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RPKI Deployment Explored in Latest IAA Event

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.

RIP DC3

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.

IAA to Implement RPKI

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

Switch Upgrades

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.

Capacity increase on Sydney to Brisbane Link

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.

Automated DNS now in Operation

The technical team have not been quiet during the lockdown. After some considerable effort, we now have fully automated updates to the peering DNS records, for both forward and reverse lookup zones, across all IX Australia exchanges.

Peering IP addresses can be queried as, “as10084.nsw.internet.asn.au”, and reverse DNS entries can be queried as “200.52.100.218.in-addr.arpa”.

This also means that traceroutes which traverse an IX Australia peering connection will display the correct AS information.

For more information email peering@internet.asn.au

IAA Network Status Page

Last year IAA launched a new status page for members, detailing work and outages within the network.

Over the coming weeks we will be migrating all registrations from our old platform across to our new status page. If you have not already registered to receive notifications, we encourage you to register now to be kept up to date.

Registration is free to all members and you can tailor your updates for particular outages, such as outages by state or for all incidents.

The status page has been linked to the @IXAustralia twitter account to post updates (prefix [IX Status]) from the platform.

Register here to receive network notifications.

Introducing Alice-LG

IAA has rolled out a new looking glass, offering more transparent routing information to its members.

Alice-LG is global looking glass, covering all exchange points for IX Australia across all route servers. It is a concise application which houses all information in one location, saving members time actively having to search our multiple exchanges.

Alice-LG has several key features including the ability to see who is peering with which route server and which routes are advertised and by whom. All data is available using the REST API.

Why not check out Alice-LG for yourself.

IAA Grows its Technical Team

Network Engineer Aaron Chidiac recently joined the IAA peering team. Aaron grew up teaching himself computing before completing a diploma in Information Technology Networking.

After a traineeship and junior support role with a small ISP, Aaron was promoted and given responsibility for several projects including network consolidation, VoIP infrastructure and a national hardware migration.

In his spare time, Aaron is an avid gamer and enjoys getting outdoors for a bit of camping and hiking.

Aaron is hoping his new role with the Association will accelerate his knowledge of industry issues and is looking forward to helping find solutions to make the Internet better. Welcome Aaron, we are excited to have you onboard!

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