At 01:25 PM 10/23/97 -0400, Vijay Gill wrote:
Anyone willing to speak forth and give notes of their experience in setting up a NAP.
Vijay; I had a lot to do with making the Pacific Bell ATM NAP work, so I'll weigh in with a few comments while waiting for my plane out of Phoenix. Q) Should I use a switch or a router? A) If you are a disinterested third party L2 infrastructure provider, you need to offer your NAP customers a L2 infrastructure. If you are an ISP and you want to offer service to resellers, then you need to offer them a L3 infrastructure. The short answer is "you need a switch". Q) What sort of switch should I use? A) Use one that goes real fast on the interfaces, has a humongous aggregate throughput, and offers plenty of buffer space for high bandwidth delay product TCPs to bandwidth-hunt. Early ATM switches didn't have sufficient buffer space for practical use of TCP over UBR because Bellcore said they didn't need it. The DEC gigaswitch suffers Head of Line blocking problems, the sort of mistake an engineer makes who is building his first switch and doesn't like to read the literature. Some late model ATM switches have big buffers and work just fine for Internet NAPs. Use UBR service. ABR service is unproven and may interact with TCP congestion avoidance in bad ways, but this is unproven. I should think a honking big frame switch (I prefer MAC frames) with big buffers should work well, but do you want to be the first to try to run a production NAP with one? I don't think you need fancy admission control, rate control, explicit feedback congestion. Would be nice for the hardware to have four to eight queues and some switches for finding the right header bits to use to classify packets so that differential service might work when ready. A lot of folks think I'm an ATM bigot or at least suspect because I used to talk to Bellheads, but a few years ago the only big switches that possibly worked were ATM based. I still think that is true, because the old gigaswitch doesn't work, due to HOL blocking. No one has tried anything else yet, so there it stands. All I care is that it works and 1) simple 2) big buffers does the trick today. Of course, you could just sling an Ethernet hub in a rack and get started that way. It's been done. :-) --Kent
Forgive my ignorance on these matters, but why haven't many NAPS tried to be L1 based, or at least provide the option of private wire/fiber between the larger customers in the same room. It seems to me that this would significantly reduce the complexity and packet-loss we're currently seeing. How long would it take to troubleshoot a cross-over FE compared to trouble shooting two routers connected via a oversubscribed switch. Marketing types are concerned about how to bill and track these, but there should be some easy ways around those issues. --Ben Kirkpatrick Data Products, Electric Lightwave, DID=360.816.3508 -not speaking for ELI, not even speaking- "Consciousness: that annoying time between naps."
Forgive my ignorance on these matters, but why haven't many NAPS tried to be L1 based, or at least provide the option of private wire/fiber between the larger customers in the same room. It seems to me that this would significantly reduce the complexity and packet-loss we're currently seeing. How long would it take to troubleshoot a cross-over FE compared to trouble shooting two routers connected via a oversubscribed switch. Marketing types are concerned about how to bill and track these, but there should be some easy ways around those issues.
--Ben Kirkpatrick Data Products, Electric Lightwave, DID=360.816.3508 -not speaking for ELI, not even speaking- "Consciousness: that annoying time between naps."
Many have and do. What you describe is often called "private interconnect" I understand you can get this service at: Sprint PAIX LAP and most MAE's -- --bill
Ben Kirkpatrick wrote:
Forgive my ignorance on these matters, but why haven't many NAPS tried to be L1 based, or at least provide the option of private wire/fiber between the larger customers in the same room. It seems to me that this would significantly reduce the complexity and packet-loss we're currently seeing. How long would it take to troubleshoot a cross-over FE compared to trouble shooting two routers connected via a oversubscribed switch. Marketing types are concerned about how to bill and track these, but there should be some easy ways around those issues.
--Ben Kirkpatrick Data Products, Electric Lightwave, DID=360.816.3508 -not speaking for ELI, not even speaking- "Consciousness: that annoying time between naps."
This *is* becoming more popular; in the US, the main problem is that many (most?) of the exchange points are operated by telcos, who are tariffed. This means that any connection between separate entities is a "circuit" that they must charge a certain minimum amount for. As more telcos manage to move their exchange point operations into the non-regulated portion of their respected businesses, this may change, and exchanges are currently being built by non-telco entities, which are allowed to have more reasonable charges to connect cages in the same facility together. (Disclaimer: in my other life, I work for one such facility... the PAIX in Palo Alto) Personally, I see this mix of "public" and "private" exchange in the same facility as being a necessary evolution of the infrastructure of the net; one size definitely does not fit all. +j -- Jeff Rizzo http://boogers.sf.ca.us/~riz
On Wed, Oct 29, 1997 at 08:25:33AM -0800, Ben Kirkpatrick, ELI wrote:
Forgive my ignorance on these matters, but why haven't many NAPS tried to be L1 based, or at least provide the option of private wire/fiber between the larger customers in the same room. It seems to me that this would significantly reduce the complexity and packet-loss we're currently seeing. How long would it take to troubleshoot a cross-over FE compared to trouble shooting two routers connected via a oversubscribed switch.
The PAIX is doing something very similar to this. The prices for interconnects between cages are very reasonable. Alec -- +------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ |Alec Peterson - ahp@hilander.com | Erols Internet Services, INC. | |Network Engineer | Springfield, VA. | +------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
On Wed, 29 Oct 1997, Alec H. Peterson wrote:
The PAIX is doing something very similar to this. The prices for interconnects between cages are very reasonable.
You are mistaken. In their original white paper (I still have it somewhere) they proposed no cost cross connects between ISPs, but once they were setup the business manager for PAIX set the fee at $1000 per cross connect between ISPs after he calculated how much money he could make by doing so. The thinking probably was "MFS does it, why not us?". This was annoying because it destroyed one of the original features of the NAP. However, you can't argue with a NAP facility that is completely sold out (like PAIX). Cross connects (fiber or copper) to carriers at PAIX are a much more reasonable $75/month rate. Mike. +------------------- H U R R I C A N E - E L E C T R I C -------------------+ | Mike Leber Direct Internet Connections Voice 408 282 1540 | | Hurricane Electric Web Hosting & Co-location Fax 408 971 3340 | | mleber@he.net http://www.he.net | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
While there is no vaild reason for a monthly reoccuring on a cross connect. Unless, there is a tech going out and dusting the cross-connect every month? Any carrier who charges monthly chrages on a wire hanging in D-Ring, while collecting money for the cross connected parties to even be in the same building, is not very nice. A one time fee ($250 to $1,000) if they are doing the labor is much sensible. One reason I like Telehouse so much.
Cross connects (fiber or copper) to carriers at PAIX are a much more reasonable $75/month rate.
Mike.
+------------------- H U R R I C A N E - E L E C T R I C -------------------+ | Mike Leber Direct Internet Connections Voice 408 282 1540 | | Hurricane Electric Web Hosting & Co-location Fax 408 971 3340 | | mleber@he.net http://www.he.net | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
While there is no vaild reason for a monthly reoccuring on a cross connect. Unless, there is a tech going out and dusting the cross-connect every month? Any carrier who charges monthly chrages on a wire hanging in D-Ring, while collecting money for the cross connected parties to even be in the same building, is not very nice.
A one time fee ($250 to $1,000) if they are doing the labor is much sensible.
And of course the D-Ring is free, the wall/ceiling where it hangs is free, the utilities needed so you can see what is hanging in that D-Ring, the insurance to cover the landlords butt when you fall off the ladder, the water & plumbing so's you can wash out your soiled undies and rinse off the spurting blood from the arterial puncture from that fall... all free. --bill
Wait - it's free to be in the PAIX? MAE-East? West? CIX? I thought they charged you money to be there. Maybe I am wrong. On Wed, 29 Oct 1997, Bill Manning wrote:
While there is no vaild reason for a monthly reoccuring on a cross connect. Unless, there is a tech going out and dusting the cross-connect every month? Any carrier who charges monthly chrages on a wire hanging in D-Ring, while collecting money for the cross connected parties to even be in the same building, is not very nice.
A one time fee ($250 to $1,000) if they are doing the labor is much sensible.
And of course the D-Ring is free, the wall/ceiling where it hangs is free, the utilities needed so you can see what is hanging in that D-Ring, the insurance to cover the landlords butt when you fall off the ladder, the water & plumbing so's you can wash out your soiled undies and rinse off the spurting blood from the arterial puncture from that fall... all free.
Wait - it's free to be in the PAIX? MAE-East? West? CIX? I thought they charged you money to be there. Maybe I am wrong.
While there is no vaild reason for a monthly reoccuring on a cross connect. Unless, there is a tech going out and dusting the cross-connect every month? Any carrier who charges monthly chrages on a wire hanging in D-Ring, while collecting money for the cross connected parties to even be in the same building, is not very nice.
A one time fee ($250 to $1,000) if they are doing the labor is much sensible.
And of course the D-Ring is free, the wall/ceiling where it hangs is free, the utilities needed so you can see what is hanging in that D-Ring, the insurance to cover the landlords butt when you fall off the ladder, the water & plumbing so's you can wash out your soiled undies and rinse off the spurting blood from the arterial puncture from that fall... all free.
Nope. Its not free. And simple one off costs are not enough. The recuring costs are there and anyone who does not pass them on is to be taken advantage of and abused. Of course if you can charge what the market will bear, then your stock price will rise as you can pay out those phat dividends. Customer complaints simply show that they are paying (attention/the usual and customary fees). If they were -really- pissed (drunk/upset) they'd vote w/ their pocketbook and find other accomodations elsewhere. -- --bill
Why aren't one-off costs enough? There is *no* re-occuring costs with a cable hanging on the ceiling. Point taken on 'what the market will bear', but thats not the discussion here.
Nope. Its not free. And simple one off costs are not enough. The recuring costs are there and anyone who does not pass them on is to be taken advantage of and abused. Of course if you can charge what the market will bear, then your stock price will rise as you can pay out those phat dividends. Customer complaints simply show that they are paying (attention/the usual and customary fees). If they were -really- pissed (drunk/upset) they'd vote w/ their pocketbook and find other accomodations elsewhere.
-- --bill
Why aren't one-off costs enough? There is *no* re-occuring costs with a cable hanging on the ceiling.
See previous post wrt insurance,utilities,rent and manpower costs. D-Rings are not the results of immaculate inception nor are they a "commons" where anyone can, for a single modest fee have a claim in perpetuity for space rights. Of course some take the tactic of regular fixed fees to cover the incidentals of ongoing cost recovery and periodic maintinance. Others work on a time/materials basis. -- --bill
A one time fee ($250 to $1,000) if they are doing the labor is much sensible.
And of course the D-Ring is free, the wall/ceiling where it hangs is free,
IN addition, sorry to be not so explicit; the upfront charge should include the cost of running the cable in its entirety; including cable, cable management stuff, etc.
participants (8)
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Alec H. Peterson -
Alex Rubenstein -
Ben Kirkpatrick, ELI -
Bill Manning -
bmanning＠ISI.EDU
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Kent W. England -
Mike Leber -
the Riz