AlbertaIX - no longer a Cybera project?

Mailman List Mirror (Read Only)
1

It seems that AlbertaIX is no longer listed on Cybera's list of projects:

http://www.cybera.ca/strategic-projects/

In fact, doing a search on Cybera's site yields a whole bunch of dead links:

http://www.cybera.ca/search?q=albertaix

Is AlbertaIX no longer part of the Cybera project inventory? Has Cybera
pulled official support for AlbertaIX?

Are AlbertaIX and Cybera still sharing an address? [1,2]

Just curious.

[1] http://www.cybera.ca/contact-us/locations/
[2] http://www.canada-companies-info.com/albertaix-6sh9/

2

I can't answer these questions, but it seems that the AlbertaIX chair, Bernard
Parkinson (Platinum Communications) resigned yesterday, and the AlbertaIX co-chair,
Charles Taylor (City of Calgary) followed him by resigning too.

I guess that leaves Bill Sandiford (CIRA) and Jean-Francois Amiot (Cybera) running
the show??

3

That is a good question.

I am also a director on the AlbertaIX board, and don't have a clue
what is going on. Most directors are being kept in the dark, while
others take unapproved action. I should probably jump ship as well.

The last six months in AlbertaIX saw no discussions (or approval) for
any action plan. Without votes, nothing can be built. Now a new
chair has to be selected first. Who will it be?

The entire organization also lacks documents. The new game plan is to
follow YYCIX because of Hurricane Electric's arrival at the datacenter
which was (originally) the least preffered. Or maybe the new plan is
to simply serve Cybera's interests through the re-use of seed money?
After all, Cybera also supplies the secretary. I don't have answers,
though I've been asking questions since the beginning.

Things first went crazy in December when YYCIX was formed and
installed a switch within days. Yes, as a local go-to-guy who wants
to see better net around here, I installed the equipment. The schism
between AlbertaIX and YYCIX has been discussed before, so I need not
explain it here.

Recently, events again went crazy when Robin Windsor (CEO of Cybera,
the NPO local EDU provider) walked into an AlbertaIX board meeting and
withheld Alberta Government seed money from AlbertaIX for the purchase
of a switch --- unless I resign immediately.

(It was quite a battle getting that episode into the minutes).

The entire process was opaque and undemocratic from the start.

It was captured.

4

< irrelevant spectator commentary >

i do not know squat about the local issues in alberta. but we all seem
to spend a lot of time and energy going sideways, sometimes backward,
instead of forward. what is under these recent, seemingly unproductive,
canadian exchange spats? why is vancouver a suburb of seattle? is it
some sort of physics with telco horizontal vs trans-border pricing, or
regulatory restrictions, or is it the poutine? i always thought canada
was a somethat more civilized culture, well, except for poutine.

it all looks strange from here. but then don't ask me why tokyo has the
number of exchanges it does.

randy

5

The last six months in AlbertaIX saw no discussions (or approval) for
any action plan. Without votes, nothing can be built.

This is probably the key ideological problem and a good example not to follow if you are trying to start an exchange. Do first, implement bureaucracy later, if at all.

I completely respect the people that were on the board and also Cybera. FWIW, I have no direct insight into the conversations between the people involved. From a distance it seemed like exactly the right people to be involved (with only the minor problem of not enough ethernet switch pluggin' in and too much meetin' and discussin').

Facility and parties willing, hopefully there will be a YYCIX switch in Cybera.

The entire organization also lacks documents. The new game plan is to
follow YYCIX because of Hurricane Electric's arrival at the datacenter
which was (originally) the least preffered.

Our criteria for choosing a facility in Calgary was:

* Which facilities have a live ethernet switch for any Internet exchange?

Then given the candidate list of data centers in the area:

* Is there a live ethernet switch in their facility?

* How many IPs are pingable on that switch?

* Does the facility want us in their facility? (Is there any value for them? Are they happy to have us build in?)

* Does the facility want the exchange to succeed? (Do they get it?) (Sadly sometimes the answer here is either indifference or hostility.)

* Does the facility understand that we need them to encourage more networks to build into their facility?

* Is the price for cross connects and power reasonable?

* How many networks are in the building?

* Can we get develop enough revenue to cover our costs to get circuits, colo, power, cross connects etc to build out to the site?

(DataHive met all of these requirements and was repeatedly very helpful to make things happen.)

There's a magic moment in the beginning of forming data center neutral exchanges where the engineers operating the exchange and the facility owners need to have a meeting of the minds and view the exchange as something they are doing together and then take the immediate actions to get it live. I'm not sure how the magic of this goes down since the facility owners may or may not view each other as competitors (and may or may not view the exchange as that useful). Once an exchange has critical mass like AMS-IX I suppose this becomes an easy decision for a new facility owner.

I am led to understand that there is city fiber in Calgary available at reasonable cost, which hopefully would translate to exchange switches in multiple buildings eventually in Calgary (if various stages of critical mass are achieved).

Mike.