Re: Vancouver IXP - VanTX - BCNet

[ML <ml () kenweb org>]

On 8/23/2013 1:30 PM, Jacques Latour wrote:
> Bill, not true.
>
> Following on our vision for Canada to have an IXP in every major city, specifically for Calgary, CIRA worked with 
> CYBERA to organize a town hall meeting in Calgary, on September 14, 2013.  At the meeting, we had interested members 
> of the community (Content delivery, ISP, government, R&E, CIRA, others) together to start the development of a new 
> IXP in Calgary.
>
> Cybera being local, they took the lead in working with the community members in setting up governance, technical 
> architecture, location, etc...  CIRA actively participated in the various committees.    
>
> CIRA is planning the deployment of equipment for the IXP, a .ca DNS Anycast stack, NTP servers and space for M-Lab 
> nodes.  We also work with PCH to have a PCH anycast stack installed in Calgary.  We talked to Akamai and Google to be 
> part of the Calgary IXP.  HE actually did build to Data Hive (Preferred data center in Calgary).  Doing our part in 
> trying to get as much content, ISP, eyeballs, core internet services to be present at IXP.  The AlbertaIX is cash 
> poor at that moment in time so CIRA was looking at options to fund equipment or provide start-up grants, nothing was 
> done up to now with respect to providing equipment or funds.
>
> Note: CIRA's job is not to go in and put a switch and leave.  CIRA works with the community to get the IXP up and 
> running.  We have criteria to participate,  the IXP must be a member based, vendor neutral non-profit organization 
> with a viable trusted community to operate and sustain an IXP.  CIRA is acting as a catalyst, not a doer. The 
> community is the doer.  Ask the people in Winnipeg www.mbix.ca and Montreal qix.ca . We are planning the launch of 
> mbix this September as well.  This is an example where the IXP build was successful.
>
> Back to Calgary, something special occurred, while we were all working on setting up AlbertaIX (we started fast but 
> the pace slowed down significantly), a new IXP came to 'life' YYCIX in Data Hive, yycix.ca.  Long story short, CIRA 
> is waiting for things to settle before we continue providing more support and invest in deployment our .CA 
> infrastructure.  When the "dust" settles, we will deploy our .ca infrastructure and be a member of the communities 
> (peer).
>
> There's a chance we're going to have two IXPs in Calgary, hopefully they would be in the same data center to leverage 
> our investment,  if we have two, then it's going to make it confusing for the new potential peers to pick the right 
> one or both.
>
> All in all, CIRA's objective was to have 1 IXP in Calgary, we have one now, perhaps 2 in the future, so mission 
> accomplished.  It's up to the community to get their act together (no pun intended), and if they need our help, then 
> we're there to help with governance, funding, technical expertise, etc...


What is the purpose of creating a second IXP in the same colo space in
Calgary?  From what I can gather YYCIX is giving away the first gigport
for now.  Unless CIRA is negotiating cheap
transport/colospace/power/cross connects in Datahive, what is the point?