Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Colocation and Data Centers : Peering Question

[MorHost]

What is usually required for peering? We host a couple of small sites - total about 7mb average 95th percentile/month. We were told that we would be able to peer in a carrier neutral place like telehouse, and that we would pay $40 or so per meg.

I was wondering if this is true...What do I need to get this done? I have no router at this time, we are directly connected to our provider. What about ASN/BGP - we only use about 30 Ip's...how would we go about that...

I am quite confused at this point and am in need of some MAJOR clarification...
Thanks!

[PHPGeek2k3]

you might get a better response asking posting this in the colocation forum

Thanks
- James

[KDAWebServices]

For only 7Mbit/s you're going to struggle to get many providers to bother peering with you so I doubt it'll be cost effective at all. Especially once you've taken in to account obtain an ASN, your own IP space - although you'd most likely have to stick with punching a hole in your providers PA space, as ARIN wouldn't assign you your own IPs if you can only justify 30. Then you've also got the time spent configuring your BGP and managing it.

[Mfjp]

There isn't much point in peering. With your usage, you may as well just buy transit.

And with 30IPs, you can't really do much. You need at least a /24 to speak BGP.

[Dennis Nugent]

Two types of peering -- public and private. I am assuming that you are referring to public peering.
What is usually required for peering?

1. Your own ASN from ARIN, and at least a /24

2. A large router (along the lines of a Cisco 36xx, 75xx or 65xx, Juniper 7, etc) that can do vlans and bgp

3. Network engineers familiar with BGP. Some peering fabrics / peering customers also require a manned 24x7 NOC

4. Several hundred mbps usage -- to make it cost-effective

5. A cross-connect to the peering port

6 A peering port/peering fabric.

So your costs involved are the cost of the ASN, IP space, additional cost of the network engeineers, amortizing the hardware, the cross-connect, and the cost of the peering port.

The benefits are lower latency, improved network performance, reduced bandwidth costs, and lower operating costs IF done correctly.

So lets look at the numbers. Lets say that you already have the router, the network engineers, the ASN, etc and you find a free peering fabric that has a good existing base of users, such as the AtlantaIX. If you get a 100 meg port on the peering fabric, you wont automatically get 100 meg of usage out of it, it will be far less, based on the amount of traffic that you have and who you are peering with. Remember that if you are a web hoster that you want to peer with ISPs that have lots of eyeballs, not other webhosters.

What I have found is that you need to 'discount' the peered bandwidth by 25% to determine what the benefit is in reducing your 95th percentile bandwidth. YMMV Lets say that you actually get 50 mbps of usage out of the peering port -- it would reduce your 95th bandwidth by 37 mbps (50 mbps x 75%)

[Krazy]

As the question has arised.

I like to know some answers, hope i can get upto speed with peering.

is there a open peering concept in US like AMS-IX ,
We are planning for a coast to coast CDN with direct local peering with DSL/Cable companies and 80% traffic is destined for cable/dsl home users.
within that also i see 50% comcast rest sbc, road runner , etc..
What would be my best practice here.
with a starting capacity of 300Mbps upwards to Gigabit.

the plan is to have direct local peering with above in CA,TX,NJ,IL, etc.. and deploy servers on top of that.
just started registering poc, org id contacts at arin, and next question will be how to get a /24 units and AS numbers. etc///
does a Layer3 switch which has BGP can work for this provided all handoffs are ethernet in the exchange point. does the cable/dsl operators provide free peering for us to send the traffic over as content delivery

[ijg0]

Krazy - Firstly you will need to work out exactly how much traffic you are sending to each of the companies you wish to peer with. You will find a lot of the bigger companies will require you to meet minimum peering requirements which can be anything from 20mb/s to over 1gb/s. When you have your AS number and /24 contact each of the comapanies (try the Whois on ripe.net) to see if they wish to peer with you. Based upon your questions you have I guess you have no network infasturcture in these locations at present so you may find it more cost effective to use transit until you grow bigger.

[Krazy]

ij, noted your words,

to get AS i need to first get a /24 block, yes currently we do not have own network infrastructure in those areas. we start with sjc and start turningup each locations. however i guess i need to grow much more before i can execute this plan. else spend money for the infrasture which will justify future needs.
I have another interesting question. now that SBC and ATT paired. the major providers in california who is sbc/comcast for home users. Comcast buys from ATT, now that sbc /att merged, does that mean comcast/sbc customers now will be directly connected, as of now i see ATT is reachable through sprint from sbc. and they don have direct peering yet.

[Dennis Nugent]

within that also i see 50% comcast rest sbc, road runner , etc
..... Comcast buys from ATT, now that sbc /att merged

In order to peer with most Tier1s you will
1) need to meet them in 2 or 3 locations at least 300 miles apart
2) have an OC-12 or larger backbone
3) have a 24x7 NOC staffed with network engineers
4) there may be a minimum bandwidth requirement per location. For example, some Tier1s require a minimum of 100 mbps bandwidth per location, one used to require 500 mbps per location, minimum of 3 locations

SBC, ATT, and Comcast currently have different networks. So you would need to peer with each of them. Frankly if you go to them and state that you are running a CDN and want to peer with them they will be uninterested. Peering to them means even exchange of traffic in and out.

There are some good white papers out there by Bill Norton of Equinix. Suggest that you review them.

[Krazy]

thanks dennis

[Mfjp]

Comcast does not do any peering on their own at least 6 months back. Back then when we talk to them, all they said is "go to ATT." And of course, ATT won't talk at all unless you are huge, and have both in + out traffic. Most of us as provider will have much more push rather than pull, making it even harder.

SBC is getting difficult as well. They require 3 locations.

As with COX, they're easier, but they do have a 350mbps requirement I believe.

You may consider buying peer routes from some providers to start if you are thinking about cutting cost.

[Mfjp]

You probably want full routers capable of handling alot of BGP sessions if you want to make more than a few peers.

[Krazy]

there are products which can attract lot of push traffic for example backup service, thing is current DSL/Cable links provided by all of them are assymetric, means the people can pull but not push at high speeds, so how do carriers justify that they need lot of incoming traffic into the peer and not otherwise. i guess, even this fact is known to the people, they are just reluctant.
legally, due to assymetric lines, this kind of restriction can not be backed up by sbc./comcast

[Krazy]

buying peer routes this is something interesting, but i see a restriction by providers not to sell the peer link to somebody 3rd party, so not sure.

[Mfjp]

I'm not sure about the 3rd party part, but the product is definately out there.