This document discusses the benefits of Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) and peering. It explains that IXPs provide a neutral place for different actors in the internet ecosystem like content providers, carriers, and ISPs to directly peer and exchange traffic. Direct peering through an IXP offers benefits like reduced latency for local traffic, increased security since traffic stays local, and improved resilience. The document provides examples of how peering keeps local traffic local and discusses factors like route servers that support peering arrangements at an IXP.

1. The practical benefit
of an IXP
20 May 2021
Flavio Luciani – Namex CTO

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ABOUT ME
Born in 1981
Overloaded dad
Loser jazz pianist
Computer engineer (2004)
NAMEX NOC, 2006-2020
NAMEX CTO, April 2020
EURO-IX FPC members
Ripe NCC CPF
Routing Security passionate
Formerly ISOC MANRS
Ambassador

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The Internet
As a network of networks, the
Internet critically depends on
adequate interconnection between
the different participants in the
Internet ecosystem.
Internet
ecosystem
Relationships
Actors

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RELATIONSHIPS
Autonomous Systems need to interconnect in order to mutually share their resources and to enable customers to
reach each other
TRANSIT
PEERING

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TRANSIT RELASHIONSHIP
AS 1
AS 4
AS 2
AS 3
Although necessary for global connectivity,
transit has its own inconveniences:
Transit can have higher economical costs for
customer ASes
Transit can have high performance costs in terms
of round-trip time
Transit gives no way for customer AS to influence
the way its traffic goes around the Internet
Local communications between “close” ASes are
penalized by transit
Transit
Transit
Transit

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PEERING RELASHIONSHIP
AS 1
AS 4
AS 2
AS 3
Transit
Transit
Transit
direct peering
Direct peering introduces some benefits
over a hierarchically tiered organization:
Peering is a mutual agreement between peers
Round-trip times are dramatically reduced
Local communications, local traffic exchange
is improved
Peering is quite always for free

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BORDER GATEWAY PROTOCOL (BGP)
BORDER GATEWAY PROTOCOL (BGP) is the protocol for routing data packets between ASes

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The IXP
A neutral place where relationships
between actors in the Internet
ecosystem happen.
IXP
CONTENT PROVIDERS
INTERNATIONAL
CARRIERS
NATIONAL
PROVIDERS
RESEARCH NETWORKS
CDNS
LOCAL ISPS
ANYCAST REPLICAS OF ROOT NAME
SERVERS
DDOS SERVICES
Bilateral peering at lower prices! ;-)

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Internet Peering at IXPs
FABRIC
ONE PLATFORM
PEERING LAN
ONE DOMAIN
ROUTE SERVERS
ONE COMMODITY
PEERING KEY ELEMENTS
COLOCATION
MMR

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PEERING PLATFORM
IXP
ISP1 - AS1 ISP3 – AS3
ISP2 – AS2
ISP4 – AS4
ISP5 – AS5
ISP6 – AS6
ISP7 – AS7
ISP8 – AS8
I-BGP
I-BGP
I-BGP
I-BGP
I-BGP
I-BGP
I-BGP
I-BGP
R1
E-BGP
E-BGP
E-BGP
E-BGP
E-BGP
E-BGP
E-BGP
wan link
lan link
e-bgp
i-bgp

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PEERING PLATFORM

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ROUTE SERVER
WHAT?
Route Servers (RS) provide support for the
establishment of peering arrangements between
IXP peers: theoretically, a single peering session
replaces a complex full mesh BGP interconnection
WHY?
Reach a lot of parties with just one BGP session
Providing backup for direct peering session
Preventing/Mitigating misconfigurations (hijacks)
Easy entry point for new members to the
exchange – immediate traffic
Security features

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The challenges
International Content/Transit Providers establish a
presence at the IXP
WHAT
Satisfy the needs of local ISPs / Content closer to end
users and transit open market
WHY
Create a critical mass of local ISPs
HOW
Local ISPs may compete at higher levels in the Internet
value chain, transit requirement is reduced, peering
value is drastically increased
GOALS

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IXPs AROUND THE WORLD
197 known IXPs
48 country
146 cities
EURO-IX – 82 members
• EURO-IX
• 82 members

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IXPs IN ITALY
NAMEX – Roma
MIX – Milano
TOP-IX Torino
VS-IX Padova
More than 200 ASNs of small/medium
ISPs connected at NAMEX, MIX, TOP-IX,
VS-IX

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NAMEX
Neutral, non-profit, member-based
160 racks colocated, about 800 PNI
160Gbps publicly exchanged traffic
Second largest IXP in Italy
Website: https://www.namex.it
NEUTRAL
COLOCATI
ON
PEERING REMOTE
PEERING
SPACE
&
POWER
MEET ME
ROOM
REMOTE
HANDS
REMOTE
IXP
REMOTE
AGGREGA
TION

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Peering key factors
1
Keep local traffic local
2
Security
3
Resilience

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Why peer – Keep Local Traffic Local
Lowers the latency
Increase the throughput
Improves user experience in terms of speed and stability
Performance
Saturday, March 6th 2021
The football match in the Italian Serie
A Championship between Juventus –
Lazio.
Wednesday, April 21nd 2021
The football match in the Italian Serie
A Championship between Juventus –
Parma.

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Why peer – Keep Local Traffic Local
Game update “Call of Duty”, released
by a known and large CDN through
the peering platform.
Thursday, April 22nd 2021
large Italian carriers
large CDN
large Italian carriers
medium local ISP
small local ISP

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Why peer – Keep Local Traffic Local
Greater control over traffic flows
Security
Keeping services as close as possible to
their users contributes to making the
Internet a more secure ecosystem.
ISP
CDN
AS 2
AS 3
direct peering
more secure path
insecure path
Italian small-size ISP. Over 60% of the overall traffic
flows through the IXP (in a secure way).
CDN
CDN
CDNs

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Why peer – Resilience
Backup for Transit Disruption
Improves overall bandwidth
Increase of number of possible “paths”
Traffic during covid era at Namex
During the pandemic, Internet traffic
is experiencing a significant
increase. Distance learning as well
as communications in general need
more performance (keep local
traffic), high capacity and reliability.
morning distance learning
+40%

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Useful links
Internet Revelead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_Edm9NMigo&t=191s
Keep Local Traffic Local: https://blog.namex.it/2021/03/finalmente-il-traffico-locale-e-rimasto-locale/
Namex Fabric evolution: https://blog.namex.it/2021/04/switching-to-ip-fabrics/
Namex: https://www.namex.it/
European IXP Association: https://www.euro-ix.net/en/
EURO-IX update: https://ripe82.ripe.net/wp-content/uploads/presentations/27-euroix-connect-ripe82-v2.pdf
IXP Federation: http://www.ix-f.net/
Route Server: https://www.manrs.org/2020/08/how-to-secure-routing-in-the-ixp-route-servers-infrastructure/

23. THANK YOU!
www.namex.it f.luciani@namex.it
The practical benefit of an IXP