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IAA team check out newest NextDC

The IAA team from Perth spent a lovely morning inspecting the newest NextDC site in Perth this month. Just a short walk from our CBD office, the flash looking, Tier 4 certified datacentre is a significant building on the Perth skyline.

The tour looked at the main areas of the datacentre including the racks and the breakout spaces located throughout the building, designed to make working there more comfortable. The team also got to hear the expansion plans over the next few years as capacity and space in the current tower fills, as well as the security measures and fallback procedures that are in place to ensure complete fault tolerance and no down time at this facility.

IAA currently does not have a presence in NextDC P2. Please let us know if you would like us to add P2 to our current list of PoPs on the WA-IX.

 

Infrastructure Australia Plan

This week we met with Infrastructure Australia to hear about the national plan for major infrastructure projects. Amazed to hear of the transformation in cost and performance that peering and Internet Exchanges make, they have asked us for our thoughts on the upcoming plan to be submitted to government and we are feverishly working towards a response. Hopefully this will assist us in getting more content and services out into the regions.

If you have any comments about the above topics, or would like to know more about specific issues, please email us at policy@internet.asn.au.

From the CEO’s Desk

This month we have the usual round of upgrades and expansion projects and have kicked off the review of our governance. It’s been great to see thoughts coming in from members on what is important for how we operate and what matters to you in our governance. Thank you to those who have made their thoughts known, so please keep them coming as we work our way through the review. Please keep an eye on our web page on Updating our Governance.

Speaking of thoughts, it’s amazing also to see the list of issues coming in on regulation topics! From defamation to take-downs there are a bunch of likely regulation changes coming through and we are keen to put your point of view forward. Please don’t hesitate to let us know whether you like the regulation changes, or worry for the impact on your business.

The Perth team went on a tour of that flash new NextDC site, P2, so now we’re keen to hear whether members think we should be in there. It looks so nice and shiny; it will be hard to stay away!

News from across the Ditch

Our friends at the New Zealand Internet Exchange are busy working on some exciting new projects that are going to be launched this year.

Following requests for a POP in Datavault (Auckland), the NZIX team is currently working on bringing the 162 Grafton Road site into production. COVID restrictions have slowed down the timing of the project, delaying the fibre paths towards Datavault however, orders are now back on track and engineers are standing by for an install. All being well, the new datacentre could be operational as soon as April.

Plans are also underway in Auckland to increase the bandwidth and diversity of NZIX’s inter datacentre links. The new AKL-IX ring will see a 200Gbps diverse link between each datacentre, ensuring healthy available capacity and reducing unpredictable spikes.

Last month NZIX surveyed its members on locations for a new IX in Wellington. Still in the early planning stages, the plan is to launch WLG-IX mid-2021. More details will be available over the coming months.

For more information on these projects email peering@ix.nz

L-Root now active across IX Australia

Freshly activated at the time of writing is a brand spanking new L-Root connected into NSW-IX, with routes appearing right across IX Australia, thanks to a new partnership with ICANN. With another root instance appearing on the network your DNS lookups should be lightning fast. This means we have the I-Root on WA-IX and the L-Root in the east. Coupled with member Cloudflare’s distribution of the E, F and J-Roots, and other DNS registry operator members, your DNS performance should be second to none.

Amazon increases capacity at VIC-IX

Following on from Amazon’s recent expansion across the IXes, they have now upgraded the existing 40Gbps to 100Gbps at VIC-IX. Members with services and customers using Amazon should take advantage of the additional redundancy across the exchange. The same capacity upgrade was completed in WA-IX last month.

For more information reach out to Amazon on peering-apac@amazon.com

Welcome Emily and Nitika

IAA would like to introduce Emily Gallarde, who has joined the Perth team on a three-month contract as our Digital Marketing Assistant.  This role will involve auditing and creating content for the new combined IAA/IXA website.

Emily is a recent graduate from the University of Western Australia, with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Communications and Media Studies, and Psychology in Society. During her studies, Emily completed internships with both YMCA WA and Mazenod College and previously held various administrative roles with Air New Zealand.

Outside of work Emily likes to go for bush walks and spend time with her family. More recently she has been exploring her Eurasian heritage by cooking traditional foods from Malaysia, and we are all excited to try some in the office.

Welcome to the team Emily!

We’d also like to introduce Nitika Midha who is joining us on a six-month internship to assist us in our public policy development. With all the changes in regulation and many controversial topics floating around, we need someone to work through the issues and help put our responses together.

Nitika is a recent graduate from the University of New South Wales, with a combined Bachelor of Commerce (Marketing) and Arts (International Relations). After becoming fascinated with the internet space following an internship at a datacentre company, she is now writing her International Relations Honours thesis on how states are securitising virtual and physical internet infrastructure.

Her previous employers include a datacentre and cloud services provider, so she has some great practical experience already.

Welcome Nitika!

Supporting women and the next generation

IAA is pleased to announce a brand-new partnership supporting women and the next generation in the tech industry.

Women in Technology WA (WiTWA) is a Perth based not-for-profit organisation providing opportunities to women to extend their networks and expand their knowledge. They also run high school programs to promote the industry as a whole.

With our origins being in Western Australia, we are excited to be working with WiTWA to inspire local women on the possibilities and arm them with the tools and resources to be successful in the industry.

As part of the partnership, IAA will be sponsoring WiTWA’s Techtrails program, a high school program which is designed to generate passion, excitement and interest in STEM, introducing kids to the different areas of technology and possible career options.

We will also be sponsoring a series of events over the next 12 months and an award at WiTWA’s annual awards night in November.

Events will be promoted on our website or follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date.

From the CEO’s Desk

Well, that was quite a month, wasn’t it? The floods certainly had us worried about our east coast connectivity, and luckily we lost only one of the fibre runs. That run was successfully restored once the fibre crews could reach it safely and we experienced no related down time though I admit my knuckles were a little white for a time! I’m glad too that our Australia-wide intercapital project is over, so we now have redundant paths between all the IXes. We’ve not been slacking, though as the tech team also recently upgraded Adelaide to increase the 10G ports, activated even more capacity into Amazon and set up a nice new L-root presence in the east.

What has put me into a state of complete despair, however, are the recent disclosures from the Federal political scene. Over my years of interactions with politicians and Canberra lobbyists of all varieties, I have always jokingly said that it wasn’t safe to party on drinking with them, but my fears were based purely on the risks from extreme alcohol consumption! Members should be assured, however, that once some form of dignity is reinstated in Canberra we will champion your views again. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long – we deserve so much better from our representatives and system of government.

Our own industry has had its own criticism, however, with the Human Rights Commission’s 2018 finding that “four out of five people working in information, media and telecommunications reported being sexually harassed”, so we certainly have our own path to travel. On that basis, the IAA board adopted a Code of Conduct for Events, one for the Board itself, and I have made a personal commitment to all IAA staff to ensure a healthy, safe and harassment free workplace with mechanisms to back that up, and we did all of this before the recent disclosures from Canberra. If members would like to further discuss this topic, or look to strategies for industry-wide improvement, please feel free to be in touch. One specific industry initiative we are newly supporting is that of a Women in Tech WA (WiTWA) sponsorship, and we are actively working with other potential partners, too.

Speaking of governance, the IAA board recently met to review the organisation’s strategic directions, including architectural standards, and we are close to finalising a new strategic plan. One topic that came up is that of updating our corporate structure from the current West Australian Association’s law to federal corporation’s law. If we were to do this, then a process of member consultation will be followed, so your views on our corporate governance are sought. Rest assured, the board is fully committed to remaining a not-for-profit, member driven association and our roots firmly remain in Western Australia.

Best wishes

Narelle