Efficiently building a global IP network that can effectively deliver content to the right audience is a challenge in today’s atmosphere of various peering points.

 

Michael Lucking, Telx’s director of IP development and engineering, presented an educational session to the members of the London Internet Exchange on Nov. 17 at the Exchange’s bi-annual member meeting, at Goodenough College in London.

 

Lucking presented an overview of the evolution of peering in the U.S., the Internet peering market in the U.S., as well as an overview of the various Internet exchanges available. In addition, Lucking demonstrated the various connection points between Internet exchanges and show the depth of interconnectivity offered by Telx within its Internet Exchange.

 

In an interview with TMCnet, Lucking explained that network performance and reliability are driving the evolution of peering in the U.S.

 

“Very few providers look to peering as a cost saving method these days,” Lucking said. “The main factor we hear from engineers is a desire to have a more resilient network. Because of this, you are starting to see more strict peering requirement from national/international providers.”

 

New York City-based Telx has more than a dozen connection points between Internet exchanges and the depth of interconnectivity offered by Telx within its Internet Exchange includes over 700 networks present inside its facilities. Telx provides its own peering services at four facilities: Atlanta, Ga.; Dallas, Texas; New York City; and Phoenix, Ariz.

 

“In addition to the numerous private interconnects, Telx has direct reach to over a dozen Internet Exchange points. These include the Telx owned and managed IXs, and the major dominate exchanges in most of our markets,” Lucking explained. “For example, in the New York metro area, a Telx customer can reach all of the major New York IXes from inside the Telx facilities with a direct cross connect.”

 

Lucking said that over the next five years, he expects peering to evolve away from gigabit Ethernet to more application specific exchanges.

 

“The days of gigabit Ethernet are going away. Ten gigabit Ethernet will be considered the ‘small’ port with many providers having 40, 100 or multiples to several exchanges,” Lucking said. “There will be application specific exchanges. For example cloud/storage, video/voice, and Ethernet aggregation. Each will provide specific add-ons. For example, a video exchange might offer real-time codec translations for video conferencing.”  

 

According to company officials, the Telx Internet Exchange is a “neutral, privately-owned and managed packet and Internet exchange, providing a high performance Internet peering fabric for participants.” It allows customers to reduce operating costs by aggregating ISPs, content providers, enterprises and others on a single highly available service platform so that Internet traffic may have direct access to destination networks.

“As cloud computing, software-as-a-service, and low latency networking continue to provide businesses worldwide with the competitive advantages necessary to succeed in the global marketplace, Telx remains committed to serving customers in key markets like Phoenix with the best colocation and interconnection options available,” said Telx CEO Eric Shepcaro (News - Alert) in September upon announcing that the company expanded the footprint of its colocation facility at 120 East Van Buren Street in Phoenix by more than 50 percent. “To that end, we continue to add space as demand dictates in order to effectively help customers grow their businesses and take advantage of the newest, market-leading technologies.”