AW: ams-ix - worth using?

2006-08-25 Thread Gunther Stammwitz

  Without getting in the middle of the eternal contest over who 
 is better, LINX or AMS-IX (each has its own advantages and 
 disadvantages), the AMS-IX website says 165Gbps, the LINX 
 website says 95Gbps (actual publicly switched traffic), and 
 the DECIX website says 71Gbps. Some portion of the AMS-IX 
 traffic seems to be Dutch-specific content that stays in the 
 country, but there is plenty of global traffic there too.

I've just been in touch with a colleague of mine and he has to add the
following:
Hey a biased analysis,
IIRC AMS-IX allows all kind of traffic including upstream, not only peering
traffic. DE-CIX is peering only. I assume the CIXes in US behave similar.
Besides that, I wonder what kind of hardware will they be using in the
future, assuming they grow like all other CIXes
[I'm posting for Andreas John here because he's currently not subscribed to
this list. Hope that's okay for you.]


Regards,
Gunther




Re: AW: ams-ix - worth using?

2006-08-25 Thread Patrick W. Gilmore


On Aug 25, 2006, at 8:10 AM, Gunther Stammwitz wrote:


Without getting in the middle of the eternal contest over who
is better, LINX or AMS-IX (each has its own advantages and
disadvantages), the AMS-IX website says 165Gbps, the LINX
website says 95Gbps (actual publicly switched traffic), and
the DECIX website says 71Gbps. Some portion of the AMS-IX
traffic seems to be Dutch-specific content that stays in the
country, but there is plenty of global traffic there too.


I've just been in touch with a colleague of mine and he has to add the
following:
Hey a biased analysis,
IIRC AMS-IX allows all kind of traffic including upstream, not only  
peering
traffic. DE-CIX is peering only. I assume the CIXes in US behave  
similar.

Besides that, I wonder what kind of hardware will they be using in the
future, assuming they grow like all other CIXes


There is no fair stat, since you cannot quantify an IX into a  
single dimension.


Equinix Ashburn almost certainly carries more traffic through the  
building than AMS-IX carries, probably by many times, but that stat  
is not published as most of the traffic is over PI.


The AMS-IX member list includes people hooking up for VoIP peering  
and other things at Kbps instead of Mbps or Gbps.


There is a building in Seoul, South Korea, which some claim passes  
multiple terabits per second over private peering.  (Honestly, I  
don't believe that number, but it's been claimed.)


Etc., etc.

The numbers mean what the numbers mean.  AMS-IX has more traffic  
flowing over their public switch infrastructure than any other public  
exchange in the world.  This means only and exactly that AMS-IX has  
more traffic flowing over their public switch infrastructure than any  
other public exchange in the world - nothing more, nothing less.


If you base your buying / peering requirements on one dimension of an  
n-dimensional decision matrix, you are probably not choosing optimally.



All that said, AMS-IX is an outstanding IX.  A network with  
significant European traffic is almost certain to find peering at   
AMS-IX beneficial.  But the same is true for other exchanges (e.g.  
LINX).


--
TTFN,
patrick


Re: ams-ix - worth using?

2006-08-25 Thread Niels Bakker



On Aug 25, 2006, at 8:10 AM, Gunther Stammwitz wrote:
I've just been in touch with a colleague of mine and he has to add the 
following:
Hey a biased analysis, IIRC AMS-IX allows all kind of traffic including 
upstream, not only peering traffic. DE-CIX is peering only. I assume the 
CIXes in US behave similar. Besides that, I wonder what kind of hardware 
will they be using in the future, assuming they grow like all other 
CIXes


AMS-IX allows the exchange of IPv4 and IPv6 traffic and doesn't mind 
whether you pay to receive certain prefixes.  At any IXP, you can only 
send traffic towards peers that actually announced the netblocks to you 
[give or take next-hop fudging that some allow and some disallow].



* [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Patrick W. Gilmore) [Fri 25 Aug 2006, 14:34 CEST]:
There is no fair stat, since you cannot quantify an IX into a 
single dimension.


Equinix Ashburn almost certainly carries more traffic through the 
building than AMS-IX carries, probably by many times, but that stat 
is not published as most of the traffic is over PI.


Excellent example on why this is not a fair comparison, as Equinix 
Ashburn is a building and AMS-IX is a collection of Ethernet switches. :-)


Given that the internal sequential numbering for fibers at NIKHEF (one 
of four housing sites with an AMS-IX switch) runs into the thousand, 
I'm willing to believe that the amount of traffic exchanged over private 
interconnects at all four locations is significant, if not way bigger 
than what's sent across the AMS-IX platform.



All that said, AMS-IX is an outstanding IX.  A network with 
significant European traffic is almost certain to find peering at 
AMS-IX beneficial.  But the same is true for other exchanges (e.g. 
LINX).


Thanks, Patrick.

TIE,


-- Niels.

--
This message shall not be carried in aircraft on combat missions or
when there is a reasonable chance of its falling into the hands of
an unfriendly nation, unless specifically authorised by the Author.


Re: ams-ix - worth using?

2006-08-24 Thread James Blessing

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matthew zeier wrote:

 Does it simply provide an easy way to privately connect to transit and
 peers?  Or can I also go crazy and peer with anyone who wants to peer
 (like in the olden day!) ?

EU peering is very different from US peering (as many have found out when the
hop across the pond) if you can find which networks the traffic is going to then
look at LINX, AMS-IX and DE-CIX to see where you will get the best coverage then
you will find that many networks will peer (but check their peering rules).

Have a look at peeringdb.com for more help

J
- --
Entanet International
http://www.enta.net/

ps we'll peer :)
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Re: ams-ix - worth using?

2006-08-24 Thread Ian Mason



On 23 Aug 2006, at 22:46, matthew zeier wrote:




(I know little about AMS-IX and am still waiting for someone from  
there to get back to me...)


My NA bandwidth right now is ~200Mbps and about half of that  
appears to be EU destined.  I'm opening an EU POP soon and am  
trying to figure out what sort of value AMS-IX would give me.


Does it simply provide an easy way to privately connect to transit  
and peers?  Or can I also go crazy and peer with anyone who wants  
to peer (like in the olden day!) ?


If it's your sole/first european peering point you should also  
consider the LINX in London. In terms of traffic, routes and peering  
partners both LINX and AMS-IX are similar. This isn't an accident as  
both peering points are of a similar age, run in a similar fashion  
and they cooperate a lot at the management level sharing experiences  
etc. LINX works out cheaper for most folks but there's not a lot in  
it. If you're an anglophone it might tip you slightly towards London  
but equally it's hard to find an educated Dutchman who does not speak  
good English. The LINX has slightly more member input into its  
operations with more general meetings than AMS-IX holds.




AW: ams-ix - worth using?

2006-08-24 Thread Gunther Stammwitz

Costs for leased lines from the states to either Linx, Ams-Ix or DE-Cix are
all more or less the same.
You should chose the ixp from you can benefit most. DE-Cix has done a lot in
the past few months to attract more members from eastern Europe. Because of
its position just in the middle of Europe you should have the best coverage
to western as well as eastern Europe.

A short comparison:

Exchange / Traffic on public exchange vlan / Number of members
LINX: ~ 77 Gbps / 210 members
AMS-IX: ???* Gbps / 244 members
DE-CIX: 51 Gbps / 184 members

* = the webpage says about 110 Gbps but as far as I know a lot of Dutch isps
are carrying some sort of mirror-traffic over the ams-ix because of legal
monitoring reasons (correct me if I'm wrong)

If you ask me then AMS-IX and LINX are both very good exchanges. The de-cix
is a little bit smaller but has a lot of potential due to eastern Europe
isps joining more and more.

Gunther




Re: ams-ix - worth using?

2006-08-24 Thread Richard A Steenbergen

On Thu, Aug 24, 2006 at 11:33:17PM +0200, Gunther Stammwitz wrote:
 
 Costs for leased lines from the states to either Linx, Ams-Ix or DE-Cix are
 all more or less the same.
 You should chose the ixp from you can benefit most. DE-Cix has done a lot in
 the past few months to attract more members from eastern Europe. Because of
 its position just in the middle of Europe you should have the best coverage
 to western as well as eastern Europe.
 
 A short comparison:
 
 Exchange / Traffic on public exchange vlan / Number of members
 LINX: ~ 77 Gbps / 210 members
 AMS-IX: ???* Gbps / 244 members
 DE-CIX: 51 Gbps / 184 members
 
 * = the webpage says about 110 Gbps but as far as I know a lot of Dutch isps
 are carrying some sort of mirror-traffic over the ams-ix because of legal
 monitoring reasons (correct me if I'm wrong)

Without getting in the middle of the eternal contest over who is better, 
LINX or AMS-IX (each has its own advantages and disadvantages), the AMS-IX 
website says 165Gbps, the LINX website says 95Gbps (actual publicly 
switched traffic), and the DECIX website says 71Gbps. Some portion of the 
AMS-IX traffic seems to be Dutch-specific content that stays in the 
country, but there is plenty of global traffic there too.

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen [EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)


Re: AW: ams-ix - worth using?

2006-08-24 Thread Hank Nussbacher


On Thu, 24 Aug 2006, Gunther Stammwitz wrote:


Exchange / Traffic on public exchange vlan / Number of members
LINX: ~ 77 Gbps / 210 members
AMS-IX: ???* Gbps / 244 members
DE-CIX: 51 Gbps / 184 members


I'm curious if any US based IXs exceed 100Gbps.  Or has Amsterdam and 
London become the center of the Internet universe?


-Hank
http://www.interall.co.il



* = the webpage says about 110 Gbps but as far as I know a lot of Dutch isps
are carrying some sort of mirror-traffic over the ams-ix because of legal
monitoring reasons (correct me if I'm wrong)


Re: AW: ams-ix - worth using?

2006-08-24 Thread Richard A Steenbergen

On Fri, Aug 25, 2006 at 06:56:56AM +0300, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
 
 On Thu, 24 Aug 2006, Gunther Stammwitz wrote:
 
 Exchange / Traffic on public exchange vlan / Number of members
 LINX: ~ 77 Gbps / 210 members
 AMS-IX: ???* Gbps / 244 members
 DE-CIX: 51 Gbps / 184 members
 
 I'm curious if any US based IXs exceed 100Gbps.  Or has Amsterdam and 
 London become the center of the Internet universe?

Not everyone publishes their traffic stats, some pseudo-publically, and 
some not at all. The total for every Equinix Exchange in the US (thats 
Ashburn, New York Metro, Chicago, Dallas, San Jose, and Los Angeles) 
combined is currently only 93Gbps peak (a huge upsurge since they launched 
a 10GE product several months back, it was at 40Gbps before that). Equinix 
is pretty much the vast majority of interesting public peering in the US 
today, with the closest runners-up being PAIX Palo Alto (numbers 
unpublished, but speculation is around 35Gbps), followed by NYIIX 
(16Gbps). It is probably safe to speculate that AMSIX is as large or 
larger than all of the public peering in the US combined.

Why the difference? Well for starters, the US exchange points are 
typically priced at 3-6x the equivilent sized port at LINX AMSIX DECIX 
etc, so it just doesn't make economic sense for most US networks to peer 
publically. Also, US exchange points are almost all run by commercial 
facility operators who use the ix's to promote colocation and 
crossconnects in their facilities, vs the European exchange points who are 
colocation facility neutral. The US IX operators are not motivated to 
promote as many people as possible on the exchanges, since this just 
means increased costs of operating the switches with no new colo and 
reduced crossconnect revenue. They're satisfied with keeping the exchanges 
priced at a premium, as an entry level point for new users and low 
speed peer aggregator for bigger networks, and then making everyone else 
use private peering.

Thus the vast majority of peering in the US happens via private 
interconnection instead of via public peering. Of course this is a self 
feeding cycle too, because of the low cost and ease of entry there are 
hundreds of networks of every ilk peering at the European exchanges, which 
means there are far more open-peering people compared to the US exchanges. 
This makes it very attractive for even US based companies to get started 
peering with a pseudowire to Europe, compared with going to a US exchange. 
Also, not that it matters (because the absurdly high pricing has kept new 
customer turnup at an absolute minimum), but most of the facilities where 
the US exchange points are run from are currently sold out, particularly 
to new customers. :)

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen [EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)


ams-ix - worth using?

2006-08-23 Thread matthew zeier



(I know little about AMS-IX and am still waiting for someone from there 
to get back to me...)


My NA bandwidth right now is ~200Mbps and about half of that appears to 
be EU destined.  I'm opening an EU POP soon and am trying to figure out 
what sort of value AMS-IX would give me.


Does it simply provide an easy way to privately connect to transit and 
peers?  Or can I also go crazy and peer with anyone who wants to peer 
(like in the olden day!) ?


Re: ams-ix - worth using?

2006-08-23 Thread Mikael Abrahamsson


On Wed, 23 Aug 2006, matthew zeier wrote:

Does it simply provide an easy way to privately connect to transit and 
peers? Or can I also go crazy and peer with anyone who wants to peer 
(like in the olden day!) ?


There are plenty of ISPs both at AMSIX and LINX and they're mostly very 
happy to peer with people that they would otherwise see thru US transit 
partner. My guess is that you'll be able to offload quite a bit of your EU 
transit if you connect to AMSIX.


If you otoh purchase EU transit thru someone, it's quite likely that a 
chunk of the bigger EU ISPs won't peer with you (we already peer with 
your upstream) so you probably want to think about how you're going to 
play the peering game! :)


Otoh purchasing transit in Amsterdam will probably get you quite decent 
pricing and with your low traffic volume it might make economic sense to 
wait with the peering until you have grown into higher volume.


I'd say AMS-IX is mostly for peering with a lot of people, if that answers 
your question.


--
Mikael Abrahamssonemail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]