Please forgive the non-operational content.
I'm interested in getting some idea of the level of staffing provided by NSPs and ISPs in their peering departments. In fact, I've been asked by my management to provide as much info about such levels as possible, without a need to disclose the identity of any responding company.
If you have time, and wish to participate, I'd sure appreciate it. I will provide a summary of the responses to respondents. No identifying information need be provided. Get a disposable email account at Hotmail or Yahoo if you'd like to be really anonymous. Any question may be skipped if you wish. I appreciate your assistance!
DO NOT RESPOND TO THE LIST!
1. Do your peering staff members do peering negotiations and planning only, or do they also do peering-related hands-on router engineering?
___ planning and negotiation only
___ planning, negotiation, and hands-on router stuff
___ something other than these two choices:
Forgive me if I'm just used to small companies, but why would you really
need more than one full time person (with an assistant possibly) in your
peering department?
Sure, the job requires a very specific skill set (something along the
lines of an engineer with an MBA), but the day-to-day interactions and
changes regarding peering would seem to be minimal. In fact, my impression
seems to be that you don't really need anybody on staff to not return
emails to peering@, which is seemingly how most providers deal with it. 
Note: I have absolutely no experience or data to base my assumptions on,
so don't slap me too hard.
Andy
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Andy Dills 301-682-9972
Xecunet, LLC www.xecu.net
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Dialup * Webhosting * E-Commerce * High-Speed Access
Andy,
What I have seen (and what I have in fact done) was handle the peering negotiations, usually this needs to be an executive level person. In fact Dwight is right, it's usually someone that understands the vision of the network, and the company moving forward, with some skill to help translate this into a business case for the CFO types.
You then have a peering implementation engineer that will coordinate the config of the routers and provisioning of the circuits, or VPI VCIs etc etc.
The implementation person may actually have an assistant. The training is considered valuable and it provides a measure of backup. Nowadays you almost need a regulatory person also.
If I were prone to humor I might say some ISPs lately have DE-peering engineer....
David
Even with large providers, if you peer with them, you generally know the
peering coordinator by name.
In some cases, you know their assistant by email.
Deepak Jain
AiNET
Andy,
At a larger ISP, you typically need a couple folks for peering.
- One or more peering coordinators (one is more normal) to interface with
their counterparts. These folks generally need both network engineering and
contract administration tools. If they have one skill set, but not the
other, it can lead to some difficulties, either way.
- One or two network analysts, to create tools, and evaluate peering data,
in order to decide who you want to peer with, who you don't, and if people
are violating their peering agreements with you. A good background in
network tool scripting, statistics, and network engineering is useful
- A manager or technical leader well versed in contract administration, BGP
architecture, and the ability to tie together sales dictates, martketing
direction, and legal input into a cohesive peering policy. May also head the
Peering Committee, if one exists.
There can be a lot of overlap here between other groups like network
analysis and network engineering. Sometimes it can be the same group.
- Dan