INEX Announces 100Gigabit Deployment as part of €300K Investment In Ireland’s Peering Point
INEX, Ireland’s internet peering point, has selected Arista Networks as the vendor to support the upgrade of the exchange infrastructure’s core from 10Gigabit to 100Gigabit on LAN1 in Dublin. The 100G upgrade is part of a €300K investment in the exchanges’ infrastructure and will be rolled out in Q1 2017.
The Arista 7280R series was selected for INEX’s Dublin LAN1 infrastructure following extensive testing of multiple 100G platforms currently available on the market. With points of presence in six data centres in Dublin, INEX operates two independent LANs on its Dublin network, providing resilience within the exchange infrastructure for members. This upgrade will streamline the services provided, enabling INEX to deliver 100G ports to members who need high speed connectivity or enhanced connectivity where they are currently connected over multiple 10G ports to the exchange.
“We were keen to have a solution that enabled us to have extensive functionality without unnecessary complexity, said Nick Hilliard, CTO of INEX. “Arista Networks’ product portfolio reflected this well and will enable us to run a single PoP in a single box. We can get 1G to 100G in the same 1U (5cm-high) box which was very appealing. For our members who are currently connecting with multiple 10G ports, 100G connectivity is a natural evolution and will enable INEX to continue to deliver a world class peering exchange service.”
Speaking about INEX’s decision to wait until now to deploy 100G in its core, Hilliard continued: “100G has been available for a number of years, but we made a strategic decision to hold off upgrading for three reasons. Recent advances in merchant silicon production allowed manufacturers to dramatically reduce both the physical footprints of 100G ethernet switches and their power consumption. Secondly, the market has evolved past bleeding-edge first generation equipment towards more robust switching gear, with many of the early-adopter bugs and integration issues found and solved. Thirdly, with the move towards a switch made from mass produced components comes a significant reduction in cost per port; in this case from what was tens or even hundreds of thousands of Euro to less than €1,000 per port. These were pretty compelling reasons to wait.”
INEX operates its own fibre ring which connects the six points of presence in Dublin. As part of this investment, INEX is also upgrading capacity between these sites which will be more than doubled to 200 Gigabit by the end of Q3 2017.
As a not for profit, owned by its members, INEX is committed to delivering value for money to those peering at the exchange. The price point for the newly available 100G ports is among the lowest in Europe at €39,000 per annum (pro rata) for 2017. This was announced to INEX Members alongside a reduction in port charges, at all speeds, for the 10th year in succession. 10G port charges were reduced by nearly 30% for 2017 from €8,400 to €6,000. When launched in 2007, 10G ports were €33,000 per annum.
INEX Cork, which was launched in April 2016, and Dublin LAN2 will be upgraded to 100G at a future time.
About INEX
INEX, the internet exchange for the island of Ireland, is a neutral, industry-owned Association, founded in 1996, that provides IP peering facilities for its members. INEX membership is open to all organizations that can benefit from peering their IP traffic and there are currently over 113 members. INEX is located in six data centres in the Dublin region and opened its first regional Internet Exchange in Cork in 2016. INEX currently has 1 terabit of connected capacity. Approximately 300 petabytes of traffic flowed over INEX in 2016.
Now in use at over 25 Internet Exchange Points around the world, INEX developed IXP Manager, a web application that facilitates the running of Internet Exchange Points. IXP Manager is released as open source software and is part of INEX’s contribution to the Internet Community.
INEX stats are publicly available here