Peering Commercials and Contracts Presentation to AfPIF Peering Coordinators Day, Dar Es Salaam 2011 Mike Blanche 1
Peering Commercials Its All About The Money! 2
Agenda Peering Commercials The Business Case for Peering Cost/Benefit Analysis of Peering vs Transit Who Where How Peering Contracts Contract or Not? Peering Agreement Terms Conclusions 3
The Business Case for Peering How to convince the Financial Director of the case for peering? Don t talk to him about BGP routing, improved latency, blah blah blah Do a Cost/Benefit Analysis for him! 4
Peering Commercials Cost/Benefit Analysis Monetary Cost Comparison Peering Transit Transport to Peering Point Colocation Fixed for a certain capacity size Fixed Internet Access Usually charged based on usage, (95 th percentile) Equipment Fixed Port fees on an Internet Exchange Usually Fixed Transit is usually metered, peering costs are often lumpy 5
Peering Commercials Cost/Benefit Analysis Source: DrPeering.com 6
Peering Commercials Cost/Benefit Analysis Non-monetary benefits of peering against transit More direct path Predictability of traffic exchange No third parties involved Increased resilience and reliability Better performance for customers Non-monetary costs of peering against transit No SLA No NOC to call when it breaks More complicated, requires management, configuration, knowing what you re doing 7
Peering Commercials Who to peer with? Look at traffic volumes and key potential partners NetFlow analysis Cache server logs Ask the other network how much traffic you are exchanging Consider your and the potential peer s Peering Policy Open Selective Tier 1 No peering with your own customers 8
Peering Policies Operational: 24x7 NOC / traffic volume / ratio / peering locations Technical: Route announcements and aggregation / MD5 / MEDs / No abuse General: Non-Disclosure / Termination / Liability Terms 9
Peering Policies (Mostly) Source: DrPeering.com 10
Peering Commercials Where to peer? Find a mutually acceptable point (use peeringdb.com) If there s more than one potential point, consider Cost of reaching that point Cost of hosting at that location (if required) Reliability Scalability Latency reduction benefit 11
Peering Commercials How to peer? Public over an Internet Exchange Pay for port, can peer with anyone on IX who will peer with you 1 port, can peer with many operators Best for aggregating connections to lots of operators with small volumes of traffic Private Private fibre/copper connection Requires 1 dedicated port on each side Best for connections to an operator with a large volume of traffic 12
How to peer when someone doesn t want to peer with you? Buy paid peering Send the peer lots of traffic (e.g. host content on your network if they are an eyeball network) Make friends Buy another operator who already has peering Leverage a broader business arrangement 13
Peering Contracts 14
This is the Legal Bit! 15
Peering Agreements Contract or Not? Why Not? Legal Issues Lawyers feel compelled to meddle and change agreements Are they paid by the word...?! 99.51% of peering agreements are informal (Source: PCH) Doing contracts does not scale to a large number of peers 16
Peering Agreements Why have an agreement? Clarity Agreement of best efforts and best practice Liability limiting redress Confidentiality Always have a template peering agreement e.g. LINX Model Peering Agreement 17
Peering Agreements Even if you don t have an agreement, stick to best practice Use MD5 authentication Have good route aggregation policies Do IPv6 as well as IPv4 peering Exchange NOC contacts (or put them in PeeringDB) 18
Peering Agreements What should be in the agreement? Parties involved Should cover multiple interconnections, both public and private (do the paperwork once only, then execute many times) Agreement on any cost-sharing Term and termination of the agreement Disclaimers of warranty and liability (lawyers love this) Confidentiality Assignment of the agreement, approval and regulatory issues Governing Law 19
Governing Law Source: PCH Peering Survey 2011 If peering with an US or European entity, you are likely to be asked to use their jurisdiction 20
Peering Agreements Remember, 99.51% of peering coordinators prefer NO contracts! 21
Conclusions Peering Commercials Decide with who, where, and how to peer Work out the cost/benefit analysis of doing so Peering negotiations are not always easy Peering Agreements In general, don t have one! If you do, make sure it s clear, covers what s needed, and simple to execute Even if you don t, make sure you follow best practice 22