Model IXP in the Lab

IAA engineers have been busy this month installing six new devices for physical lab testing and to assess different automation stacks for our upcoming portal redesign work.

Whilst currently using a single switch vendor within our peering networks, challenges with automation mean we need to look at a range of vendors including those that support open-sourced methods of automation. As such, we have put three different sets of kit into our lab so we can fully check out what we need to do to provide the solutions for our automation requirements into the future.

Each device has two ports dedicated as ‘member’ ports which go back to a dedicated NIC on a vmware cluster and through to individual VMs running various router software e.g. RouterOS.

This lab will also test the feasibility of newer layer two technologies such as VXLAN and EVPN for use across the IX, and layer three technologies such as Segment-Routing (SPRING) to improve our core network and intercapital management. Our plan is full future proofing as we grow.