Hi Guys,
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Yes, there��s been some new developments. Yes there��s been some discussion on the relative pricing, and Yes what is on offer is different.
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I think the biggest thing that makes the APE or the WIX different in particular is that it has and always will be a highly distributed IXP. Back in the day when Simon Blake and Richard Naylor and co set it up it was lauded as the first distributed IXP in the world. Kudos to them.
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We��ve been busy making that clearer showing how distributed it is. Take a look here: http://ape.nzix.net/ and http://wix.nzix.net/ - collectively, around 24 Datacentres and 570 buildings over 2 main Cities. You don��t need to go far to get an NZIX connection.
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Diversity is good because that protects against risk. But the flip side of diversity taken too far is complexity and cost. Back in the day when I was at FX we spent a lot of time engineering routing policy and wrestling with BGP to influence traffic flows to the right place. The amount of time we spent wrestling with it was basically proportional to the number of interconnection points we had. So there is a balance to strike.
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I know the Citylink guys spent a lot of time thinking about the prices for the NZIX connections and they cross referenced data from around the world, taking into account commercial IXP operators (mainly prevalent in the US) and not for profit IXP operators (mainly in Europe) and how they priced. They sought to arrive at the middle ground price point (in a global sense), and didn��t price the premium of a highly distributed IXP in - so that really is added value. Yes you could say NZ is tiny with respect to the Global pricing reference, but in the grand scheme of things so is the actual price point for an IXP connection. It is not a big number and I��m a little bemused over what appears to be 3 companies fighting over one of the smaller parts of the pie and giving it away to get there.
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I for one welcome our new Australian IXP overlords. One thing we��ve learnt about the peering game over the last decade or more is it��s those first 4 letters in the word. Peer. Colleague. Comrade. Accomplice. Buddy. Cohort. Partner. What matters in the peering world is trust and relationship. Citylink have been doing this for a long time.
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I��d imagine that some of you will elect to have both an NZIX connection and another one. But that does mean your total peering costs go up. As I said earlier, there is a price on diversity. I��d also imagine that some of you won��t change as others have mentioned - big content tends to turn up on all the exchanges. More on that later. Citylink have some announcements coming.
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Tim��s also mentioned that we're doing stuff with SDN on the IX. I��ve spoken about this at the NZNOG conference in the past (google will find the videos for you). We are still working on it. It has proven to be a lot more challenging than we anticipated, but we��re working furiously to get a working system ready for NZNOG in Rotorua so folks can carry out some interop tests and help us make it fit you guys - the peers - best.. So I hope to be able to lock that date in soon..Happy to take questions in the meantime.
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The Transtasman stuff is great. There��s so many ISP��s now that have direct TT connectivity. Snap, Vibe, Orcon, Vocus/FX etc etc. And many offer ethernet service over that. So there��s a plethora of choices at different layers and different topologies to choose from. Whether or not getting at that via an IXP based relationship makes sense to to you is something I��d like to hear more about. Similar issue with Intercity BW.
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Anyway, enough from me. Short version of all of this is that distributed exchange points over 2 major cities, 24 Datacentres and 570 buildings is still the most awesome IMHO. That��s what you get with NZIX. Oh and Hamilton and Christchurch too.
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Beer.
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Jamie
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On 12 November 2014 10:18, Tim Hoffman <tim@hoffman.net.nz> wrote:

All,

We��ve had some interesting announcements of Megaport and IX Australia building internet exchanges into NZ over the last week or so. I��ve been a bit surprised at how little chatter there has been around this on the list.

I thought I��d put some thoughts down (as someone who has worked for a bunch of networks in NZ and is now overseas working for big content) with hope of kicking off a discussion.

At a 10,000 foot view, New Zealand has had a reasonably successful operation of IXs over the last 10-15 years. All of y��all except for the two big operators openly peer. This is awesome!

However, as has been discussed in other posts recently;
1/ More and more of the internet is becoming about connectivity from CDNs to users.
2/ More and more CDNs are coming to New Zealand and Australia
3/ Trans-tasman capacity isn��t hugely expensive

Addressing points (1) and (2), as content comes into New Zealand, we have to remember that on a global scale, New Zealand is absolutely tiny. It��s a hard business case to get a POP there as a content provider. Content providers that do come are likely just going to put in a single location - Auckland. So while WIX may make sense for ISPs in NZ peering with each other, for the bulk of the *interesting* content on the internet that you can get through peering, you��re going to have to get it in Auckland. Networks have outages, planned works, etc. So assuming that most of NZ��s interesting content is in Auckland (with a bit more over the Tasman, which isn��t too expensive to get to these days), it makes sense to have multiple (redundantly built and managed) ways of getting at this content.

It��s interesting looking at the differences between the 3 IXs we��re about to have.
Citylink, who have the critical mass of all the peers, are in the most locations, and are the most expensive. They��ve also got a product set around metro ethernet, dark fibre, and have a CDN running. And they��re doing some interesting things around a ��SDN driven IX��.
Megaport, who have placed huge focus on their ��Virtual Cross Connect�� product and being able to configure this on the fly, but also have run a pretty successful IX.
IX Australia, who are very IX focused, and have gone to great pains to ensure that that��s their only product, making them the most ��independent��. IX Australia also have public graphs of traffic levels through their IX (i.e. for NSW-iX��http://monitor.nsw.ix.asn.au/cacti/graph_image.php?action=view&local_graph_id=91&rra_id=2) - which is commendable (it would be nice to see Megaport and Citylink follow suit on this one)
I suspect you��re going to find that most of the content will try to get to all 3. It��s my hope that most of the bigger ISPs try to get to all three, then the smaller ones can go to a couple, get most NZ routes reliantly over peering, and then transit the rest if it has to happen. It would be disappointing if we didn��t see the top 5-6 IXs + all the content providers on all of them. Also it��ll be important to ensure that the result isn��t just that we have 3 split IX communities, all with different content/users on them without crossover, as this would cause a huge barrier to entry to smaller players if they have to connect to all 3.

For the community, having this competition is going to be a win. It won��t kill APE, which has huge critical mass, and has done a great job in it��s long history, but will ensure that all 3 IXs keep each other honest. What will be interesting to see is who turns up at which IX and how they all grow together.

What��s everyone else��s thoughts? It would be interesting particularly if there is anyone from Citylink, or any of the big ISPs, who could comment on their take on these developments in the market and where they will be peering?

Cheers,
Hoff

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