Re: "vpn exchange point"

[Michael Dillon <wavetossed () googlemail com>]

> Do you know of any "vpn exchange point" implementations please? -I mean something like IXP but for mpls vpns
>
> Let's say I'm an ISP that bought or merged with many small ISPs each with it's own AS# and would like to start 
> offering mpls vpn services end to end

In the MPLS world, this type of interconnect is called NNI (Network to
Network Interconnect)
and it needs to take into account things like COS mappings. I don't
know of anyone doing this
as an exchange, But I imagine that if you had a router with a private
ASN, you could always
do NNI with a different ASN on each port and therefore, achieve
something analogous to an
IXP.

But you could only do this if you control all the ASNs involved,
because vPn is a form of
private network, so you need a higher level of trust with the other
ASns. Most MPLS providers
only use this to extend their reach into a territory where they will
likely never build PoPs.
For instance, to get good coverage of Russia, population 150 million,
or the 4 Nordic
countries, you could either build loss-leader PoPs, spend lots of
money on longlining
or do NNI with an MPLS provider that has good coverage because they
focus on smaller
regional customers.

--Michael Dillon

P.S. If you do this, it would be interesting to report back to NANOG
on how you configured
it, and what are the strengths and weaknesses.