Re: NANOG67 - Tipping point of community and sponsor bashing?

["Will Hargrave" <will () harg net>]

On 15 Jun 2016, at 19:23, Sander Steffann wrote:

> > So here we are now... Where do we want to go?
> I think IXPs have indeed become too much like ISPs, providing more 
> services but also increasing complexity and cost. I prefer simple, 
> scalable and cheap solutions!
> I want to go to an IXP being a nice simple ethernet switch. Add some 
> nice graphs and a route server, and we're done. Redundancy is a 
> separate switch :)

(I spoke on this topic in the session - I regret insufficiently 
coherently, but I’ll try again)


Most of the major IXs in the European market operate in multiple 
datacentres. Why? Because it decreases the monopoly conferred upon one 
particular datacentre in a market which becomes the ‘go to’ 
location.

Dan Golding disagreed with me but I can certainly speak for LONAP where 
I feel our mission of “promoting efficient interconnection in the 
UK” is hugely enhanced by our ability to provide services in any of 
our current seven datacentres, across four different operators. London 
would not be the great city of interconnection it is without the east 
London cluster of DCs from different operators.

We have had a fair few single site IXs in London - e.g. the now defunct 
RBEIX, Sovex, Meriex. I don’t think it is a viable model for an IXP in 
a well-developed market.


Then there is another concern. What’s the plan for SIX if the Westin 
Building colo is sold to someone less benevolent and co-operative? I am 
really pleased their current arrangement seems to work well for SIX, its 
members and datacentre partners. I think our own members would be less 
comfortable with that level of risk.


Will