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.

Those of you who attended the Life under Lockdown session will have seen the following timetable for IAA’s implementation of RPKI:

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

Our latest round of switch upgrades has commenced, with SYD1 being the first. We will be migrating over from a single (full!) switch to a pair of X870 switches giving us ample room for growth and a newer, more reliable switch fabric. With two switches in place we will have better redundancy and terminate our intercapital links on more diverse paths.

Outages are being scheduled for 11 and 13 August, and those directly affected will receive explicit outage notices via your nominated contacts.

IAA have completed the first round of inter-capital link upgrades, upgrading the SYD-BNE links from 10G to 40G (4 x 10G services) on two separate routes. This is part of an overall program of capacity expansion recently approved by the Board.

The purpose of this work is to increase capacity nationwide and ensure physical path diversity between all points, making a more resilient inter-capital network for members. The upgrades are necessary to meet increased and forecasted demand and will enable members to scale up their networks.

Over the coming months we will be increasing capacity along diverse paths between Sydney to Melbourne, Melbourne to Adelaide, Sydney to Adelaide and Adelaide to Perth. Coupled with the existing link between Sydney and Perth these upgrades will ensure we have enough headroom to meet the forecast member demand, fill the caches that we host, and reroute traffic with minimal congestion in the event of failure between the capital cities.