Re: BGP Peer Selection Considerations

[adel () baklawasecrets com]

If nothing else by the time this deployment is finished I will surely have become extremely cynical.  Now reading 
through peoples answers, I think the general consensus is that
I would be giving too much control to provider A in the scenario I suggested below.  So as someone mentioned they have 
the ability to foul up my connections all by themselves.
> From all of this I gather that the most resilience would be provided by:

1) Go to two tier 1 carriers myself - say Global Crossing and Level 3.  Arrange to get two 100meg BGP feeds, burstable. 
 Pick them up at different datacentres as well I suppose to provide 
datacentre redundancy?  Negotiate pricing, any tips on negotiating appreciated.

2) Arrange cross connects to these providers i.e. get to the datacentres the Tier1 providers are in. They are not on 
net at the colo we are in.  With regards to arranging the cross connects 
am I able to ask the cross connect providers for fibre maps?  Is this a done thing or will they brush me off with "you 
don't need this our network is diverse?"

3) Arrange for PI space and ASN myself, so become an LIR through RIPE.

Do I really lose a lot by asking Level3 or GBLX to get the PI and ASN for me?  I think the failure mode cited by 
someone was if the PI and ASN provider goes out of business.  I would prefer 
not to go through becoming an LIR and maintaining the membership, as they are not an ISP and so it is more attractive 
to do that through one of the Tier 1 providers.

I'm not sure what my options are in terms of getting to the datacentres to pick up the Tier1 providers.   The "provider 
A" below has said they run a diverse fibre backhaul network etc etc. 
and I should go with them for connectivity to other datacentres.  Now it would be easier to go with them just because 
they are running colo for us and they run the datacentre we are in.  
However I assume that I should not be scared of arranging a second cross connect with someone else altogether.

In all of the above,  I'm most worried about administrative overhead.  Managing two cross connect providers, managing 
ongoing relationship with two Tier1 providers and so on.  However 
resilience comes at a cost I suppose is the answer.

Comments appreciated.

Adel

On Mon   7:10 PM , "William Herrin" herrin-nanog () dirtside com sent:
> On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 12:40 PM,  <adel@
> baklawasecrets.com> wrote:> I have an existing relationship with provider A,
> colo, cross connects> etc.  Provider A has offered to get the PI
> space, ASN number,> purchase the transit for us with provider B and
> manage cross> connects to provider B (they say they have a
> diverse "fibre> backhaul network").  This is quite
> attractive from a support> and billing perspective.  Also suspect that
> provider A will be> able to get more attractive pricing from
> Provider B than I> would be able to.
> > Am I missing things that I need to
> consider?
> What happens when provider A is bought by provider C and you want to
> dump provider C but keep provider B? You'll have created a conflict of
> interest for provider B in any negotiation you have with them.
>
> Be aware that provider A's diverse network for provider A's service is
> the same diverse network they'll use to connect you to provider B. As
> a result, many or most of the outages which impact provider A will
> also impact your connectivity to provider B, defeating the central
> purpose of having a provider B.
>
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
>
>
> -- 
> William D. Herrin ................ herrin@di
> rtside.com  bill () herrin us
> 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>Falls Church, VA 22042-3004