An Overview of Peering; Benefits of Peering Andrew Ogilvie Managing Director, Xtraordinary Networks Ltd

Why am I here today? (Very briefly) Xtraordinary Networks Cloud Hoster - HQ in Edinburgh Hosting in Edinburgh (Gyle) & London (Interxion) Member of LINX since 2005

How does the Internet work? The Internet is a 'network of networks' “Internet was designed to survive a nuclear attack” - not true. But work did consider robustness and survivability, including the capability to withstand losses of large portions of the underlying networks What do we mean by a network?

What is a Network? (According to the pedants on Wikipedia) An Autonomous System is a collection of connected Internet Protocol (IP) routing prefixes under the control of one or more network operators that presents a common, clearly defined routing policy to the Internet

What is a Network? (In plain English) Autonomous System – typically an ISP, hosting provider, content provider, datacentre or large organisation Normally used to 'multi-home' – connect to multiple Internet providers and/or for 'peering' Approx 25,000 Autonomous Systems or 'Networks' form the Internet

Example Network AS Numbers BBC AS2818 Brightsolid AS5564 BT (UK) AS2856 Hurricane Electric AS6939 IFB AS8902 Fluency AS56595 Janet AS786 Pulsant AS12703 Xtraordinary AS30827

So how does one Network communicate with one of the other 25,000 Networks around the world? Peering is part of the answer

Peering is where two networks exchange traffic Either at an Internet Exchange (e.g. LINX) Or directly, between routers Larger networks will peer at lots of different locations

Largest Global Internet Exchanges London – LINX Amsterdam – AMSIX Frankfurt – Decix

What is an Internet Exchange?

Why would you peer? More control – direct exchange of traffic with nobody else in the way Improve quality – direct physical route, quicker path, lower latency, no contention Reduce costs – peering is normally cheaper than buying 'IP transit' – the alternative to peering

Diversity and resilience – another route for traffic to follow – spread the load Technical Contacts - if there are problems you can talk to the exchange tech staff or directly to contacts at other networks If the exchange breaks - be in the know! Peering brings technical and marketing kudos

AustriaTelekom Austria TA AG8447 GermanyTelefonica Deutschland GmbH6805 GermanyVodafone D2 GmbH3209 GreeceOTEGlobe S.A IcelandIceland Telecom6677 IrelandEircom Group Plc5466 Israel013 Netvision Ltd1680 MalaysiaTelekom Malaysia Berhad4788 RomaniaRCS & RDS S.A.8708 RussiaCJSC Company TransTeleCom20485 RussiaGolden Telecom3216 South AfricaInternet Solutions (PTY) Ltd.3741 South KoreaSK Broadband Co., Ltd.9318 TurkeyTurk Telekom9121 UAEetisalat8966

Latency – Round Trip Time Latency – London to Edinburgh milliseconds Computer gaming, video, VOIP, remote desktop, applications – can be sensitive to latency

An Exchange Can Be Where 'eyeballs' meet 'content' Eyeballs e.g. consumer ISPs – BT, Talk Talk, Sky, Virgin Media, Mobile Networks Content – iPlayer, Netflix, hosters, applications

Not All Peering Occurs on an Internet Exchange Peering across the LINX 'fabric' is known as public peering. The alternative is private peering directly between networks - 'sling us a cable'

What do you need to peer on an exchange? - An Autonomous System (AS) number - A router - Routes & traffic - Some money - Technical clue – BGP4 routing

You Don't Have to Peer With Everyone Choice of - Open Peering (with anyone, often via a route- server) - Selective Peering (pick your partners) - Very Restricted Peering (Tier-1 big boys)

Why we welcome Scottish IX initiative Establishing a Scottish Internet Exchange is long overdue It makes technical sense for Scottish Internet traffic to be 'peered off' in Scotland, not sent down to London and back again Growing rise in traffic – e.g. iplayer, downloads, backups – maybe now is the time Strategic economic benefits

Why have LINX run Scottish Internet Exchange? Credibility Brings large audience and contacts of existing LINX members Technical experience Benefits of scale Legal, billing, admin covered Manchester exchange is active & growing

Thank-you Any questions? Andrew Ogilvie AS30827 xtrahost.co.uk