[NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Brent Legg]

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First, let me offer a public THANK YOU to Dave Taht for reaching out to us about the specifics of our Wichita IXP project, and for inviting me to join this group.  It’s been disheartening to see folks talk about us & the project on public forums like LinkedIn without first engaging us in conversation to learn the specifics of what we’re actually doing.  I’d like to think that those who have been disparaging have only done so because they don’t understand what we’re trying to achieve.

To begin, I think there is confusion in the terminology being used.  When we say “IXP,” we mean the facility (building, venue) where interconnection & peering occurs.  The “IX” is the ethernet switch in the building.  When someone says an IXP can be built for $8k, that’s apples-to-oranges with what we’re doing.  Yes, a switch can be procured for $8k.  But where does it go?  What if there is no safe, secure, neutral place for it to go?  Then such a place must be built.  That’s what we’re building in Wichita.

Saying an IXP can be built for $8k is enormously confusing to many policymakers who do not understand the issue or how interconnection & peering actually work, yet have enormous power to set policy and spend money that will affect the future of the Internet for generations.

We began this whole initiative by asking a series of questions to help us arrive at our model for IXP (building) proliferation.  I’ll use Wichita as the context for these questions, but these could just as easily apply to any other similar city that is home to a large public research university:


  *   Should Wichita, with a regional metro population of 600k+, be literally dependent, from an interconnection standpoint, on Kansas City and Denver forever?  No.
  *   Okay, then what type of facility does Wichita need?  Ideally, something that can meet current needs and scale to meet future needs.
  *   What are the attributes of such a facility?
     *   Does it need to be carrier-neutral?  Yes.
     *   Does it need to be secure?  Yes.
     *   Does it need to provide a level-playing field for networks of all types?  Yes.
     *   Does it need to be able to convey rights to, and protect the rights of, its tenants?  Yes.
     *   Does it need to be a facility that networks can rely on to remain “up” in the wake of adverse events?  Yes.
        *   Resilient from power outages?  Yes.
        *   Resilient from cooling equipment failures? Yes.
        *   Resistant to wind damage?  Yes.
        *   Resistant to vandalism or ballistics damage?  Yes.
     *   Does it need to be financially sustainable?  Yes.
     *   Is “best effort” good enough?  No.
     *   Then does it need to be professionally managed?  Yes.
  *   Is there an existing facility in Wichita that can meet those needs?  No.
  *   So one must be built?  Yes.
  *   Where should it be built?  Where a concentration of eyeball traffic already exists that can grow a peering ecosystem faster than it might otherwise, and that is also proximate to existing fiber plant, and where diverse manholes can be placed on the edge of public right-of-way.

In the case of Wichita, that’s at Wichita State University.

Creating a secure, neutral, resilient interconnection facility with proper cooling, power systems, lockable cabinet space, diverse manholes and POE isn’t cheap.  The whole project is actually more than the $5M grant we received.  We’re putting in over $800k in cash, plus additional in-kind match.

We’ve done the data analyses necessary to determine which communities need such facilities, and that’s how we came up with our list of 125 target communities.  Most of them are home to public research universities, but have no IXP or IX.  Not all of those communities are equal in terms of priority, but all of them have a need, and we’re actively seeking pathways to scale that preserve our core principles and avoid the need for grants.  But that’s a big challenge.

I really appreciate the opportunity to provide clarity on the project and I’m happy to answer your questions.  Surely we agree on much more than we disagree.

--Brent Legg, Connected Nation

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Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Bill Woodcock]

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> On Feb 21, 2024, at 23:54, Brent Legg via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> I think there is confusion in the terminology being used.  When we say “IXP,” we mean the facility (building, venue) where interconnection & peering occurs.

Yes, if that’s your intent, you’re being very confusing.  

Perhaps it would be less confusing if you called the IXP and IXP, and called the “facility (building, venue)” say, a “building” or “facility” or, if appropriate, a “datacenter.”

                                -Bill


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Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Dave Taht]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 8:02 PM Brent Legg via Nnagain
<nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
> First, let me offer a public THANK YOU to Dave Taht for reaching out to us about the specifics of our Wichita IXP project, and for inviting me to join this group.  It’s been disheartening to see folks talk about us & the project on public forums like LinkedIn without first engaging us in conversation to learn the specifics of what we’re actually doing.  I’d like to think that those who have been disparaging have only done so because they don’t understand what we’re trying to achieve.

I was wildly enthusiastic to see what you were proposing appear in the
press. It was a breath of potentially fresh air in an otherwise
depressing post RDOF, post BEAD environment where it seemed like the
only metrics were speedtests and passings.

I try very hard to get people of wildly disparate backgrounds to
converse, and escape the bubbles they are in. I have tried to gather
together on this old-fashioned email *discussion* list both
technologists and policy-makers to clear the air in ways that cannot
be encapsulated in 240 characters. These two groups (a lot of old
internet experts here) have not been communicating very well of late,
ironically, over the best communication medium ever invented.

It is sad that email lists have so been in decline the past 20+ years,
overwhelmed by marketing and spam, as an email address is the only
universal identifier we have for so many other transactions. The
advantage of a discussion list, over all the faddy technologies, are:
you retain a copy of what you said, everyone else does also, and the
internet at least used to make it searchable into the far future.
Remembering that I had a dispute or discussion with @randomperson and
finding them again via the technology-of-the-day (g+ anyone?, slack?
disquis? hackernews?) is really hard otherwise, and I do hope that
email makes a comeback.

But someones need to start maintaining it better.

>
>
> To begin, I think there is confusion in the terminology being used.  When we say “IXP,” we mean the facility (building, venue) where interconnection & peering occurs.  The “IX” is the ethernet switch in the building.  When someone says an IXP can be built for $8k, that’s apples-to-oranges with what we’re doing.  Yes, a switch can be procured for $8k.  But where does it go?  What if there is no safe, secure, neutral place for it to go?  Then such a place must be built.  That’s what we’re building in Wichita.

To not annoy us old farts, clarifying that you mean a carrier neutral
facility or datacenter with an IXP would go a long way. :)

Too many in the past built gold-plated IXPs, ending up with an
appalling cost model that attracts nobody. This total plan,
at this cost, is a *very good* one, and my hope would be, commoditized
and widely replicated to even more than the 120 locations you project
- but my hope is that the IXP component will mirror the successful IXP
models already existing in the USA.

The costs of interconnecting networks have fallen dramatically, and
can fall further.

>
>
> Saying an IXP can be built for $8k is enormously confusing to many policymakers who do not understand the issue or how interconnection & peering actually work, yet have enormous power to set policy and spend money that will affect the future of the Internet for generations.

Operational expense needs to be discussed. The underlying technologies
used to "make it happen", need to be selected. It is amazing what a
modern cheap 100GB 32 port switch can do. IPv6 is mandatory nowadays
while still finding a way to carry what little remains of IPv4 space
efficiently is needed. It would help if there was a local mirror of
one or more of the root DNS servers. Some really tough design choices
regarding what forms of active ethernet fiber vs a vs gpon need to be
made. And so on. Who makes those decisions?

>
>
>
> We began this whole initiative by asking a series of questions to help us arrive at our model for IXP (building) proliferation.  I’ll use Wichita as the context for these questions, but these could just as easily apply to any other similar city that is home to a large public research university:

Thank you for sharing this last criterion. I had done a similar (much
briefer) study targetting latency and resilience primarily, and what
it would cost to do more "rural IXPs" - call them RXPs - every 50
miles or so - on the cheap as an outgrowth of BEAD. But that would be
a subject for another thread.

But I did not limit it to "research" universities, but to areas that
had universities. Certainly there is high demand for sexy AI-related
things, but the nuts and bolts of how to design and build networks, is
lacking.

I regard network design and operations to be a branch of civil
engineering nowadays, and most operations people are quite leery of
letting grad students loose with operational networks. I would love to
see more universities actually teaching the skills to be a decent
sysadmin (or SRE), because basic knowledge of packets, routing, tcp,
bgp, resiliency, and so on is in the decline. Being a BOFH requires
far more skills than a electrician and is actually comparable in
skills and stress to being a doctor. (SREs get paid pretty well, but
most fall into the profession rather than being directly trained on
it)

Instead, I have been coping (as part of bead), at 6 week educational
programs intended to train people how to splice fiber.

So I would broaden your targets to places that also intend to teach
people how to design and maintain civil infrastructure, and plan ahead
for disaster recovery. This includes connecting up governments and
emergency services. Reusing old postal buildings is an option, as are
other lower grades of schools.

I would love to see curricula for the next generation of BOFHs that
included formerly basic things like how to decode a packet capture and
teachings from TCP/ip volume 3, illustrated, and everything
in-between.

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/705/

>
>
>
> Should Wichita, with a regional metro population of 600k+, be literally dependent, from an interconnection standpoint, on Kansas City and Denver forever?  No.
> Okay, then what type of facility does Wichita need?  Ideally, something that can meet current needs and scale to meet future needs.
> What are the attributes of such a facility?
>
> Does it need to be carrier-neutral?  Yes.
> Does it need to be secure?  Yes.
> Does it need to provide a level-playing field for networks of all types?  Yes.
> Does it need to be able to convey rights to, and protect the rights of, its tenants?  Yes.
> Does it need to be a facility that networks can rely on to remain “up” in the wake of adverse events?  Yes.
>
> Resilient from power outages?  Yes.
> Resilient from cooling equipment failures? Yes.
> Resistant to wind damage?  Yes.
> Resistant to vandalism or ballistics damage?  Yes.
>
> Does it need to be financially sustainable?  Yes.

So that is the good question. How do you do opex?

> Is “best effort” good enough?  No.

Redundancy helps.

> Then does it need to be professionally managed?  Yes.

Where will they come from? What software do they have to manage the
facility? Who writes the software?

>
> Is there an existing facility in Wichita that can meet those needs?  No.

In general I use latency as a proxy for where interconnects should go.
Historically this has been about 500 miles. I thought it was
interesting to explore what (as part of Biden´s ev charger program)
what it would take to have an old fashioned IXP ever 50 miles. Turns
out that is pretty close 8k in gear + a lot of fiber.

> So one must be built?  Yes.
> Where should it be built?  Where a concentration of eyeball traffic already exists that can grow a peering ecosystem faster than it might otherwise, and that is also proximate to existing fiber plant, and where diverse manholes can be placed on the edge of public right-of-way.
>
>
>
> In the case of Wichita, that’s at Wichita State University.

Do they teach how to run a network?

>
>
>
> Creating a secure, neutral, resilient interconnection facility with proper cooling, power systems, lockable cabinet space, diverse manholes and POE isn’t cheap.  The whole project is actually more than the $5M grant we received.  We’re putting in over $800k in cash, plus additional in-kind match.
>
>
>
> We’ve done the data analyses necessary to determine which communities need such facilities, and that’s how we came up with our list of 125 target communities.  Most of them are home to public research universities, but have no IXP or IX.  Not all of those communities are equal in terms of priority, but all of them have a need, and we’re actively seeking pathways to scale that preserve our core principles and avoid the need for grants.  But that’s a big challenge.
>
>
>
> I really appreciate the opportunity to provide clarity on the project and I’m happy to answer your questions.  Surely we agree on much more than we disagree.
>
>
>
> --Brent Legg, Connected Nation
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nnagain mailing list
> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain



-- 
40 years of net history, a couple songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9RGX6QFm5E
Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos

Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[rjmcmahon]

Boston University spent $305M on this and it doesn't have an IXP.

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/center-for-computing-and-data-sciences-photo-essay/

It's like building a magnificent train station w/o any tracks to/fro the 
station.

Bob
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 8:02 PM Brent Legg via Nnagain
> <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> 
>> First, let me offer a public THANK YOU to Dave Taht for reaching out 
>> to us about the specifics of our Wichita IXP project, and for inviting 
>> me to join this group.  It’s been disheartening to see folks talk 
>> about us & the project on public forums like LinkedIn without first 
>> engaging us in conversation to learn the specifics of what we’re 
>> actually doing.  I’d like to think that those who have been 
>> disparaging have only done so because they don’t understand what we’re 
>> trying to achieve.
> 
> I was wildly enthusiastic to see what you were proposing appear in the
> press. It was a breath of potentially fresh air in an otherwise
> depressing post RDOF, post BEAD environment where it seemed like the
> only metrics were speedtests and passings.
> 
> I try very hard to get people of wildly disparate backgrounds to
> converse, and escape the bubbles they are in. I have tried to gather
> together on this old-fashioned email *discussion* list both
> technologists and policy-makers to clear the air in ways that cannot
> be encapsulated in 240 characters. These two groups (a lot of old
> internet experts here) have not been communicating very well of late,
> ironically, over the best communication medium ever invented.
> 
> It is sad that email lists have so been in decline the past 20+ years,
> overwhelmed by marketing and spam, as an email address is the only
> universal identifier we have for so many other transactions. The
> advantage of a discussion list, over all the faddy technologies, are:
> you retain a copy of what you said, everyone else does also, and the
> internet at least used to make it searchable into the far future.
> Remembering that I had a dispute or discussion with @randomperson and
> finding them again via the technology-of-the-day (g+ anyone?, slack?
> disquis? hackernews?) is really hard otherwise, and I do hope that
> email makes a comeback.
> 
> But someones need to start maintaining it better.
> 
>> 
>> 
>> To begin, I think there is confusion in the terminology being used.  
>> When we say “IXP,” we mean the facility (building, venue) where 
>> interconnection & peering occurs.  The “IX” is the ethernet switch in 
>> the building.  When someone says an IXP can be built for $8k, that’s 
>> apples-to-oranges with what we’re doing.  Yes, a switch can be 
>> procured for $8k.  But where does it go?  What if there is no safe, 
>> secure, neutral place for it to go?  Then such a place must be built.  
>> That’s what we’re building in Wichita.
> 
> To not annoy us old farts, clarifying that you mean a carrier neutral
> facility or datacenter with an IXP would go a long way. :)
> 
> Too many in the past built gold-plated IXPs, ending up with an
> appalling cost model that attracts nobody. This total plan,
> at this cost, is a *very good* one, and my hope would be, commoditized
> and widely replicated to even more than the 120 locations you project
> - but my hope is that the IXP component will mirror the successful IXP
> models already existing in the USA.
> 
> The costs of interconnecting networks have fallen dramatically, and
> can fall further.
> 
>> 
>> 
>> Saying an IXP can be built for $8k is enormously confusing to many 
>> policymakers who do not understand the issue or how interconnection & 
>> peering actually work, yet have enormous power to set policy and spend 
>> money that will affect the future of the Internet for generations.
> 
> Operational expense needs to be discussed. The underlying technologies
> used to "make it happen", need to be selected. It is amazing what a
> modern cheap 100GB 32 port switch can do. IPv6 is mandatory nowadays
> while still finding a way to carry what little remains of IPv4 space
> efficiently is needed. It would help if there was a local mirror of
> one or more of the root DNS servers. Some really tough design choices
> regarding what forms of active ethernet fiber vs a vs gpon need to be
> made. And so on. Who makes those decisions?
> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> We began this whole initiative by asking a series of questions to help 
>> us arrive at our model for IXP (building) proliferation.  I’ll use 
>> Wichita as the context for these questions, but these could just as 
>> easily apply to any other similar city that is home to a large public 
>> research university:
> 
> Thank you for sharing this last criterion. I had done a similar (much
> briefer) study targetting latency and resilience primarily, and what
> it would cost to do more "rural IXPs" - call them RXPs - every 50
> miles or so - on the cheap as an outgrowth of BEAD. But that would be
> a subject for another thread.
> 
> But I did not limit it to "research" universities, but to areas that
> had universities. Certainly there is high demand for sexy AI-related
> things, but the nuts and bolts of how to design and build networks, is
> lacking.
> 
> I regard network design and operations to be a branch of civil
> engineering nowadays, and most operations people are quite leery of
> letting grad students loose with operational networks. I would love to
> see more universities actually teaching the skills to be a decent
> sysadmin (or SRE), because basic knowledge of packets, routing, tcp,
> bgp, resiliency, and so on is in the decline. Being a BOFH requires
> far more skills than a electrician and is actually comparable in
> skills and stress to being a doctor. (SREs get paid pretty well, but
> most fall into the profession rather than being directly trained on
> it)
> 
> Instead, I have been coping (as part of bead), at 6 week educational
> programs intended to train people how to splice fiber.
> 
> So I would broaden your targets to places that also intend to teach
> people how to design and maintain civil infrastructure, and plan ahead
> for disaster recovery. This includes connecting up governments and
> emergency services. Reusing old postal buildings is an option, as are
> other lower grades of schools.
> 
> I would love to see curricula for the next generation of BOFHs that
> included formerly basic things like how to decode a packet capture and
> teachings from TCP/ip volume 3, illustrated, and everything
> in-between.
> 
> Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/705/
> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Should Wichita, with a regional metro population of 600k+, be 
>> literally dependent, from an interconnection standpoint, on Kansas 
>> City and Denver forever?  No.
>> Okay, then what type of facility does Wichita need?  Ideally, 
>> something that can meet current needs and scale to meet future needs.
>> What are the attributes of such a facility?
>> 
>> Does it need to be carrier-neutral?  Yes.
>> Does it need to be secure?  Yes.
>> Does it need to provide a level-playing field for networks of all 
>> types?  Yes.
>> Does it need to be able to convey rights to, and protect the rights 
>> of, its tenants?  Yes.
>> Does it need to be a facility that networks can rely on to remain “up” 
>> in the wake of adverse events?  Yes.
>> 
>> Resilient from power outages?  Yes.
>> Resilient from cooling equipment failures? Yes.
>> Resistant to wind damage?  Yes.
>> Resistant to vandalism or ballistics damage?  Yes.
>> 
>> Does it need to be financially sustainable?  Yes.
> 
> So that is the good question. How do you do opex?
> 
>> Is “best effort” good enough?  No.
> 
> Redundancy helps.
> 
>> Then does it need to be professionally managed?  Yes.
> 
> Where will they come from? What software do they have to manage the
> facility? Who writes the software?
> 
>> 
>> Is there an existing facility in Wichita that can meet those needs?  
>> No.
> 
> In general I use latency as a proxy for where interconnects should go.
> Historically this has been about 500 miles. I thought it was
> interesting to explore what (as part of Biden´s ev charger program)
> what it would take to have an old fashioned IXP ever 50 miles. Turns
> out that is pretty close 8k in gear + a lot of fiber.
> 
>> So one must be built?  Yes.
>> Where should it be built?  Where a concentration of eyeball traffic 
>> already exists that can grow a peering ecosystem faster than it might 
>> otherwise, and that is also proximate to existing fiber plant, and 
>> where diverse manholes can be placed on the edge of public 
>> right-of-way.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> In the case of Wichita, that’s at Wichita State University.
> 
> Do they teach how to run a network?
> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Creating a secure, neutral, resilient interconnection facility with 
>> proper cooling, power systems, lockable cabinet space, diverse 
>> manholes and POE isn’t cheap.  The whole project is actually more than 
>> the $5M grant we received.  We’re putting in over $800k in cash, plus 
>> additional in-kind match.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> We’ve done the data analyses necessary to determine which communities 
>> need such facilities, and that’s how we came up with our list of 125 
>> target communities.  Most of them are home to public research 
>> universities, but have no IXP or IX.  Not all of those communities are 
>> equal in terms of priority, but all of them have a need, and we’re 
>> actively seeking pathways to scale that preserve our core principles 
>> and avoid the need for grants.  But that’s a big challenge.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I really appreciate the opportunity to provide clarity on the project 
>> and I’m happy to answer your questions.  Surely we agree on much more 
>> than we disagree.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --Brent Legg, Connected Nation
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Nnagain mailing list
>> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain

Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Bill Woodcock]

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> On Feb 22, 2024, at 19:58, rjmcmahon via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> Boston University spent $305M on this and it doesn't have an IXP.
> https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/center-for-computing-and-data-sciences-photo-essay/
> It's like building a magnificent train station w/o any tracks to/fro the station.

Most datacenters don’t contain IXPs, and most IXPs aren’t located in datacenters.  It’s very financially advantageous for a neutral multi-tenant datacenter to contain an IXP, but generally much less advantageous for an IXP to be located in a datacenter.  Datacenters tend to concentrate content, but that content can be transported to an IXP over just a few strands of fiber.  Whereas eyeballs have to be physically aggregated, and that’s over thousands of strands, so the average distance to eyeballs matters, whereas the average distance to content just doesn’t have a significant multiplier on it, and the content is portable anyway.  The optimum location for an IXP is in a city center, whereas the optimum location for a datacenter (all political, zoning, and real-estate factors considered) is typically in an industrial park well outside the city core.

Lots of organizations need a datacenter for their own use, and universities are typical in that.  It doesn’t mean that they’d make sense as locations for an IXP, unless they’re also aggregating a lot of eyeball fiber for some reason.

                                -Bill


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Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Dave Cohen]

I think this landscape is changing. These days I’m only focused on a couple of specific markets, but in those markets we are seeing both 1) a proliferation of IXs either adding nodes in new facilities or getting connectivity out to them to provide at least some capability and 2) datacenter providers, particularly more large-deployment-oriented facilities, seeking to attract IXPs in their sites or drive connectivity out to them as part of their own connectivity offerings. I believe that some of this dynamic is driven by transit simply being so cheap that it’s hard for carriers to justify rapidly expanding their footprints at the rate that datacenters themselves are expanding and some of it that larger enterprises are more willing to add IX connectivity to their Internet mix than they were in the days of everyone being extremely ratio-sensitive.

Dave Cohen
craetdave@gmail.com

> On Feb 22, 2024, at 6:31 PM, Bill Woodcock via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Feb 22, 2024, at 19:58, rjmcmahon via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> Boston University spent $305M on this and it doesn't have an IXP.
>> https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/center-for-computing-and-data-sciences-photo-essay/
>> It's like building a magnificent train station w/o any tracks to/fro the station.
> 
> Most datacenters don’t contain IXPs, and most IXPs aren’t located in datacenters.  It’s very financially advantageous for a neutral multi-tenant datacenter to contain an IXP, but generally much less advantageous for an IXP to be located in a datacenter.  Datacenters tend to concentrate content, but that content can be transported to an IXP over just a few strands of fiber.  Whereas eyeballs have to be physically aggregated, and that’s over thousands of strands, so the average distance to eyeballs matters, whereas the average distance to content just doesn’t have a significant multiplier on it, and the content is portable anyway.  The optimum location for an IXP is in a city center, whereas the optimum location for a datacenter (all political, zoning, and real-estate factors considered) is typically in an industrial park well outside the city core.
> 
> Lots of organizations need a datacenter for their own use, and universities are typical in that.  It doesn’t mean that they’d make sense as locations for an IXP, unless they’re also aggregating a lot of eyeball fiber for some reason.
> 
>                                -Bill
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Nnagain mailing list
> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain

Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Bill Woodcock]

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> On Feb 23, 2024, at 01:03, Dave Cohen <craetdave@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think this landscape is changing. These days I’m only focused on a couple of specific markets, but in those markets we are seeing both 1) a proliferation of IXs either adding nodes in new facilities or getting connectivity out to them to provide at least some capability and 2) datacenter providers, particularly more large-deployment-oriented facilities, seeking to attract IXPs in their sites or drive connectivity out to them as part of their own connectivity offerings.

How does any of that constitute a change?

                                -Bill


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Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Dave Cohen]

Prior to roughly 2016-17, most IXs in the US that we worked with were in a single site and that site was often not a third-party facility, often a private R&E oriented datacenter. I believe that aligns with what you were noting a few comments ago in this thread. I don’t believe that that is the case any longer. 

Dave Cohen
craetdave@gmail.com

> On Feb 22, 2024, at 7:04 PM, Bill Woodcock <woody@pch.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Feb 23, 2024, at 01:03, Dave Cohen <craetdave@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think this landscape is changing. These days I’m only focused on a couple of specific markets, but in those markets we are seeing both 1) a proliferation of IXs either adding nodes in new facilities or getting connectivity out to them to provide at least some capability and 2) datacenter providers, particularly more large-deployment-oriented facilities, seeking to attract IXPs in their sites or drive connectivity out to them as part of their own connectivity offerings.
> 
> How does any of that constitute a change?
> 
>                                -Bill
> 

Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Bill Woodcock]

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> On Feb 23, 2024, at 01:09, Dave Cohen <craetdave@gmail.com> wrote:
> Prior to roughly 2016-17, most IXs in the US that we worked with were in a single site

The vast majority of IXPs are still in a single site, but all the ones with normal switch-fabric extension policies are on a growth path to multiple sites, provided the markets they’re in are of sufficient size to support it.  Both of those things have been the case for more than thirty years.

> …that site was often not a third-party facility, often a private R&E oriented datacenter.

Can you explain in more words what you’re saying here?  IXPs spring up in all kinds of sites…  Many of them are in closets of buildings which happen to have multiple ISPs already present because all of the ISPs already have customers in the building.  Some of them are in datacenters, and some of those are “neutral” datacenters, while others are owned or operated by one of the participating networks, and others are governmental or academic.  There’s a very wide diversity of IXP siting arrangements, and often individual IXPs are spread across several different kinds of sites; that’s always been the case.

Over time, existing IXPs, as they grow, tend to spread across more sites; but also, new IXPs form, which almost always form in a single location before growing to multiple sites.  IXPs that _start_ organically in multiple sites simultaneously certainly aren’t common.

                                -Bill


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Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Dave Cohen]

It sounds then like the sample of organizations I’ve worked with may not be truly representative of the full sample. Nonetheless, it does appear to me that the expansion rate is accelerating, and that datacenter operators are making efforts to attract IXPs into their facilities (with a couple of notable exceptions where the operators themselves are attempting to be their own IX) in a way that didn’t occur years ago. 
 
Dave Cohen
craetdave@gmail.com

> On Feb 22, 2024, at 7:51 PM, Bill Woodcock <woody@pch.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>> 
>> On Feb 23, 2024, at 01:09, Dave Cohen <craetdave@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Prior to roughly 2016-17, most IXs in the US that we worked with were in a single site
> 
> The vast majority of IXPs are still in a single site, but all the ones with normal switch-fabric extension policies are on a growth path to multiple sites, provided the markets they’re in are of sufficient size to support it.  Both of those things have been the case for more than thirty years.
> 
>> …that site was often not a third-party facility, often a private R&E oriented datacenter.
> 
> Can you explain in more words what you’re saying here?  IXPs spring up in all kinds of sites…  Many of them are in closets of buildings which happen to have multiple ISPs already present because all of the ISPs already have customers in the building.  Some of them are in datacenters, and some of those are “neutral” datacenters, while others are owned or operated by one of the participating networks, and others are governmental or academic.  There’s a very wide diversity of IXP siting arrangements, and often individual IXPs are spread across several different kinds of sites; that’s always been the case.
> 
> Over time, existing IXPs, as they grow, tend to spread across more sites; but also, new IXPs form, which almost always form in a single location before growing to multiple sites.  IXPs that _start_ organically in multiple sites simultaneously certainly aren’t common.
> 
>                                -Bill
> 

Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Fearghas Mckay]

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> On 22 Feb 2024, at 18:58, rjmcmahon via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> 
> Boston University spent $305M on this and it doesn't have an IXP.

There are two well established distinct IX in the metro already - why would you need a third that is not at an interconnection site ? 

Boston IX 
Mass IX

	f
 

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Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Dave Taht]

Who can fund more IXPs? The internet society has a 50k set-asied.

From a friend in the NTIA:

"The NTIA middle mile program was a one-time authorization from
Congress. All allocated funds have been assigned to grantees. Some
states may, if funding allows, decide to fund middle mile projects
from their BEAD allocation, but this is a lower priority compared to
last-mile projects."

What I (presently) see out of BEAD is all this end-user fiber, missing
anchor tenants, and gpon, and cluelessness about IPvX, making
interconnectivity more difficult.

There was a pretty good AMA with utopia fiber in Utah yesterday. They
at least are using active-e fiber, and are well connected to a IXP
there.

https://www.broadband.io/c/get-broadband-grant-alerts-news/credit-kim-mckinley-with-making-open-access-and-community-broadband-cool

On Sat, Feb 24, 2024 at 7:05 AM Fearghas Mckay via Nnagain
<nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 22 Feb 2024, at 18:58, rjmcmahon via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
> Boston University spent $305M on this and it doesn't have an IXP.
>
>
> There are two well established distinct IX in the metro already - why would you need a third that is not at an interconnection site ?
>
> Boston IX
> Mass IX
>
> f
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nnagain mailing list
> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain



-- 
https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/2024_predictions/
Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos

Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Fearghas Mckay]

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 On 24 Feb 2024 at 12:27:09, Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com> wrote:

> Who can fund more IXPs? The internet society has a 50k set-asied.


The member ISPs perhaps ?  Seems to work in a lot of other countries.

f

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Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Bill Woodcock]

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> On Feb 24, 2024, at 14:12, Fearghas Mckay via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> On 24 Feb 2024 at 12:27:09, Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Who can fund more IXPs? The internet society has a 50k set-asied.
> The member ISPs perhaps ?  Seems to work in a lot of other countries.

Exactly.  It works fine in the US, as well, as we can see from ~130 IXPs, of which only the original four got subsidies.

Money is never the problem for startup IXPs.  It’s always location and governance.

                                -Bill


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Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Dave Taht]

On Sat, Feb 24, 2024 at 8:25 AM Bill Woodcock <woody@pch.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Feb 24, 2024, at 14:12, Fearghas Mckay via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> > On 24 Feb 2024 at 12:27:09, Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Who can fund more IXPs? The internet society has a 50k set-asied.
> > The member ISPs perhaps ?  Seems to work in a lot of other countries.
>
> Exactly.  It works fine in the US, as well, as we can see from ~130 IXPs, of which only the original four got subsidies.

Isoc has 50k. Does that count as a subsidy?

Isoc: https://www.internetsociety.org/funding-areas/sustainable-peering-ixp/

In my case you can safely assume I have 0 dollars in my pocket for
even trying, but substantial expertise, going all the way back to the
90s. In my case I would enjoy creating and running an IXP in my spare
time and in my dotage, to keep my hand in, but there are some needed
upfront expenses to handle. I care a lot about building sustainable
infrastructure in general... and have zero contacts in tech in
Florida.

> Money is never the problem for startup IXPs.  It’s always location and governance.

Thank you for your expertise as to what it takes to start an IXP. As a
thought experiment...

(I am presently stuck in fort myers, florida, for the duration of my
mom´s illnesses. I might end up being here for a few years, and am
casting about for something I can do that would be more useful and
profitable than ranting on mailing lists, or open source software
development, or fixing bufferbloat)

Ft Myers was devastated by hurricane Ian, and multiple outlying
islands like Sanibell, wiped clean. I do not presently have any
insight into how the rebuilding process is going (the harbor next to
me is still sadly filled with sunken boats and in bankruptcy), but I
imagine there is a lot of new fiber being dropped around here.

Connected Nation identifies Fort Myers as an ideal location for an
IXP. Some traceroutes show traffic being backhauled to Naples (about
40 miles away). There is a huge infrastructure of hospital buildings,
rich folk, and so on that makes much of the area seemingly ideal for
fiber, but comcast has a lock on most of it (and the aging populace is
still quite fond of broadcast tv). The internet in my building is not
all that good, but various quotes for putting fiber in here have all
stalled out. (and most residents just watch tv). MANY new buildings
are under construction however....

I am very pleased to see that the nearest hospital is connected up via
IPv6, but it takes 28ms to get there, when I can see it about a mile
outside my window.

So I figure step 1, in starting an IXP, is talk to the ISPs in the
area, and also the local government and potential anchors like
hospitals and schools?

...

traceroute6 leehealth.org

traceroute to leehealth.org (2606:4700::6812:1134), 30 hops max, 80 byte packets
 1  2601:6c0:c102:a770:1485:1eff:feaa:4547
(2601:6c0:c102:a770:1485:1eff:feaa:4547)  0.090 ms  0.009 ms  0.007 ms
 2  2601:6c0:c102:a770:35c0:ee0:c4f7:fd84
(2601:6c0:c102:a770:35c0:ee0:c4f7:fd84)  0.810 ms  0.759 ms  0.737 ms
 3  2601:6c0:c102:a770:4af7:c0ff:fee3:7452
(2601:6c0:c102:a770:4af7:c0ff:fee3:7452)  3.342 ms  4.552 ms  6.012 ms
 4  2001:558:4012:8::1 (2001:558:4012:8::1)  27.545 ms  30.448 ms  30.436 ms
 5  po-302-1209-rur01.beaudr.fl.naples.comcast.net
(2001:558:252:6029::1)  28.228 ms  28.558 ms  30.375 ms
 6  ae-28-ar03.bonitasprngs.fl.naples.comcast.net
(2001:558:250:124::1)  43.536 ms  30.311 ms  30.599 ms
 7  be-33923-cs02.miami.fl.ibone.comcast.net (2001:558:3:355::1)
44.881 ms be-33943-cs04.miami.fl.ibone.comcast.net (2001:558:3:357::1)
 42.755 ms be-33933-cs03.miami.fl.ibone.comcast.net
(2001:558:3:356::1)  43.370 ms
 8  be-3212-pe12.nota.fl.ibone.comcast.net (2001:558:3:69::2)  42.899
ms be-3411-pe11.nota.fl.ibone.comcast.net (2001:558:3:67::2)  42.651
ms be-3312-pe12.nota.fl.ibone.comcast.net (2001:558:3:6a::2)  41.372
ms
 9  2001:559::902 (2001:559::902)  55.573 ms 2001:559::462
(2001:559::462)  28.796 ms 2001:559::902 (2001:559::902)  75.450 ms
10  2400:cb00:368:3:: (2400:cb00:368:3::)  30.076 ms 2400:cb00:369:3::
(2400:cb00:369:3::)  39.196 ms 2400:cb00:368:3:: (2400:cb00:368:3::)
26.319 ms
11  2400:cb00:363:1024::ac46:35da (2400:cb00:363:1024::ac46:35da)
27.691 ms 2400:cb00:368:1024::ac46:5183
(2400:cb00:368:1024::ac46:5183)  28.746 ms
2400:cb00:363:1024::ac46:3508 (2400:cb00:363:1024::ac46:3508)  28.130
ms


dtaht@tank:~$ traceroute 9.9.9.9
traceroute to 9.9.9.9 (9.9.9.9), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  _gateway.lxd (100.115.92.193)  0.122 ms  0.008 ms  0.005 ms
 2  100.115.92.25 (100.115.92.25)  0.414 ms  0.390 ms  0.379 ms
 3  10.0.0.1 (10.0.0.1)  5.898 ms  6.690 ms  7.679 ms
 4  96.120.50.49 (96.120.50.49)  22.690 ms  23.041 ms  24.509 ms
 5  po-302-1210-rur02.beaudr.fl.naples.comcast.net (68.85.96.17)
23.695 ms  24.885 ms  24.876 ms
 6  po-2-rur01.beaudr.fl.naples.comcast.net (68.85.59.5)  28.215 ms
27.568 ms  26.779 ms
 7  ae-28-ar03.bonitasprngs.fl.naples.comcast.net (68.85.59.41)
31.193 ms  15.073 ms  22.149 ms
 8  be-33923-cs02.miami.fl.ibone.comcast.net (96.110.45.85)  23.417 ms
be-33943-cs04.miami.fl.ibone.comcast.net (96.110.45.93)  20.343 ms
be-33923-cs02.miami.fl.ibone.comcast.net (96.110.45.85)  23.917 ms
 9  be-3401-pe01.nota.fl.ibone.comcast.net (96.110.36.94)  24.600 ms
be-3101-pe01.nota.fl.ibone.comcast.net (96.110.36.82)  24.900 ms
be-3201-pe01.nota.fl.ibone.comcast.net (96.110.36.86)  25.352 ms
10  50.248.117.138 (50.248.117.138)  28.871 ms  29.407 ms  30.029 ms
11  dns9.quad9.net (9.9.9.9)  27.987 ms !X  27.817 ms !X  32.385 ms !X

>
>                                 -Bill
>


-- 
https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/2024_predictions/
Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos

Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Bill Woodcock]

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> On Feb 24, 2024, at 15:03, Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com> wrote:
> Isoc has 50k.

ISOC takes $100m/year out of the community; I guess it’s nice that they want to put $50k back.  That doesn’t help anyone build an IXP.  Money isn’t the issue.

> In my case you can safely assume I have 0 dollars in my pocket

Not a problem, that’s basically where everybody trying to get IXPs off the ground is.

> but substantial expertise, going all the way back to the 90s.

That helps, but again, siting and governance are always the big hurdles.  The technical part is like 5% at the end of the process.

> I would enjoy creating and running an IXP, but there are some needed upfront expenses to handle.

Those are the easy part.  The hard part is getting all the parties to agree on site and governance.

> Connected Nation identifies Fort Myers as an ideal location for an IXP.

That doesn’t count for much, since they’re not a potential peer.  What matters is whether there are networks ready to exchange traffic there, and willing to do the work to make that happen.

> Some traceroutes show traffic being backhauled to Naples (about 40 miles away).

Ok… are there any traceroutes that show interprovider traffic being exchanged _closer_ than forty miles away?  Forty miles roundtrip is 430 microseconds.  By itself, that’s not likely to be sufficient motivation for ISPs that serve both locations to build a new IXP, unless their circuits between the two are congested.  

Are there ISPs that serve only Fort Meyers?  Are there ISPs that serve Fort Meyers, and are dependent on transit (i.e. they don’t peer anywhere yet)?

> There is a huge infrastructure of hospital buildings, rich folk, and so on that makes much of the area seemingly ideal for fiber, but comcast has a lock on most of it (and the aging populace is still quite fond of broadcast tv). The internet in my building is not all that good, but various quotes for putting fiber in here have all stalled out. (and most residents just watch tv). MANY new buildings are under construction however....

None of that, by itself, is going to help, because none of that is related to the exchange.  All that matters for the exchange is that you have three ASes willing to exchange traffic in a location.  If you do, you can potentially get an IXP going.  If you don’t, then there’s no reason for an IXP, and building the shell of one won’t convince anyone to come exchange traffic there.

> So I figure step 1, in starting an IXP, is talk to the ISPs in the area, and also the local government and potential anchors like hospitals and schools?

Only if the hospitals and schools have ASNs.  Start with the ISPs.

                                -Bill


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Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Robert McMahon]

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For education and modeling. Students used to run on campus radio stations as an example. A modern world requires understanding things like IXPs.

The original statement is a bit facetious. The so called data center building for $305M is really not such. It's about a landmark building to serve as a focal point to sell the university. Kinda like a church spire or something. Humans seem fascinated by such types of buildings. I think what's taught and what isn't is a better focus.

Bob

On Feb 24, 2024, 4:05 AM, at 4:05 AM, Fearghas Mckay <fearghas@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> On 22 Feb 2024, at 18:58, rjmcmahon via Nnagain
><nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>
>> Boston University spent $305M on this and it doesn't have an IXP.
>
>There are two well established distinct IX in the metro already - why
>would you need a third that is not at an interconnection site ?
>
>Boston IX
>Mass IX
>
>	f
>

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Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Bill Woodcock]

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> On Feb 24, 2024, at 20:30, Robert McMahon via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> On Feb 24, 2024, at 4:05 AM, Fearghas Mckay <fearghas@gmail.com> wrote: 
>>> On 22 Feb 2024, at 18:58, rjmcmahon via Nnagain <nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote: 
>>> Boston University spent $305M on this and it doesn't have an IXP.
>> There are two well established distinct IX in the metro already - why would you need a third that is not at an interconnection site ?  
> For education and modeling. Students used to run on campus radio stations as an example. A modern world requires understanding things like IXPs. 

That’s a good point.  When we do IXP formation workshops, if there are very many ASes which haven’t peered before, we do get the whole thing up and running on a meeting-room table in a classroom sort of situation, before trying to do it in production.  And we’ve done joint projects between IXPs and departments of education.  So this is a very good reason for a university to host a small-scale or lab IXP.  But it’s also a good reason to forge a relationship with nearby production IXPs, such that student projects can get access to no-cost local bandwidth, etc.

Students getting access to distance-insensitive bandwidth at universities causes a lot of startups to crash-and-burn when they start to scale up and find out that the Internet isn’t flat, it just looks that way when you’re buying small amounts at retail.

                                -Bill


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[NNagain] Email and The Internet?

[Jack Haverty]

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On 2/22/24 05:39, Dave Taht via Nnagain wrote:
> I do hope that
> email makes a comeback.
>
> But someones need to start maintaining it better.

Someone?

In the 1980s, I was very involved in the early Internet.  At the time, 
it was funded by the US government, and the policy-makers and 
technologists were tightly coupled.   If we didn't build what they 
needed, the funding would stop.   Simple and effective feedback loop.

At the time, electronic mail was probably the most important service for 
the end-users.  People didn't send datagrams to each other. They sent 
email.   Email had to work or the Internet was useless.

A lot of effort was put into making sure that email worked, such as the 
"Mailbridges" that were crucial components of the Defense Data Network 
as it emerged from the research world.   Policy-makers and technologists 
were pursuing a common mission.   The people who funded,or built, or 
operated the various pieces of The Internet felt responsible, and were 
responsible, for all the Internet elements necessary for the end users 
to use the net.

Forty years later, email has degenerated.  Why?

Question -- is Email now still an important component of Internet 
service?  Do IXPs believe they have a responsibility to make sure email 
works?

Who is "someone"?

Jack Haverty


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Re: [NNagain] The Whys of the Wichita IXP Project

[Bill Woodcock]

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On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 8:02 PM Brent Legg wrote:
> Saying an IXP can be built for $8k is enormously confusing to many policymakers

Only if someone tries to confuse them by referring to a datacenter as an IXP.  So, please don’t do that.  $8k is a reasonably-up-to-date global average cost for new IXP formation.

> Does it need to be a facility that networks can rely on to remain “up” in the wake of adverse events?  Yes.

Why?

> Resilient from power outages?  Yes.

Why?

> Resilient from cooling equipment failures? Yes.

Why?

> Resistant to wind damage?  Yes.

Why?

> Is “best effort” good enough?  No.

Why?  And what do you think is better than “best?"

> Then does it need to be professionally managed?  Yes.

Why?  And this is really a big one.  I know why Hunter needs it to be managed by someone else to fit his model, but how would that advantage anyone in Wichita?  It’s perfectly ok for different people to have fill different niches and have different business models.  Hunter likes neutral datacenters with a lot of interconnection, and I do too.  Having an IXP in such a datacenter is enormously advantageous to the datacenter, and makes its financial outlook much better.  Hunter is trying to move fast and cover a lot of ground.  Which is great.  Solving problems at scale is great.  But he’s solving a datacenter problem, not an IXP problem.  The IXPs are simply a way of making it more likely that the datacenters will thrive.  Which is great.  For the datacenters.  But if you’re trying to drop a hundred tiny datacenters off the back of trucks, and you’re moving fast, and you want an IXP in each one as soon as possible, doing the four to eight months of work typically necessary to organically organize an IXP in each location simply doesn’t scale.  So, outsourcing this to something like DE-CIX makes sense for Hunter.  But it doesn’t particularly make sense for DE-CIX, and it doesn’t particularly make sense for Wichita, or any other specific community of network operators.  Will it work?  In some places, sure.  Roll the dice enough times and you’ll win some of the time.  But being one of many bets, some of which will fail, isn’t particularly reassuring to any specific community.  As long as Hunter doesn’t make an _exclusive_ agreement with DE-CIX, I don’t see this as particularly problematic.  But I’m not sure you appreciate what a bad thing “professional management” is for APBDC.  Just look at Manchester.

> Where should it be built?  Where a concentration of eyeball traffic already exists that can grow a peering ecosystem faster than it might otherwise, and that is also proximate to existing fiber plant, and where diverse manholes can be placed on the edge of public right-of-way.
> In the case of Wichita, that’s at Wichita State University.

That’s one possible location, and again, it’s optimal for Hunter’s specific datacenter construction model, but it’s not optimal for an IXP site.

> Creating a secure, neutral, resilient interconnection facility with proper cooling, power systems, lockable cabinet space, diverse manholes and POE isn’t cheap.  The whole project is actually more than the $5M grant we received.  We’re putting in over $800k in cash, plus additional in-kind match.

No argument there, and it seems quite reasonable to build this sort of very-small purpose-built datacenter in places that don’t already have one.  And I have no problem with the use of public funds to make it happen.  I do have a problem with people mis-labeling it as an IXP, because that, as you so rightly pointed out, confuses policy-makers.  Who might mistakenly think that by funding the construction of datacenters, they’d helped the IXP situation somehow.  There’s no problem with helping datacenters, but datacenters and IXPs are radically different things, with different and not-aligned purposes and utterly unrelated business models.  Confusing policy-makers and leading them to think that IXPs can be helped by throwing money at them causes a lot of problems.  Which I wind up having to straighten out, so it makes work for me, and my time can be better spent on productive things.

So, good on you for getting more small datacenters into third-tier markets!  But please stop confusing policy-makers by calling them IXPs, or implying that they have something to do with IXPs.  There’s a possibility that some of them will be located in places that aren’t sub-optimal for IXPs, and that would be nice, but those would be generally be sub-optimal for datacenters, so I don’t recommend that you try to do that.

                                -Bill


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