Hurricane Electric ISP custom routing via BGP communities
Hello, Has anyone tried to use Hurricane Electric ISP custom routing via BGP communities ? I thought that a provider with such a Tier would allow customers to influence inbound (to customer) routing using additional BGP communities. But seems they don't have free service for that, they're offering $200/mo fee per session to make the custom communities work. I'm shocked:)
There are a lot of great ISPs with full bgp communities support. Just use them. On Mon, Nov 4, 2024 at 08:02 Edvinas Kairys <edvinas.email@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
Has anyone tried to use Hurricane Electric ISP custom routing via BGP communities ?
I thought that a provider with such a Tier would allow customers to influence inbound (to customer) routing using additional BGP communities. But seems they don't have free service for that, they're offering $200/mo fee per session to make the custom communities work. I'm shocked:)
It always amazes me how far many Internet engineers, peering coordinators and other buyers will go to haggle every last nickel on the costs of circuits, crowd connects, space and power. Of course, everyone wants a fair deal and a fair price, myself included. But all this infrastructure costs real money to operate. HE is nearly always the least cost transit provider in the markets they serve. I think that making a lower profit margin makes it difficult for them to justify investing in the staff time and tooling for BGP communities when the vast majority of their customers don’t care about it at all. $200/month extra for BGP community support in the context of what the large “tier 1s” are charging for transit seems reasonable to me. If you need it, you actually need it and should pay. And based on my past experience, the HE NOC response and personal attention will be superior to nearly anyone else. Also seems a better value for money than the absurd cross connect pricing found almost everywhere, unless you meet in the street. Jim Troutman, jamesltroutman@gmail.com Pronouns: he/him/his 207-514-5676 (cell) On Mon, Nov 4, 2024 at 08:18 Mehmet <mehmet@akcin.net> wrote:
There are a lot of great ISPs with full bgp communities support. Just use them.
On Mon, Nov 4, 2024 at 08:02 Edvinas Kairys <edvinas.email@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
Has anyone tried to use Hurricane Electric ISP custom routing via BGP communities ?
I thought that a provider with such a Tier would allow customers to influence inbound (to customer) routing using additional BGP communities. But seems they don't have free service for that, they're offering $200/mo fee per session to make the custom communities work. I'm shocked:)
Speaking from personal experience here, the $200/month extra I was quoted by an HE sales rep in the past was only for local-pref modification communities within their own network. It seems the *only* other action community they support is RTBH which doesn't at all compare with what other tier 1 providers support when it comes to being able to (at least partially) control where your traffic goes or doesn't go. Kind regards, Peter On Mon, Nov 4, 2024 at 10:04 AM Jim Troutman <jamesltroutman@gmail.com> wrote:
It always amazes me how far many Internet engineers, peering coordinators and other buyers will go to haggle every last nickel on the costs of circuits, crowd connects, space and power. Of course, everyone wants a fair deal and a fair price, myself included. But all this infrastructure costs real money to operate.
HE is nearly always the least cost transit provider in the markets they serve. I think that making a lower profit margin makes it difficult for them to justify investing in the staff time and tooling for BGP communities when the vast majority of their customers don’t care about it at all.
$200/month extra for BGP community support in the context of what the large “tier 1s” are charging for transit seems reasonable to me. If you need it, you actually need it and should pay. And based on my past experience, the HE NOC response and personal attention will be superior to nearly anyone else.
Also seems a better value for money than the absurd cross connect pricing found almost everywhere, unless you meet in the street.
Jim Troutman, jamesltroutman@gmail.com Pronouns: he/him/his 207-514-5676 (cell)
On Mon, Nov 4, 2024 at 08:18 Mehmet <mehmet@akcin.net> wrote:
There are a lot of great ISPs with full bgp communities support. Just use them.
On Mon, Nov 4, 2024 at 08:02 Edvinas Kairys <edvinas.email@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
Has anyone tried to use Hurricane Electric ISP custom routing via BGP communities ?
I thought that a provider with such a Tier would allow customers to influence inbound (to customer) routing using additional BGP communities. But seems they don't have free service for that, they're offering $200/mo fee per session to make the custom communities work. I'm shocked:)
On Mon, 4 Nov 2024, Jim Troutman wrote:
It always amazes me how far many Internet engineers, peering coordinators and other buyers will go to haggle every last nickel on the costs of circuits, crowd connects, space and power. Of course, everyone wants a fair deal and a fair price, myself included. But all this infrastructure costs real money to operate.
HE is nearly always the least cost transit provider in the markets they serve. I think that making a lower profit margin makes it difficult for them to justify investing in the staff time and tooling for BGP communities when the vast majority of their customers don’t care about it at all.
$200/month extra for BGP community support in the context of what the large “tier 1s” are charging for transit seems reasonable to me. If you need it, you actually need it and should pay. And based on my past experience, the HE NOC response and personal attention will be superior to nearly anyone else.
Where this explanation breaks (at least for me) is that since they offer BGP communities features for a fee, they clearly have already put in the time to develop/deploy the config necessary for it, and allowing use of it really doesn't cost them anything. The additional charge (per circuit) may not be much, but it's nickel and diming, and something I'll try to remember the next time an employer is considering adding HE as a transit. When shopping for transit in the past, BGP community support has always been a requirement. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis, MCP :) | I route Blue Stream Fiber, Sr. Neteng | therefore you are _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________
Maybe they are trying to recoup those costs they invested in the development. Hurricane is the LEAST nickel and diming outfit around. They’re one of the only places i know of that doesn’t charge an MRC on cross-connects. Between the no MRC on XCs, awesome and responsive tech support, i whole-heartedly recommend them. If you want some examples of datacenters that nickel and dime you to death, feel free to shoot me an email and i’ll share some recent horror stories from another provider… Cheers, Mike
On Nov 4, 2024, at 10:51, Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org> wrote:
On Mon, 4 Nov 2024, Jim Troutman wrote:
It always amazes me how far many Internet engineers, peering coordinators and other buyers will go to haggle every last nickel on the costs of circuits, crowd connects, space and power. Of course, everyone wants a fair deal and a fair price, myself included. But all this infrastructure costs real money to operate. HE is nearly always the least cost transit provider in the markets they serve. I think that making a lower profit margin makes it difficult for them to justify investing in the staff time and tooling for BGP communities when the vast majority of their customers don’t care about it at all. $200/month extra for BGP community support in the context of what the large “tier 1s” are charging for transit seems reasonable to me. If you need it, you actually need it and should pay. And based on my past experience, the HE NOC response and personal attention will be superior to nearly anyone else.
Where this explanation breaks (at least for me) is that since they offer BGP communities features for a fee, they clearly have already put in the time to develop/deploy the config necessary for it, and allowing use of it really doesn't cost them anything.
The additional charge (per circuit) may not be much, but it's nickel and diming, and something I'll try to remember the next time an employer is considering adding HE as a transit. When shopping for transit in the past, BGP community support has always been a requirement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis, MCP :) | I route Blue Stream Fiber, Sr. Neteng | therefore you are _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________
Where this explanation breaks (at least for me) is that since they offer BGP communities features for a fee, they clearly have already put in the time to develop/deploy the config necessary for it, and allowing use of it really doesn't cost them anything.
by that logic, they should give me transit for free randy
One possibility is that customers using more advanced features may cause themselves odd issues and make troubleshooting their connectivity more difficult since it is less "standard" of a connection at that point. Thus, there exists the potential for more customer support costs. John Stitt -----Original Message----- From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+jstitt=hop-electric.com@nanog.org> On Behalf Of Randy Bush Sent: Monday, November 4, 2024 1:28 PM To: Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org> Cc: NANOG Operators' Group <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: Re: Hurricane Electric ISP custom routing via BGP communities
Where this explanation breaks (at least for me) is that since they offer BGP communities features for a fee, they clearly have already put in the time to develop/deploy the config necessary for it, and allowing use of it really doesn't cost them anything.
by that logic, they should give me transit for free randy CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. If you are not expecting this message contact the sender directly via phone/text to verify.
Nope, for that exact reason. AS6939 is the only transit provider that charges to use BGP communities AFAIK. It's just another way for them to make $$$ and the only way it'll change is to vote with your feet. - CH Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg> ________________________________ From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+chris=thesysadmin.au@nanog.org> on behalf of Edvinas Kairys <edvinas.email@gmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, November 5, 2024 12:02:05 AM To: NANOG Operators' Group <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: Hurricane Electric ISP custom routing via BGP communities Hello, Has anyone tried to use Hurricane Electric ISP custom routing via BGP communities ? I thought that a provider with such a Tier would allow customers to influence inbound (to customer) routing using additional BGP communities. But seems they don't have free service for that, they're offering $200/mo fee per session to make the custom communities work. I'm shocked:)
I wish this would have good outcomes, but almost no customers use advanced features, which cost money to develop and maintain. Likely by voting with your feet, support expensive customers aggregate to feature full companies, and support cheap customers aggregate to feature empty companies, creating perverse incentive, especially in such markets as IP transit, which is largely seen as interchangeable and the only metric is cost. Nanog is unfortunately not representative. On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 at 15:16, Christopher Hawker <chris@thesysadmin.au> wrote:
Nope, for that exact reason. AS6939 is the only transit provider that charges to use BGP communities AFAIK. It's just another way for them to make $$$ and the only way it'll change is to vote with your feet.
- CH
Get Outlook for Android ________________________________ From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+chris=thesysadmin.au@nanog.org> on behalf of Edvinas Kairys <edvinas.email@gmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, November 5, 2024 12:02:05 AM To: NANOG Operators' Group <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: Hurricane Electric ISP custom routing via BGP communities
Hello,
Has anyone tried to use Hurricane Electric ISP custom routing via BGP communities ?
I thought that a provider with such a Tier would allow customers to influence inbound (to customer) routing using additional BGP communities. But seems they don't have free service for that, they're offering $200/mo fee per session to make the custom communities work. I'm shocked:)
-- ++ytti
On Mon, Nov 04, 2024 at 03:34:55PM +0200, Saku Ytti wrote:
I wish this would have good outcomes, but almost no customers use advanced features, which cost money to develop and maintain.
Likely by voting with your feet, support expensive customers aggregate to feature full companies, and support cheap customers aggregate to feature empty companies, creating perverse incentive, especially in such markets as IP transit, which is largely seen as interchangeable and the only metric is cost.
Yes, the challenge I've seen here is that as randy said "so give me free transit", the issue that i've seen is propogation of routes much further than expected which makes things far more difficult, and this gets worse when you talk about any sort of anycast(ed) prefixes and how you monitor those. It takes a lot of time as well to debug and figure out if it's an oddity of the routing architecture or something simpler that leads to these issues. I also know that testing all these variants can be quite hard as well, so there's something to be said about the investment point. Also saku is right on the below as well:
Nanog is unfortunately not representative.
- Jared -- Jared Mauch | pgp key available via finger from jared@puck.nether.net clue++; | http://puck.nether.net/~jared/ My statements are only mine.
I’m not sure what features their paid BGP community version includes—is it only blackholing? Does it support not exporting to specific regions or ASNs? This could help us optimize routing. Their cost-performance ratio is very high, and they provide free IPv6 transit at the IXP. My colleague mentioned that their Layer 2 transport seems to be software-based, similar to using protocols like GRE. I believe they’re one of the few ISPs that support MTU 9000? *Brandon Z.* HUIZE LTD www.huize.asia <https://huize.asia/>| www.ixp.su | Twitter This e-mail and any attachments or any reproduction of this e-mail in whatever manner are confidential and for the use of the addressee(s) only. HUIZE LTD can’t take any liability and guarantee of the text of the email message and virus. On Tue, 5 Nov 2024 at 12:25, Jared Mauch <jared@puck.nether.net> wrote:
On Mon, Nov 04, 2024 at 03:34:55PM +0200, Saku Ytti wrote:
I wish this would have good outcomes, but almost no customers use advanced features, which cost money to develop and maintain.
Likely by voting with your feet, support expensive customers aggregate to feature full companies, and support cheap customers aggregate to feature empty companies, creating perverse incentive, especially in such markets as IP transit, which is largely seen as interchangeable and the only metric is cost.
Yes, the challenge I've seen here is that as randy said "so give me free transit", the issue that i've seen is propogation of routes much further than expected which makes things far more difficult, and this gets worse when you talk about any sort of anycast(ed) prefixes and how you monitor those.
It takes a lot of time as well to debug and figure out if it's an oddity of the routing architecture or something simpler that leads to these issues. I also know that testing all these variants can be quite hard as well, so there's something to be said about the investment point. Also saku is right on the below as well:
Nanog is unfortunately not representative.
- Jared
-- Jared Mauch | pgp key available via finger from jared@puck.nether.net clue++; | http://puck.nether.net/~jared/ My statements are only mine.
On 2024-11-04 08:02, Edvinas Kairys wrote:
But seems they don't have free service for that, they're offering $200/mo fee per session to make the custom communities work. I'm shocked:)
Not surprised. They also charge $200/mo for a BFD session… not exactly a microtransaction approach here. Michael
participants (13)
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Brandon Z. -
Christopher Hawker -
Edvinas Kairys -
Jared Mauch -
Jim Troutman -
John Stitt -
Jon Lewis -
Mehmet -
Michael Brown -
Mike Lyon -
Peter Potvin -
Randy Bush -
Saku Ytti