[1st-mile-nm] Peering, a contrast between New Mexico and the rest of the world.

[John Brown]

The complexity in the network can be reduced by using things like Route-Servers at an neutral and open exchange point.
This reduces the complexity by only need to configure a single BGP neighbor session.
The route server at Any2IX was a few lines of code on our router and that yielded over 100 peers.

Peering is a business and a technical decision.
Citizen facing entities (State, County, City, .EDU, etc) should look to adopt a liberal and open policy like most of their peers thru-out the rest of the planet.

Service providers, while being competitors, each benefit by establishing peering.  It reduces the dependency on one or two paths to others.

Most ABQ ISP's are connected via TW Telecom.  Failure there causes large-ish outage and reachability issues.
Some claim redundancy with other providers, yet the routes are not in the route table and manual intervention is needed to "turn on" the redundancy at the time of failure.

Why should an email to Las Cruces from Santa Fe depend on if the internet is working in California or Texas?

Why should an email or web visit to someone at the PRC depend on out-of-state infra-structure?

Some of the excuses I've heard on why folks don't peer.

It costs way to much money to manage and maintain the BGP session.
You are getting a benefit from us, so we should charge you for it.
What would we do if all of the ISP's wanted to peer with us. We couldn't handle that.
My network will be damaged if the BGP session fails
It violates State / or Federal purchasing rules.

Next I'll report on how easy it is to setup peering in New York City, a city that is NOT easy.  We turn up our Wave to 60 Hudson in about 75 days.

New Mexico wants to improve access to people that live here.  Service providers need to cooperate and work-together to achieve that goal.


PS:  anyone that peers with us gets our LAX peers free


> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Osmon [mailto:josmon at rigozsaurus.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 8:42 PM
> To: John Brown
> Cc: 1st mile nm
> Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Peering, a contrast between New Mexico and the
> rest of the world.
> 
> Everything John writes below is true.  Peering is a great way to increase the
> robustness of your network.  It leades to greater complexity in your network,
> but any engineering decision has trade-offs.
> 
> Any network big enough to be multi-homed between two ISPs has the
> skillset required to peer.  Each new peer will reduce the traffic load to the
> paid ISPs.  The engineering aspects will certainly have a price, but that cost is
> relatively low for a modern large network.  In the end, you can end up being
> "closer" to the networks you most want to reach it you chose a path of
> peering.
> 
> Alternatively, you can pick your ISPs so that they bear the cost of ensuring
> you're "close" to the networks you want to reach.  You'll pay more to use
> their network -- but it might be a good trade-off.
> 
> Ultimately, the decision to peer comes down to business policy.  The
> important point is to know that this "peering" exists so that you can evaluate
> if the cost/benefit ratios works for your network.
> 
> I've crawled around in a number of networks around this state.  From my
> direct sampling, I infer that the majority of NM networks already have
> routing policies in place that support their business goals.  Some simply chose
> a less complicated path to connectivity -- at the expense of a less efficient
> network path.  Those routing policies will certainly evolve with time...
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 01:47:14AM +0000, John Brown wrote:
> > Recently we upgraded our connectivity to 1 Wilshire in LAX.
> > A nexus of internet providers, end users, content, education,
> > governmental users all interconnecting to make packets work better.
> >
> > In less than 30 days we have established over 250+ peers.  Many via a
> > public fabric, some via private dedicated inter-connects.
> >
> > We added 60,000 routes to our network and we can reach those routes
> > WITHOUT having to go via a $$ TRANSIT $$ provider.
> >
> > Places like the State of Oregon (Yes Martha, the entire state gov.) peered
> in a matter of a few hours.
> >
> > UCSD, UCS, Various overseas educational entities (some very well
> > known)  all just showed up and said SURE, here are our technical
> > details.
> > Let us know when your link is up and we will confirm.
> >
> > Poof, just like that.
> >
> >
> > Its funny, in a sad kind of way, that an ISP in New Mexico is better
> connected to places OUTSIDE of New Mexico.
> >
> > Better connected to the State of Oregon
> > University of Southern California
> > University of California, San Diego
> > Places in Australia , Germany, UK, etc
> >
> > Yet our own State of NM, Our """""Leading University""""" (UNM) and
> > others are so mired in politics that this isnt' the case in our own
> > state.
> > Same could be said about various ISP's in this state...
> >
> > If we want to see our state have better connectivity then we need to
> > get past the petty politics and make engineering decisions that are
> > based on sound facts and that IMPROVE our inter-connectivity.
> > In the face of a disaster, we are better connected to those places
> > OUTSIDE of our state, instead of inside our state.
> > Shouldn't that be the OTHERWAY AROUND ???
> >
> > Peering also SAVES MONEY.  IT SAVES THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS!!!!!!
> >
> >
> > Here are some metrics.
> >
> > Its 5 router hops from my desktop to the State of Oregon's web site.
> > 	And the packets go via
> > 	Albuquerque
> > 	LAX
> > 	State's Web Server
> >
> > Its 13 router hops from my desktop to the State of New Mexico's web site
> > 	And the packets go via
> > 	Colorado Springs
> > 	Denver
> > 	St. Louis
> > 	Chicago
> > 	then to Sprint,
> > 	then to TW Telecom
> > 	then BACK into New Mexico
> >
> >
> >
> > Lets goto USC.
> >
> > Its 5 router hops from my desktop to USC's web site
> >
> > Its 18 (EIGHTEEN) router hops from my desktop to UNM's web site.
> > And yet UNM is less than 3 miles from my desktop......
> >
> >
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