Is it really worth peering at IXPs?

RIPE Labs posted an article a while back, titled Is Is Really Worth Peering at IXPs? A Comparative Study.

In it, the authors look at the Milan Internet Exchange (MIX), and NaMeX, in Rome. They authors examine the effects of the two Italian internet exchanges have on medium-sized ISPs in Italy.

The main comparison is between data flowing over a path with traverses an IXP, versus a transit path with uses commercial ISPs only.

The authors conclude:

Our experiments put in evidence that peering arrangements that make use of IXPs have a positive effect on key performance indicators such as latency, hop count, packet loss and jitter. They also reduce the number of foreign ISPs traversed by the traffic between users located in Italy and critical Internet services like Banks and Public Administrations.

Ready the study for full details, but rest assured that IXPs perform well: They shorten network paths, which increases the performance of their members’ networks, plus keep traffic domestic.

IXPs are good for the internet, let’s keep building them!

MBIX adds second location

MBIX has expanded its footprint to a second location: Les.net YWG2, 294 Portage Avenue

During the past two years, since inception, MBIX has existed only in one location, the GSC datacentre on the 5th floor of 167 Lombard.  All our peers till today have connected to the Cisco Nexus 7004 installed at this location.

MBIX members always needed to determine how to establish a physical link to the 167 Lombard building. Today, MBIX has a second option for connecting, the Les.net YWG2 datacentre, located on the 2nd floor of 294 Portage Avenue, in Winnipeg.

MBIX has deployed a Cisco Nexus 2232PP, which supports SFP and SFP+ connectors, which support copper at 10, 100 and 1000 Mbps, or fibre at 1 and 10 Gbps.  The fabric extender is linked to the main switch with two 10 Gbps fibre optic links, over dark fibre provided by Les.net.  The level of performance and services available at the Les.net switch is equivalent to GSC.

Interested in connecting to MBIX at the 294 Portage location?  Contact Les.net to make colocation arrangements and sort out the details of connecting.

CIRA’s 2014-2015 Report to Members

CIRA2015
MBIX is highlighted in the section A Vision for Canada’s Internet.

 

WiBand connects to MBIX

MBIX is pleased to announced its newest connected member, WiBand Communications.

WiBand is a ISP which operates in cities across western Canada providing wireless and fibre-optic connection services.

AS15102 has connected to the peering fabric at 1Gbps, and is peering with the route servers. This connection will provide higher performance, lower latency, and more redundancy their customers, and we’re happy to have them on board.