Re:

["Daniel L. Golding" <dan () netrail net>]

There are a number of boxes that can do this, or are in beta. It would be
a horrific mistake to base an exchange point of any size around one of
them. Talk about difficulty troubleshooting, not to mention managing
the exchange point. Get a Foundry BigIron 4000 or a Riverstone
SSR. Exchange point in a box, so to say. The Riverstone can support the
inverse-mux application nicely, on it's own, as can a Foundry, when
combined with a Tiara box.

Daniel Golding                           NetRail,Inc.
"Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness"

On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, Vadim Antonov wrote:

> There's another option for IXP architecture, virtual routers over a
> scalable fabric.  This is the only approach which combines capacity of
> inverse-multiplexed parallel L1 point-to-point links and flexibility of
> L2/L3 shared-media IXPs. The box which can do that is in field trials
> (though i'm not sure the current release of software supports that
> functionality).
>
> --vadim
>
>
> On Tue, 9 Jan 2001, Masataka Ohta wrote:
>
> > Randy;
> >
> > > > BGP Route Reflector IXPs need a AS number. I'll send you a URL with a
> > > > whitepaper. The BGP Route Reflector IXPs have proved to offer a low entry
> > > > cost for ISPs (for those places that do not have the deep pockets to get
> > > > big routers).
> > >
> > > except that big routers are not needed for small-isp exchanges.  remember,
> > > an isp participating in such an exchange has only to add the prefixes of
> > > their local peers to their routing, typically a dozen or so.  there are very
> > > successful layer-two exchanges where the peers use what we think of as cpe
> > > routers, e.g. cisco 2501s.  and what's nice is that this is on the right
> > > path to exchange growth.
> > >
> > > l3 exchange ponints are a labor suck and are fragile.
> >
> > Maybe. However, l2 is for telco.
> >
> > l2 exchange ponints are a labor suck and are fragile.
> >
> > The right path is l1, though, then, there is less reason to have
> > exchange points.
> >
> > It will be more obvious as the peering speed between two ISPs exceeds
> > that of a single physical interface.
> >
> >                                             Masataka Ohta