IAA will be increasing Melbourne’s cache capacity by an additional 100G for Netflix and Google caches in November. Members are reminded that the Facebook cache is an opt in service, but all other cache capacity will be available immediately.
IAA will be increasing Melbourne’s cache capacity by an additional 100G for Netflix and Google caches in November. Members are reminded that the Facebook cache is an opt in service, but all other cache capacity will be available immediately.
We are in the process of building additional mirror servers and are open to suggestions for content! Is there any content you would like us to mirror? Do you prefer cat videos or linux distros? Let us know! Email our team on peering@internet.asn.au
It’s nearly that time of year again. IAA will be implementing a change freeze on services between 23rd December 2020 and 10th January 2021 inclusive. During this time services will not be added or removed. Support staff will be on call to deal with urgent issues, so members should rest assured that all IXes will be properly tended. We will be accepting orders and change requests up until 11th December for actioning before 22nd December 2020.
Get your orders in by Friday 11th December to avoid disappointment or congestion over the new year when you get your new toys.
IAA welcomes the new 100Gbps Facebook cache in Victoria. Members who want to receive Facebook content in these exchanges, please ensure your PeeringDB record is up-to-date and reach out to Facebook to setup a bilateral BGP session.
We are working currently to activate caches in Qld and WA and will advise members once they are available.
Information about Facebook’s peering policies and contacts appear in their PeeringDB record.
IAA’s recent audit of the RPKI status of the prefixes advertised over the exchanges found a number of invalid advertisements from member peering sessions.
We have now notified all members affected by this and as per our timetable outlined in last month’s newsletter item, we will begin dropping prefixes with invalid RPKI status, starting from September 1, 2020.
If you need further assistance with any routes that have been flagged as invalid or would like more information regarding our RPKI deployment, email peering@internet.asn.au
After weeks of preparation, IAA team leader Nick Pratley and engineer, Aaron Chidiac, pulled a night shift at Equinix SY1 last week, successfully replacing the Extreme Black Diamond X8.
The huge 14.5 RU BDX8 modular switch has, up until now, given us the flexibility to satisfy all peer requirements, but we’ve chosen to replace it with the much smaller Extreme Networks x870-32c.
With the promise of future proofing, we expected that over time the expensive 100G modules would mature to a point where the cost was acceptable, however they are currently end of life and still prohibitively expensive. On this basis, it’s clear the benefits of the BDx8 do not outweigh the significant support and module costs, so we’ve moved to the new Extreme switch.
The work involved downsizing the 14.5RU monster to a 1RU pizza box form factor, reducing rack temperatures and power consumption whilst freeing up space for future servers, switches, and content provider caches.
Amazingly, the entire new Extreme x870-32c device costs less than the modules required to keep up with member demand for 100G ports. It is capable of 32 x 100G ports that can be partitioned into different modes, comfortably fitting 96 x 10G member ports, with 8 x 40G/100G ports to spare!
Members can now expect greater reliability of inter capital and inter data centre links. This also means we’re separating key links across hardware, so we can ensure our ring network is not taken down by a single path, link or hardware failure, and latency spikes will now only occur during diverse path outages or extreme congestion events.
This has been weeks in the planning and puts us in great shape to repeat the effort in Melbourne sometime in the next couple of months.
Well done Nick and Aaron on a massive effort and a trouble free cut over.
Members and friends this month enjoyed a deep dive into RPKI implementation as part of our Life Under Lockdown series.
On the topic of ‘How to avoid heists, hijacks and hostages’ the importance of BGP security was covered. Several ways of keeping your routing table secure and in sync with APNIC (and other) authoritative sources were examined.
Tashi Phuntsho from APNIC provided a practical overview on deploying RPKI on your network, and his presentation slide deck is available to download. The event was also live streamed to our Facebook page if you missed it. It is worth a re-watch.
IAA’s timetable for implementing RPKI – including whose routes will be dropped – was outlined at the event. Members are encouraged to check their advertisements match the routes they own, as we will be dropping bogons from 1 September, 2020.
Due to TPG closing the old PIPE DC3 facility in Brisbane, the team recently completed a rearrangement of the network across QLD-IX. We’ve built a new link between the Over The Wire and NextDC B2 facilities in Fortitude Valley, and without interruption to service. All of our systems have now vacated DC3.
Those of you who attended the Life under Lockdown session will have seen the following timetable for IAA’s implementation of RPKI:
| Milestone | When |
| Metrics and reporting to members | Now |
| RS1 Upgrades | 17th – 18th August, 2020 |
| RS2 Upgrades | 24th – 25th August, 2020 |
| Route Server Automation (including AS – SET updates | 1st September, 2020 |
| Drop invalid routes | 1st September, 2020 |
We are keen to meet these dates and hope you will all see the benefits of a cleaner routing table. Check out Nick Pratley’s presentation from the event which includes a listing of the routes we will drop, or use lg.ix.asn.au to see what routes are being advertised.
Please let us know if you want more information or need further assistance with the routes we have flagged as invalid. Email peering@ix.sn.au
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