Adding to "*THE POINT*, the principal advantage from a national perspective is that nz-only traffic may be effectively directed without being forced to transit the Pacific, in search of a peer (example above.net). since the available bandwidth trans-ocean is severely restricted commercially, and runs at 100% of capacity continuously, then peering locally effectively relieves the pressure on the submarine cables. APNIC quote several examples of poor policy within national communications framework where local traffic travels to the US backbone and back, due to local regualtions that make peering impossible. (India is a classic example.) Rgds Roger De Salis Dean Pemberton wrote:
Ok - Thought it was about time that the list had some more on-topic posts for the week.
So I want to tackle the issue of the WIX and APE route servers. Any why some people just don't love them.
First some background (excuse the lameness, but I thought I'd talk to a wider audience on the list while I was at it). If you want to ignore this then skip to the bottom where I get to the point (search for *THE POINT*)
There are two route servers WIX and APE for the purpose of exchangeing a list of prefix's which are reacable locally via each of those networks.
Network entities peer with these servers inorder to get local (wix/ape) nexthop information for prefix's rather than have to default route them through an upstream provider.
Example: Company A and Company B both have a presence on Citylink in Wellington. They both have differernt upstream providers. Under normal routing conditions, the traffic between these companies would be routed to their upstream providers and delt with according to their routing/billing policy. It is possible however for Company A and Company B to route traffic directly to each other and thus bypass the upstream. Gaining all the speed and billing advantages along the way.
This works well at the moment and there is no problem with this portion of the route servers.
The issue comes from ISP's peering to the route servers. Most of the ISP's who have a presence on citylink also advertise routes to the route servers. This is great. It means that if I'm using ISP A for my upstream, I can pass traffic to ISP B's networks across Citylink .
The majority of these ISP's however are not listening to any advertisments from the WIX/APE route servers. Which leads to the following situation.
Company A uses ISP A as an upstream.
Company A is learning prefix's for ISP B through the route server and will pass packets to them directly to ISP B. ISP B however is not listening to any advertisments from the route servers, and will pass all traffic BACK to Company A via ISP A. Thus negating the point of sending the traffic locally in the first place.
*THE POINT*
SO - I know a few of the reasons why ISP's are not listening to the routes from the servers, but I want to be able to understand them all.
Some possible problems ("We don't think that they are safe enough") can be fixed. Other possible concerns ("We don't peer because we don't think we need to") can not. I want to see if it's worth pursueing this kind of network design. So I want to see how many problems fall into each of my catagories above.
So if ISP's can send me the responses to: "What are the reasons that you are not listening to prefix's via the wix/ape route servers" I'd appreciate it (private email ok)
If you are already listening to all the prefix's then keep the list noise down and stay quiet =) But I know who's not - so don't try and fool me. =)
Here are some possible concerns/solutions that I prepared earlier. Might make your response easier
C: "People are morons. There is no way that I'm letting little people like Company A inject BGP routes into my network. GOD it took me long enought to understand BGP I'm not trusting some snotty nosed small company administrator" S: Ok - first of all get back on the medication. Secondly - Simon Blake (the route server admin) assures me that he has been running full import and export filters on all peering sessions for the last 18 months. So there is no way that the small networks we are talking about can advertise anything that they have not cleared with Simon first. So in a sense you are not trusting every small company admin - you are trusting Simon. So make your judgement on that.
C: "Piss off - I'm not providing domestic transit to other peoples customers. Are you mental" S: Well not last time I checked - but I have had a mountain bike accident since then. I'm not asking you to provide domestic transit for free. Just advertise the routes that you are happy to accept traffic for. for example - maybe you only advertise Wellington routes at WIX and Auckland routes at APE. You all have networks where you can tell the difference right? =)
C: "I don't peer with anyone smaller than myself" S: Thats sad. I'm getting a network version of A Christmas Coral flashbacks =) Sure if thats your company policy then I'm not about to pass judgement on it. But if it were me - I'd want to get traffic out of my network as quick as possible. And passing it to a companies upstream is not always the best (read cheapest) way of doing that. Nuff said.
C: "Peering is hard. Everytime you peer you add another level of complexity to the network" S: Sure. This is why Simon is also looking at automating the process using some route registry tools. If this is one of your concerns then make it known, but also keep in mind that it's in the pipes. And remember you only have one peer (the server) not all the different companies. Simon has already done one level of scrubbing for you. Pity him his job =)
OK
So mail me (private if you dont' want to do it to the list) your reasons for not loving the route servers. Even if all you have to say is
"Didn't know about them" or "Far too busy" (don't lie though)
Thanks
Dean
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-- \_ Roger De Salis rdesalis(a)cisco.com