross-town connects, an artifact of Telkom as a monopoly provider, we are obliged to locate in the same building as the datacenter. To reiterate, Telkom is not a factor in costing the peering point connectivity to the datacenter. Cheers, Andy!
Are there any rules preventing radio transmission on ISM bands from the cabinets ? You could reach other cabinets from yours with wireless LAN... Rubens Kuhl Jr. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Rabagliati" <andyr@wizzy.com> To: <nanog@merit.edu> Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 5:57 AM Subject: Links between cabinets at commercial datacentre
The data center prohibits direct cabling between clients cabinets, even if the clients agree.
Unnamed Administration sources reported that Rubens Kuhl Jr. said:
Are there any rules preventing radio transmission on ISM bands from the cabinets ? You could reach other cabinets from yours with wireless LAN...
For any reasonable bandwidth, laser links would be needed. But I suspect the management would just pump smoke in. You're fighting an attitude. They'll change the rules as needed to screw you. -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
Datacenter crossconnects over wireless lan? Now that's clever, but at the same time not very scaleable, and it's also quite frightening. Nothing like DoS and traffic sniffing from some troublemaker in the parking lot... -Paul On Wed, 17 Apr 2002, Rubens Kuhl Jr. wrote:
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 11:12:48 -0300 From: Rubens Kuhl Jr. <rkuhljr@uol.com.br> To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Links between cabinets at commercial datacentre
Are there any rules preventing radio transmission on ISM bands from the cabinets ? You could reach other cabinets from yours with wireless LAN...
Rubens Kuhl Jr.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Rabagliati" <andyr@wizzy.com> To: <nanog@merit.edu> Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 5:57 AM Subject: Links between cabinets at commercial datacentre
The data center prohibits direct cabling between clients cabinets, even if the clients agree.
Paul Timmins paul@timmins.net http://www.timmins.net/ Home: 248-858-7526 Pager: 248-333-9113 "By definition, if you don't stand up for anything, you stand for nothing." ---Paul Timmins
Spread-spectrum radio systems are not that easy to DoS, a good benefit from the original military applications. Trafic sniffing is something to worry with, but IPSEC is there to be used when needed... A 11Mbps (half-duplex) wireless LAN is capable of carrying multipoint traffic interests of a dozen peers with up to T1 speeds traffic interest. Those speeds were very common in south america when telecom state monopoly was in place, so it may fit the original poster requirements. Most wireless vendors have or will soon start shipping upgradable cards to the 40-60 Mbps wireless standard, which may be more suitable for aggregating long-haul connections. Rubens Kuhl Jr. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Timmins" <pault@timmins.net> To: "Rubens Kuhl Jr." <rkuhljr@uol.com.br> Cc: <nanog@merit.edu> Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 11:26 AM Subject: Re: Links between cabinets at commercial datacentre
Datacenter crossconnects over wireless lan? Now that's clever, but at the same time not very scaleable, and it's also quite frightening. Nothing like DoS and traffic sniffing from some troublemaker in the parking lot... -Paul
On Wed, 17 Apr 2002, Rubens Kuhl Jr. wrote:
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 11:12:48 -0300 From: Rubens Kuhl Jr. <rkuhljr@uol.com.br> To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Links between cabinets at commercial datacentre
Are there any rules preventing radio transmission on ISM bands from the cabinets ? You could reach other cabinets from yours with wireless LAN...
Rubens Kuhl Jr.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Rabagliati" <andyr@wizzy.com> To: <nanog@merit.edu> Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 5:57 AM Subject: Links between cabinets at commercial datacentre
The data center prohibits direct cabling between clients cabinets, even if the clients agree.
Paul Timmins paul@timmins.net http://www.timmins.net/ Home: 248-858-7526 Pager: 248-333-9113 "By definition, if you don't stand up for anything, you stand for nothing." ---Paul Timmins
"Rubens Kuhl Jr." wrote:
Spread-spectrum radio systems are not that easy to DoS, a good benefit from the original military applications.
Actually, at close range it should be trivial to Dos an 802.11 system. Just throw up a strong enough carrier anywhere within the receivers passband and it will have trouble hearing the desired traffic. Even a 2.4GHz cordless phone in the same room could cause problems. KL
On Wednesday, April 17, 2002, at 02:29 , Kevin Loch wrote:
"Rubens Kuhl Jr." wrote:
Spread-spectrum radio systems are not that easy to DoS, a good benefit from the original military applications.
Actually, at close range it should be trivial to Dos an 802.11 system. Just throw up a strong enough carrier anywhere within the receivers passband and it will have trouble hearing the desired traffic.
Or you could just microwave a bunch of burritos. Joe
Just saw this release.. http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/020417/tech_cisco_technology_1.html Bri On Wed, 17 Apr 2002, Joe Abley wrote:
On Wednesday, April 17, 2002, at 02:29 , Kevin Loch wrote:
"Rubens Kuhl Jr." wrote:
Spread-spectrum radio systems are not that easy to DoS, a good benefit from the original military applications.
Actually, at close range it should be trivial to Dos an 802.11 system. Just throw up a strong enough carrier anywhere within the receivers passband and it will have trouble hearing the desired traffic.
Or you could just microwave a bunch of burritos.
Joe
While acknowledging that a data center may make any rules it likes, I am asking nanog how common this practice is.
"data center" is too amorphous a term to be used here. private data centers owned by banks or insurance companies aren't relevant at all. telco motels aren't really data centers but the issue does come up there. someone like exodus or qwest or at&t or uunet or abovenet would be very likely to prevent their customers from directly cross-connecting. mae-west (55 s market) won't allow it either. paix, equinix, switch and data, and other "neutral colos" won't allow it to occur without a fee but the fees are reasonable (unlike, say, the cross connect fees at mae-west.) there's no answer to the question, as posed. "can you be more specific?"
On Wed, 17 Apr 2002, Paul Vixie wrote:
While acknowledging that a data center may make any rules it likes, I am asking nanog how common this practice is.
"data center" is too amorphous a term to be used here.
someone like exodus or qwest or at&t or uunet or abovenet would be very likely to prevent their customers from directly cross-connecting. mae-west (55 s market) won't allow it either. paix, equinix, switch and data, and other "neutral colos" won't allow it to occur without a fee but the fees are reasonable (unlike, say, the cross connect fees at mae-west.)
there's no answer to the question, as posed. "can you be more specific?"
To be specific, it is UUnet Cape Town. The Internet Service Providers Association of South Africa have two Peering points in South Africa - JINX (large, in Johannesburg) and CINX (small, in Cape Town) which is hosted (for free) by said UUnet data center. They (ISPA) set the rules, which are appended below, which we are unhappy with. Since the Cape Town exchange is small, we figured that there is an opportunity to start our own. The natural place to put it is in the same building as the major local content providers, which, not coincidentally, is where CINX is currently located, at said UUnet data center. There are not that many good commercial hosting environments in Cape Town, and UUNet have the biggest. We do not compete with UUnet for transit. We certainly do not compete with them as a hosting environment, though a couple of ISPs host some servers at our location. We merely wish to provide peering unencumbered with fees that we feel prevent Cape Town from competing internationally in the ICT arena. Large commercial concerns host in the USA, unless their target audience is primarily South African, in which case they pay extra and host locally. Costs-based connectivity (cheap peering) would reduce that cost, and enable South Africa to keep its foreign currency for other purposes. So - that is the larger picture, but was not my question to NANOG. We wish to be able to provide this peering, but we find that UUnets cross-connect policy interferes with our aims - as it requires potential peers in the data center to separately purchase connectivity to us (in the same building) instead of hopping onto our link by cross-connecting to another cabinet in the data center, which (of course) they waive for connections to the CINX cabinet. My question was if this was common practice. Cheers, Andy! --------------------------------------------------------- ISPA peering policy - extracts below. http://www.jinx.net.za/links.html has useful information, including :- http://www.jinx.net.za/dinxprop.html has JINX requirements for a third party setting up a Durban exchange. * In particular, potential DINX hosts should note carefully that they will be required to pay the "equivalent line charge" fees currently being implemented. This states :- Background: * At present, some companies connecting to ISPA's INXes enjoy an unfair advantage over others. Whereas most participants must lease data lines to connect to an INX, ISPA members located in the same building can connect to the INX at minimal cost. * The equivalent line charges detailed below are intended to ensure that all INX participants will enjoy equitable and fair access to ISPA's INXes. Participants affected: * Any participant not connection to an INX via a tariffed data service will be liable for an equivalent line charge. * If necessary, the INX sub-committee will determine whether or not a particular connection meets the above description. Proposed charging mechanism: * The charging scheme below is based on the estimated data line costs for lines capable of carrying monitored traffic levels. * Estimated installation costs for these lines have been amortised over 36 months and added to the monthly cost. INX equivalant line fees Traffic Monthly fee < 512 kbps R 4,000 (US$333) =< 2 Mbps R 7,000 (US$583) =< 4 Mbps R 14,000 (US$1167) =< 6 Mbps R 22,000 (US$1833) =< 8 Mbps R 29,000 (US$2417) =< 34 Mbps R 35,000 (US$2917) per 34 Mbps R 35,000 (US$2917)
... So - that is the larger picture, but was not my question to NANOG.
We wish to be able to provide this peering, but we find that UUnets cross-connect policy interferes with our aims - as it requires potential peers in the data center to separately purchase connectivity to us (in the same building) instead of hopping onto our link by cross-connecting to another cabinet in the data center, which (of course) they waive for connections to the CINX cabinet.
My question was if this was common practice.
yes, it's common for a hosting facility (which uunet cape town is.) it would not be common in a carrier/fiber hotel. if there is one of those in town you'd be well served to talk to the landlord about supporting a peering exchange there, since it will drive other sales, and the openness of it will ultimately pull business away from the necessarily-more-closed peering exchange over in the hosting center.
participants (9)
-
Andy Rabagliati -
Bill Woodcock -
Brian -
David Lesher -
Joe Abley -
Kevin Loch -
Paul Timmins -
Paul Vixie -
Rubens Kuhl Jr.