Christian Koch, Megaport

Evolution At The Edge. Interconnection, Cloud Services, Oh my!

Why I’m Here

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Over the past 20 years, networks have generally interconnected the same way, however, there are some interesting changes that are occurring that are fundamentally changing how we buy, manage, and operate our networks. In the following slides, I’ll present my observations, theories, and predictions. I am not here to sell you anything, market any products or tell you what to do or what not to do. I want to provide a neutral view of what’s happening with networking and interconnection because it is something I am passionate and care about.

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Evolution definition

evolution ˌiːvəәˈluːʃ(əә)n,ˈɛv-/ Noun The process by which, over time, something undergoes a positive change, developing beneficial traits that are passed on as a foundation for future generations.

Some Notable Bits of History

1992 Worldcom MAE-East

1994 MAE-West AADS LINX AMS-IX

2006 Amazon Web Services, EC2

2011 AWS Releases Direct Connect SDN/OpenFlow

2010 France-IX

OpenStack

2001 Euro-IX LyonIX JPNAP

1998 Equinix MAE-East ATM

2012 Netflix OpenConnect

2013 Open-IX Association

2030 Whats Next?

2020 Coming Soon

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1995 HKIX

2014 Equinix Cloud Exchange Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Google Cloud Interconnect

2008 Microsoft Azure

What The Traditional Edge Looks Like

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Peers & Transit Providers

Datacenter

Network POP or Edge Site

Observations

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Bilateral Peering, Multilateral Peering (Route Servers), and IP Transit have remained the most popular methods of interconnection to deliver IP traffic. Embedded Caching is still only able to be achieved by a small amount of networks. Other than IP Transit pricing consistently falling, the economics around bandwidth and network services remain mostly unchanged. Cloud is very real and becoming a major driver in evolution of the network through SDN, NFV, economics, and enterprise requirements.

Cloud & Internet Exchange Points

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They are a Platform from day 1 that provides unparalleled functionality and connectivity, and can serve as true foundation to build services and features on top of. Low Barrier to Entry since networks are already connected to the “platform” they are more likely and ready to consume other services.

Through distributed deployment, they increase availability and opportunity by building infrastructure that extends into many dense data centers. The Top 3 Cloud Providers were already running massive networks prior to becoming the top cloud providers, and it is common to find this infrastructure distributed throughout the same data centers as the IXP’s.

Internet Exchanges sit in one of the most optimal positions to unlock value as the requirements of today's networks evolve.

The Network Edge of Today and Tomorrow

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Peers & Transit Providers

Datacenter

Network POP or Edge Site

Cloud Service Providers

Embedded Caching

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Evolution definition

60% of today’s IT spend is on software systems, not hardware platforms

Design, Manage, Operate

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SDN is leveraged to provide off-device software based controllers, and automation. The DevOps movement is expanding to network roles. Network Operators will need to learn how to code, and peering coordinators need to be involved in more business activity.

Cloud Services are being created to provide frictionless management tasks, such as monitoring, analytics, and notification services Efficiency is becoming more important, and software is a major component to reducing costs, and increasing operational efficiency

Cloud Infrastructure and Software are Fundamentally changing how we build and operate networks.

Takeaways

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The Interconnection landscape is changing. Econmonics are shifting. Software is a key design component of the network. Roles and Responsiblities are evolving, we must learn new skills.

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Evolution definition

Thank You.

Contact Me ck@megaport.com | @xt1an