Well, another round of the depeering battles.
We received notice this morning that Exodus is depeering at all US public
exchanges on Friday ( gotta love that notice by the way ). They are
also not accepting any requests for private peering ( despite meeting
the requirements still listed on the peering page ):
http://bengi.exodus.net/external/peering.html
They will happily continue to sell transit at said exchanges though, and
all C&W peering contacts forward to sales ( ain't that cute! ).
Should be interesting to see how this impacts the ability to reach
sites hosted at Exodus.
-Chris
I'm presuming that Exodus is planning to get the transit they need after this
depeering via C&W's peering points? If so, this makes a certain amount of sense - no
need to maintain separate peering circuits; this is probably just a step in the
eventual assimilation of Exodus' IP backbone into C&W's.
-C
<snip>
Should be interesting to see how this impacts the ability to reach
sites hosted at Exodus.
</snip>
nothing complicated. just means you will utilize a transit provider to reach
Exodus hosted sites instead of direct public peer. unless you privately peer
with C&W. the bottom line - it will now cost you more to reach Exodus hosted
sites...
/chris
Chris,
You are right.
I'm presuming that Exodus is planning to get the transit they need after this
depeering via C&W's peering points? If so, this makes a certain amount of sense - no
Looking at Exodus Route Server you will see that they are now getting
transit from C&W. Probably using as you state their current peering
circuits (it makes sense from an operational point of view, when you are
consolidating an AS into a single one).
route-server.exodus.net>sh ip bgp regexp _3561_
BGP table version is 15604957, local router ID is 209.1.220.234
Status codes: s suppressed, d damped, h history, * valid, > best, i -
internal
Origin codes: i - IGP, e - EGP, ? - incomplete
Network Next Hop Metric LocPrf Weight Path
* i3.0.0.0 209.1.40.148 1000 0 3561 1239 80
i
* i 209.1.220.242 1000 0 3561 1239 80
i
* i 209.1.220.102 1000 0 3561 1239 80
i
* i 209.1.220.9 1000 0 3561 1239 80
i
* i3.18.135.0/24 209.1.220.102 1000 0 3561 7018 ?
* i 209.1.220.9 1000 0 3561 7018 ?
* i4.0.0.0 209.1.40.148 1000 0 3561 1 i
* i 209.1.220.174 1000 0 3561 1 i
* i 209.1.220.102 1000 0 3561 1 i
* i 209.1.220.242 1000 0 3561 1 i
* i 209.1.220.133 1000 0 3561 1 i
* i 209.1.40.72 1000 0 3561 1 i
* i 209.1.40.141 1000 0 3561 1 i
* i 209.1.220.9 1000 0 3561 1 i
* i 209.1.220.102 1000 0 3561 1 i
* i 209.1.220.9 1000 0 3561 1 i
* i6.0.0.0/20 209.1.40.148 1000 0 3561 3549 i
* i 209.1.220.156 1000 0 3561 3549 i
* i 209.1.220.242 1000 0 3561 3549 i
* i 209.1.40.72 1000 0 3561 3549 i
* i 209.1.40.141 1000 0 3561 3549 i
* i 209.1.220.174 1000 0 3561 3549 i
* i9.2.0.0/16 209.1.40.148 1000 0 3561 701 i
* i 209.1.220.174 1000 0 3561 701 i
need to maintain separate peering circuits; this is probably just a step in the
eventual assimilation of Exodus' IP backbone into C&W's.
-C
What I don't know is what they are going to do with their private peers ?
Does somebody has a clue on this ?
The point isn't that merging the networks doesn't make technical sense.
Of course there's little point in maintaining an overlay network with the
same AS and separate peering. The point is that since Exodus had a
broader, flatter peering mesh than C&W, even if C&W expands their peering
proportionately to accommodate the increased demand which Exodus' traffic
will place on their network, it'll still be a net loss in global
connectivity, since C&W's peering topology is much narrower. Average path
lengths increase, the consumer loses.
-Bill
Not to mention Exodus customers.
allan
I wrote:
> Of course there's little point in maintaining an overlay network with the
> same AS and separate peering.
^^^^^^^
I meant "different AS".
-Bill
Since Exodus is mostly a webhoster, do they have an asymetric traffic
flow. Isn't bulk of the bandwidth is outbound from Exodus. Won't this
just increase the distance and AS count for Exodus outbound traffic,
making Exodus hosting even less desirable?
It is a free market and they can do anything they want.
If you have 5000 routes, and OC48c backbone and 3 OC3s worth of traffic at
a 2:1 ratio; peering with C&W is a snap.
It clearly improved the ability of new players to enter the market for the
FCC to aprove the transfer of MCI Internet assests to C&W. It clearly
resulted in the market conditions the federal goverment desired.
IIRC, Exodus had arrangements with at least some of their peering partners where in
exchange for the toleration of the asymetric traffic flow at peering points, they
would honor MEDs sent to them by said peering partners. I'm assuming that C&W's
pering points do not do this. So, it appears that these carriers are going to find
a lot more Exodus-orignated traffic on their networks come Friday. I just hope for
C&W's sake that their peering points are up to for the challenge of carrying that
traffic.
-C
I don't think Exodus hosting can get any less desirable at this point.
On the other hand, this could help balance traffic ratios, and make more
people qualify for peering with CW. Well probably not, considering their
requirements include winners like this:
A. The applicant shall consistently announce at least 5000 routes to
AS3561 (way to encourage aggregation guys, no really, good job)
With luck it will throw their peering ratios out of balance and get THEM
depeered by someone. Oh well, I guess there is a reason the entire
industry calls them Clueless & Witless. 
You mean Exodus are well connected and C&W limit themselves which gives
longer paths and increased latency.
I guess its obvious to us this is bad, but the thing the C&W bosses are
relying on is that it wont be bad enough for Joe Public to notice, and I
very much doubt they will notice 
Wonder what C&W long term plan is.. at some point they will have very few
peers, a global network and transit customers. Will they then depeer with
someone like Global Crossing in an attempt to force them to buy
transit?
We've seen similar upsets in the past but not to attain a business goal,
but I do wonder here what they plan to achieve... !
Steve
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 12:47:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com>
Since Exodus is mostly a webhoster, do they have an asymetric
traffic flow. Isn't bulk of the bandwidth is outbound from
Exodus. Won't this just increase the distance and AS count for
Exodus outbound traffic, making Exodus hosting even less
desirable?
Everyone who peer(s|ed) with AS3967 is supposed to purchase
transit from AS3561. 
First 174, now 3967. Yes, they're different scenarios, but it
seems that AS3561 has strong intentions to depeer. Sure, they
can do as they please... but in whose best interest is it?
As networks continue to amalgamate and assimilate, it'll be
interesting to see what happens to carrier-neutral colo. Will
the remaining "big players" pull out, telling customers "you come
to us"?
Some consolidation is inevitable -- and good. But I wonder if,
come 2005, the Internet backbone will resemble how it was in
1995. Will the members of the oligopoly lose interest in
maintaining decent peering, simply saying "you could reach us
fine if you bought transit from us"?
Eddy
Brotsman & Dreger, Inc. - EverQuick Internet Division
Phone: +1 (316) 794-8922 Wichita/(Inter)national
Phone: +1 (785) 865-5885 Lawrence
Longer paths definitely, increased jitter probably, increased latency
probably, increased loss possibly.
C&W obviously have to have a lot of peering as well, since it's all they
have to sell to their customers. However, their peering tends to be
limited to a small number of peers to whom they have large connections,
whereas Exodus had a large number of peers to whom they had medium-sized
connections. So the average hop-count and as-path length for the Internet
as a whole are both increased by this action, and nearly all paths
increase in length for Exodus customers. So yes, Exodus customers are the
big losers in the wake of this.
-Bill
On the other hand, this could help balance traffic ratios, and make more
people qualify for peering with CW. Well probably not, considering their
requirements include winners like this:
A. The applicant shall consistently announce at least 5000 routes to
AS3561 (way to encourage aggregation guys, no really, good job)
Hmm based on my current peers this would exclude the likes of Telstra,
Level3, HKT...
Bye bye Asia Pacific!
With luck it will throw their peering ratios out of balance and get THEM
depeered by someone. Oh well, I guess there is a reason the entire
industry calls them Clueless & Witless.
On another angle, if enough people refuse to take C&W routes from transit
preferring only peering.... nar, thats a conspiracy! Good plan tho.
Steve
Will the members of the oligopoly lose interest in maintaining
decent peering, simply saying "you could reach us fine if you
bought transit from us"?
There's an FCC report on "The Digital Handshake: Connecting Internet
Backbones" at
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/OPP/working_papers/oppwp32.pdf
that talks a bit about this very issue...
-- Jen
From the sound of things, it seems that C&W might have been better off migrating
AS3561 into AS3967, not the other way around
I am assuming that the reasons it's not happening like this are much more political
than technical.
-C
From the sound of things, it seems that C&W might have been better off migrating
> AS3561 into AS3967, not the other way around
I think that's what C&W's engineering group thinks is happening. :-/
I will say that C&W maintains a good backbone internally, even if it's
pretty constricted at the edges. Be sad to see that expertise subsumed or
driven away.
-Bill
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 18:20:02 +0000 (GMT)
From: Stephen J. Wilcox <steve@opaltelecom.co.uk>
On another angle, if enough people refuse to take C&W routes
from transit preferring only peering.... nar, thats a
conspiracy! Good plan tho.
But if provider X becomes undesirable, I'd expect people to
adjust local-pref on learned routes. That reduces the amount of
traffic _to_ the provider in question, which certainly affects
symmetry.
If you _really_ want to get nasty, think frac-DS1, ^AS$ on
inbound, and ^$ on outbound. 
Oh, wait... except for the filter lists being a tish off, that's
how peering between certain providers used to be in the mid, even
late, 1990s. [Stretching the truth, but certain inter-AS
hops sure made me wonder...]
Eddy
Brotsman & Dreger, Inc. - EverQuick Internet Division
Phone: +1 (316) 794-8922 Wichita/(Inter)national
Phone: +1 (785) 865-5885 Lawrence
I'm sure the C&W money people think othervise ...
/Jesper