Turn to our centre pages to find out more

Community Broadband p05In the first of two part community broadband feature HotLINX looks at how LINX member, B4RN, are connecting the properties of the north of England with high speed

Internet services. Read more on page 5.

In the Spotlight p17Charlie Boisseau, Director at LINX member Fluency Communications, is Chairman of the IXScotland steering committee. Turn to page 17 to learn more about him and the peering scene north of the border.

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Ask the Expert p18Emma Saunders, LINX Member Relations Representative, explains what LINX Guardians are and why we need them. Turn to page 18 to find out more.

Pressing ForwardNew Pricing Structure Makes

Membership Even More Valuable

Industry Events p15The new year marks the start of another busy period for industry and member events. LINX Chief Marketing Officer, Ben Hedges, looks ahead to what’s instore.

LINX Award p06On page 6 we announce that former Chairman, Grahame Davies, has been awarded the Conspicuous Contribution to LINX prize

Public Affairs p08In our Public Affairs section Malcolm Hutty analyses the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill plus developments on mass surveillance programmes

Contents

HotLINX Publisher: Ben HedgesEditor: Jeremy OrbellCo-ordinator: Jo Fereday

Telephone: +44 1733 207705Editorial & Content: hotlinx@linx.netPrinting: Sudbury PrintPublishing: London Internet Exchange Limited. Trinity Court, Trinity Street, Peterborough, United Kingdom PE1 1DA

No part of this publication may be reproduced without the permission of the publishers.

Face Off Inside StoriesWelcome to HotLINX40. Here’s a brief summary of the LINX community and industry news articles featured inside this issue.

The lead feature article covers the announcement of LINX’s new pricing structure where members are able to connect on all six LINX LANs at IG or less for no charge as part of their membership fee. The first port at each location is being offered for free and has already seen a surge in interest for networks looking to expand their peering options.

In our Industry News pages we report on BT’s talks to acquire EE plus round up the latest data centre devlopments in Manchester and London.

The LINX Engineering team have been very busy recently with the launch of a number of new PoPs and network upgrades and as we move into the new year the exchange is closing in on 10 terabits of connected capacity. You can read more on on what they have planned for 2015 on page 7.

Finally we take our usual look at the latest LINX member and technical statistics on our back page.

Internet Industry TweetsBelow are just a few of the Internet and LINX community related updates we’ve spotted on Twitter recently.

SureVoIP ITSP @SureVoIP We’re joining @AllegroNetworks #SNAP and #IXManchester via @LINX_Network See you there in the new year? #IXP #peering #VoIP #UltraLowLatency

Mythic Beasts @Mythic_Beastswe’re delivering considerably more than twice the normal amount of traffic, without @LINX_Network Christmas would be cancelled.

Gareth Denny @gazdennyGot my @LINX_Network Rubik’s Cube! Consider me distracted for the rest of #ripe69 pic.twitter.com/qNi6ge5Apq

Christian Koch @xt1anGreat @LINX_Network meeting! Looking forward to coming back already. Happy 20th Birthday, LINX! #LINX87

LINX on TwitterKeep up to date with LINX on Twitter using @LINX_Network

02 HotLINX © London Internet Exchange 2015

What they’re saying p05Rob Bath explains the importance of Digital Realty’s relationship with LINX with regard to the new PoP launched recently in Chessington.

Do you follow?You can also get LINX news on LinkedIn and Facebook via the quick links below:www.linx.net/LNC/linkedinwww.linx.net/LNC/facebook

HotLINX Issue 40 | Welcome 03

Welcome

A New Year and A New Outlook Revised Pricing Structure Makes Membership Even More Attractive So as we move into a new year, we can again reflect on another remarkable 12 months for LINX. Records have been tumbling in terms of membership applications, new peaks in traffic and port orders plus we have opened a new exchange in Wales with IXCardiff. On top of that we have a new London site at Digital Realty Chessington and have integrated Interxion into our core network. I feel that we can be justly proud at what we’ve achieved but we can’t afford to rest on our laurels, which is why we are looking to make 2015 even better.

A big talking point within the membership, and indeed the industry, is our new pricing structure which is designed to put membership at the centre of everything we do. Your LINX membership fee now gives you the ability to take a 1G port at every LINX operated peering LAN for no additional cost. That’s up to 6G of connected capacity for £100 a month. We think that represents unrivalled value for our members and hope it will encourage many of you to take advantage of this opportunity to enhance your peering solution. Party SeasonAt the beginning of November LINX was the local host of the 69th RIPE meeting. As you may know this was the first time in a decade that the meeting had been held in the UK and it was fitting that both LINX and RIPE had anniversaries to celebrate, 20 years and 25 years respectively.

Part of my role at RIPE69 was to make an opening address and attendees would be forgiven in thinking that they were in a parallel universe when they witnessed me being heckled by a Dalek! This inter-galactic invasion came from the mind of our CMO Ben Hedges but we have Bedford Girls’ School to thank for lending us the extremely ‘lifelike’ Dalek which they had built themselves. I should also say thanks to LINX’s Technical Sales Advisor, Mark Stokes, who operated the alien intruder on the day.

It’s hard to imagine that anyone has been unaware of our 20th anniversary year celebrations and I certainly won’t forget how they concluded at our birthday party at LINX87. Again we have Ben to thank for the idea of me appearing in a giant birthday cake and being serenaded by a Marilyn Monroe lookalike. The things I do in the name of LINX!

John pictured at the RIPE69 and the LINX 20th Birthday Party with special guests the Daleks and Marilyn Monroe

By John Souter, LINX Chief Executive Officer

Editorial

In 21st Year the LINX Brand Reverts to TypeBy Jeremy Orbell, HotLINX EditorThe eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted that the LINX logo in the bottom right-hand corner of the front page of HotLINX has changed. 2014 was, of course, our 20th anniversary year and throughout the past 12 months we have been using the striking roundel design below.

In Internet terms 20 years is a significant milestone and while our brand is well known throughout the industry we felt the time was right to mark this particular point in our history. We still feel that this longevity deserves recognition and therefore we have developed a new logo for 2015 to emphasise this.

The gold styling from last year has been combined with our traditional branding, with the year LINX was formed added below. We believe that this projects an image of quality and trust that matches our ethos as an exchange - we hope you do too.hotlinx@linx.net

Industry NewsSubmissions

Have a story you’d like to tell the LINX members? Send your

ideas to the HotLINX team hotlinx@linx.net

04 HotLINX Issue 40 | Industry News

Data Centre NewsDataCentred to occupy Manchester’s The Sharp ProjectDataCentred, a provider of next-generation data centre and open-source cloud computing services, has announced that terms have been agreed to occupy 58,000ft² of space at Manchester’s digital content production complex, The Sharp Project.

The need for a second Greater Manchester site is due to the increased demand for DataCentred’s colocation and cloud storage services at its first data centre, an 850 rack facility located in MediaCityUK in Salford.

The Sharp Project and MediaCityUK are two of the biggest digital hubs outside of London and bridging the two will more than double DataCentred’s rack capacity. It will provide the company with access to the substantial number of media organisations and fast growing digital businesses based nearby.

The cloud and colocation computing services that DataCentred will provide at The Sharp Project and MediaCity, combined with the physical network that it installs linking these hubs with the Manchester peering point, IXManchester, will enhance the overall proposition that the region can offer to businesses.

Dr Mike Kelly, CEO of DataCentred, said: “Our presence at The Sharp Project brings DataCentred one step closer to implementing our strategy of increased regional connectivity, which we are leading, as companies increasingly seek regional solutions to their data centre requirements.”

Data Volume to Top One Zettabyte inside Two YearsUSA Today has reported that global traffic has multiplied five-fold over the past five years and is set to increase three-fold by 2018. By this date traffic is expected to be 64 times the volume of the entire Internet in 2005, the data equivalent of all movies ever made crossing the network every three minutes.

These projections are according to Cisco Systems who expect that sometime in the next two years, annual data volumes will pass one zettabyte, which is 1 followed by 21 zeros bytes.

John Hayduk, chief technology officer at telecom giant Tata Communications summed up the rate of progress thus:

It has been widely reported that telecoms giant BT is looking to buy EE, the UK’s largest mobile network group.

The two companies have entered into exclusive talks which are expected to last several weeks ahead of a £12.5bn acquisition. If successful the deal would create a communications powerhouse covering fixed-line phones, broadband, mobile and TV.

BT said in a statement that that owning EE would accelerate plans to provide customers with seamless Internet access whether via fibre broadband, wi-fi hotspots or 4G mobile services. It would also be able to sell its fixed line services to EE customers who have yet to take a service through BT.

BT in Talks to Acquire EE in Massive £12.5bn Deal

Some analysts have warned that while the deal is unlikely to be blocked it could face scrutiny from telecoms regulator Ofcom. This is because the acquisition combines the UK market-leader in fixed-line with the number one mobile operator. According to Citigroup, EE is the market leader in 4G and has 24.5 million customers. It also holds 33.8% of the UK mobile market by revenue.

EE’s owners, Germany’s Deutsche Telekom and France’s Orange, would take stakes of 12% and 4% respectively in BT under the proposed terms of the deal.

Back in November it was announced that BT had also been in talks to buy O2, which is owned by Spanish firm Telefonica who acquired the company for £17.7bn in 2005.

“Something new has always come up to drive the rate. We have to add multiple terabytes to our network just to keep up.”

The Internet industry is responding to this flood of data by creating facilities such as SV5, an Equinix data centre in San Jose, California. Equinix is currently adding another 29,500 square feet to SV5 at a cost of $43 million (£27.4m). On completion the expanded facility will top 156,000 square feet.

The research published in USA Today is covered in more detail here: www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/25/internet-surges-data-centers-gear-up/17381833

Industry NewsIn Brief

HotLINX Issue 40 | Industry News 05

What they’re saying

In the first of a two part HotLINX feature on community broadband schemes we look at new LINX member Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN) who spoke at the recent IXScotland meeting in Edinburgh.

Based in the North West of England B4RN is a not for profit, community benefit society funded by community shares, personal loans and social lenders. The area it serves is in the final 10% of the country yet to have full broadband services and in an effort to get connected sooner, B4RN are working together with people in the area to change that.

While B4RN’s coverage area is 50% larger than the city of Edinburgh it features just 3520 properties compared to neally half a million in the Scottish capital. In order to connect all those within the B4RN region the project needs £3.5m to cover the average build cost of £1000 per property. More than £1.7M has been raised so far and it is expected the whole project will be 100% self funded.

Technically there are no exclusions due to line lengths or copper quality and if the property is in one of the parishes that connect then they will receive a full speed service. Each village node will be connected to Juniper EX4550 switches with diversely routed fibre links with 10GbE circuits (20Gbs LAG).

It’s future proofed with 1Gbs and upwards available without the need for new infrastructure. It’s affordable too, with a £150 connection fee along with a £30 monthly charge.

At the end of last year 14 village nodes were active and around 750 properties were connected. The target is to add 50-100 per month over the course of the next 12 months with the aim of connecting 2000 properties by the end of 2015. www.b4rn.org.uk

Digital Realty Looking Forward to Supporting LINX’s London Network Rob Bath, VP of engineering EMEA with Digital Realty“LINX’s decision to build a relationship with us means that, in addition to the full exchange in Chessington, clients across the company’s London portfolio of data centre facilities will be able to connect via satellite vPOPs.This relationship with LINX is made possible by the existence of the Digital Realty network ecosystem. We also very much look forward to helping support an important physical diversity of footprint for the exchange beyond the current concentration of city-based deployments.”www.cloudcomputingworld.co.uk/news/linx-selects-digital-realty-for-its-chessington-pop

IXCardiff Helping Making Welsh Capital More Attractive to Investors Councillor Phil Bale, Cardiff Council“This internet exchange has significant benefits to our city and for the rest of Wales, cutting costs for local internet providers, making our city more attractive to investors and businesses. The UK Government has pledged £6.8m towards the programme and has dedicated £600,000 of it to ensure smaller businesses are also connected to the exchange. With this development in digital infrastructure, becoming even more super-connected will enable the Welsh Capital to compete against other financial centres across the world.”https://cardiffleadersblog.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/budget-settlement/

B4RN Connecting Communities Through Local Broadband Scheme

Data Centre NewsInterxion to Expand Shoreditch CampusLeading European cloud and colocation provider Interxion is planning to extend its range of data centre facilities in London by expanding its Shoreditch campus in East London.

Interxion currently operates in excess of 30 data centres across Europe in 11 different countries. It already has two of sites in central London on Brick Lane, but the growing demand for colocation space has led to the company submitting planning applications to Tower Hamlets Council for two further sites in the capital.

Interxion’s Managing Director of International Business, Douglas Loewe, said, “The companies that we’re talking with now are some of the coolest logos in the world. These companies are joining the Interxion family and also choosing London as their hub for either network nodes or mini-compute nodes. In the 20 years I’ve lived in Europe, I’ve never seen activity more pronounced than now.”

LINX located its first Core Node outside of the London Docklands area at the Interxion campus in Shoreditch in May.

At the LINX87 member meeting in November, Grahame Davies became the sixth recipient of the Conspicuous Contribution to LINX Award.

Grahame has been a loyal servant to the exchange from its very earliest-days

spending 15 years as non-executive Chairman. He has also served on many LINX member and Internet industry boards including the IWF and Nominet

PAB. In collecting his award Grahame said, “I’ve been very pleased and very fortunate

to contribute to LINX and I intend

to carry on doing so. Thank you.”

Grahame DaviesConspicuous Contribution to LINX Award

06 HotLINX Issue 40 | LINX News

Membership Approve 2015 Budget and Appointment of Independent Chairman at LINX87 EGM

LINX News

At the LINX87 EGM in November the membership formally voted to approve a number of resolutions including the budget for 2015, the appointment of auditors and the remuneration of the LINX Council. There were further resolutions to discontinue the Endorsements Panel and also the proposal to appoint an independent LINX chairman. In summary, all six resolutions being voted on were passed, with each achieving higher than 86% votes in favour.

Resolution 1 - the appointment of an independent Chairman of the LINX Council - required 75% of the member vote to be carried and this was achieved with 86% in favour. All other resolutions required only 50% of the vote to be

passed and every one achieved over 90%. Particularly notable was the 98% approval of the 2015 budget where the majority of LINX ports are cheaper and the first 1G port on each LAN is now free.

LINX Website Updated to Reflect EGM VotingAs a consequence of the EGM voting the LINX Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and Memorandum and Articles of Association (M&A) have both been updated on the LINX website. www.linx.net/govern/mouwww.linx.net/govern/manda

The new fees schedule, which came into effect on 1 January 2015, can also be viewed here: www.linx.net/service/servicefees

Board UpdateLINX Governace ReviewBy Steve Wright, LINX Chairman

Following an extensive governance review both internally and with business consultants, KPMG, a number of recommendations were suggested for continued development and progression of the board at LINX. The most significant of was in relation to the planning and stability benefits in appointing an independent Chairman. This was put to the membership for consultation at LINX86 and approved in a vote at the LINX87 EGM in November.

The Board have since consulted with a number of specialist recruitment consultants, and have appointed Harvey Nash to ensure the most appropriate candidates are available and aware of this vital role at LINX. A series of interviews by the Board will be conducted to produce a short list and then a successful candidate will be selected by the Board. Once a suitable candidate is chosen, an explicit vote of the members will take place at the next AGM to approve this appointment.

The Board continue to develop the other recommendations where appropriate. These will undoubtedly lead to further member consultation on some topics in the future, and any changes to LINX constitutional documents needed to implement the changes will be consulted on in detail, with a vote at the subsequent General Meeting.

An in-depth overview of the history of the LINX Award plus a biography on Grahame’s work with LINX appeared in our 20th anniversary souvenir edition earlier this year. This is still available to download: www.linx.net/files/hotlinx/linx-20th-anniversary-souvenir-edition.pdf

Member RelationsLINX would like to announce that there have been some changes to the LINX Member Relations team with team manager Katrina Smith on maternity leave for the first few months of the year.

Emma Saunders, who joined LINX in 2013, has stepped up to oversee the running of the LINX Member Relations team. Emma will continue to attend LINX meetings and deal with queries and requests from the membership. She will be supported in her role by Inga Turner who has joined on a temporay contract as maternity cover.

Inga has spent a number of years working in customer service roles dealing with clients and major organisations directly, and so is ideally suited to her new position at LINX. Inga told HotLINX, “I am very passionate about providing the best possible service and believe in treating all clients with the utmost care. I love talking to people and I’m very excited to take on my new role and becoming part of a well established professional company.”

Membership SurveyThe Member Relations department has been very popular with the membership since being introduced as a specialist team two years ago. This is re-enforced by the recent LINX member survey where 93% of respondents rated the team as ‘Very Helpful’ (70%) or ‘Helpful’ (23%).

If you have a membership enquiry please email mr@linx.net

Engineering UpdateStats System & New PoP LaunchesBy Mike Hellers, LINX Network Engineering Manager

New Stats System - Beta LaunchAs mentioned during the November LINX meeting, we have opened up a first Beta release of our new stats system to a number of members. We have already received valuable feedback and are making good progress on fixing issues and adding additional features.

As a reminder, the new system will provide members with a single, unified view, of all of their port related statistics. This includes SNMP generated usage graphs but also flow based data showing traffic to and from peers. The flow data is captured using sFlow on Extreme Networks based LANs and using IPFIX on Juniper based LANs.

Over the coming two months, we will gradually add additional features and our goal is to make it available to all members around the time of the February LINX meeting. If you are interested in receiving access to the current beta platform, or just want further information, please drop me an email at mikeh@linx.net. Launching new PoPsThe period leading up to the holidays has been a particularly busy period for the engineering team with the focus on bringing a number of new PoPs live and into service. These included our first exchange in Wales (IXCardiff), which also features an enhanced colocation service, extending IXManchester to Joule House and M247, and implementing WDM equipment at LINX NoVA which will simplify the process for members to connect from Equinix, Ashburn. Last but not least, we are also completing the

new PoP at Digital Realty in Chessington, which will provide members direct access to the Extreme and Juniper LANs in London. Outlook into 2015In May 2012, we deployed the first Juniper PTX routers in two core sites on our London Juniper LAN. This first generation of the PTX platform provided increased port density at a lower cost basis, and was an ideal choice for our bandwidth hungry Core sites in Telehouse. Now, two and a half years later, we have used up pretty much every slot and every 10G or 100G port on the four PTX routers, and it is time to take the Core of the London LAN to the next level.

Starting before the end of Q1 2015, we will begin a significant upgrade project. This will see us moving the existing first generation linecards from the existing PTX routers in Telehouse North and Telehouse West to new PTX chassis in Interxion and Harbour Exchange. These will replace MX960 routers currently at those sites. At the same time we will upgrade the existing PTX routers in THN and THW to the second generation of linecards, doubling the available capacity across the Core sites.

These upgrades will also include upgrading the connection between the sites being uplifted from 2x32x10G to 2x4x100G in a first step, with an upgrade to 2x6x100G in a second phase. This provides us the required core capacity the then complete capacity upgrades to a number of edge sites throughout the year, based on member demand and traffic growth.

HotLINX Issue 40 | LINX News 07

Are you a data centre? Why not join our Virtual PoP Programme

A Virtual PoP is a datacentre which can provide connections to a LINX Peering LAN. These connections are either provided via a LINX approved Layer-2 carrier (Branded vPoP) or

via a resilient DWDM connection (Transmission vPoP). A LINX Virtual PoP can be located anywhere in the world where LINX has a member and there’s a potential for more.

If you are a data centre and would like further information, please email: channel@linx.net

Malcolm HuttyLINX Head of Public AffairsPublic Affairs

08 HotLINX Issue 40 | LINX Public Affairs

A new Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill was introduced to Parliament in November, further extending the government’s data retention powers barely four months after the fast-tracking of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA).

Clause 17 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill attempts to overcome complications created by the widespread use of Carrier-Grade Network Address Translation (CGN) - specifically, obstacles to the ability to match an IP address to an individual device at a particular time.

The Bill will require ISPs that use CGN to retain a new category of communications data, namely “relevant internet data”, which “may be used to identify, or assist in identifying, which

internet protocol address, or other identifier, belongs to the sender or recipient of a communication”. In practice, this is likely to include IP address port numbers and device MAC addresses.

The new Bill amends DRIPA, the controversial law which was rushed through Parliament in under a week, in a hurried attempt to place the UK’s data retention regime on a firm legal footing, after the European Court struck down the Data Retention Directive in early April. DRIPA was criticised at the time, both for its alleged incompatibility with the European Court’s decision, and for the manner in which it was rushed through Parliament with little or no effective scrutiny.

In early December, the High Court granted permission for a judicial review

Public Affairs BlogFor the latest industry news and

comment on regulatory issues please visit the Public Affairs blog

on the LINX website.https://publicaffairs.linx.net/news

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill introduced to amend DRIPA

of DRIPA, brought by Tom Watson MP and David Davis MP, represented by Liberty, and joined by Privacy International and the Open Rights Group.

Elizabeth Knight, Legal Director of the Open Rights Group, said:

“After the Court of Justice of the EU declared the Data Retention Directive invalid, the UK government had the opportunity to design new legislation that would protect human rights. It chose instead to circumvent the decision of the CJEU by introducing the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA), which is almost identical to the Data Retention Directive. Through our submission, we hope to help demonstrate that DRIPA breaches our fundamental human right to privacy and does not comply with human rights and EU law.”

If the court declares DRIPA to be in conflict with European law, the data retention provisions in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill will be also be invalidated.

ISOC Update:NIC Costa Rica IXP Launch and IXP Workshops in Tunisia and Montenegro

LINX Public AffairsIn Brief with Sam Frances

LINX Public Affairs Executive

Government introduces “revenge porn” amendmentsThe government has introduced amendments to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill aimed at criminalising “revenge porn” – the practice of distributing explicit photographs of an ex-partner without their consent. The previous week, the Crown Prosecution Service said that such material could and would be prosecuted using existing laws. The amendments would make it an offence to “disclose a private sexual photograph or film” without the subject’s consent, and with “the intention of causing that individual distress”. It includes apparent exemptions for journalism, for images that have already been published commercially, and for disclosing an image to help the police to investigate a crime.

HotLINX Issue 40 | Internet Governance 09

IXP Launches | Costa RicaA new IXP was launched in San Jose, Costa Rica at the end of November. ISOC¹s LAC team worked closely with NIC Costa Rica on the development of the IXP. Equipment from a Google grant and a Cisco grant helped start-up the IX.

NIC Costa Rica is a specialised unit within the National Academy of Sciences and will administer the top-level domain under the categories of .cr, .co.cr, .fi.cr, .or.cr, .sa.cr, .ed.cr, .ac.cr, and .go.cr.

IXP Workshop in TunisISOC, the ITU, the League of Arab States, The Tunisian Internet Association and TUNIXP co-hosted an IXP workshop on 11 November in Tunis. The workshop focused on Best Practices and brought a variety of IXPs and countries considering IXP development together.

Future IXP WorkshopA follow-on technical training workshop will take place in Montenegro the week of 23 February 2015. ISOC will be reaching out to the community in January for trainers to join the programme.

Issues of NoteITU DevelopmentThe ITU¹s Development Sector (ITU-D) will be working on interconnection issues through an ITU-D Study Group. IXPs will be part of this work. More to come on this issue, as this will be an opportunity to provide constructive information to emerging markets that are considering IXP options.For more information please contact Jane Coffin at coffin@isoc.org

MEPs call for “unbiased search” and “unbundling search engines”The European Parliament has approved a resolution calling on the European Commission to ensure that search engines are “unbiased and transparent”. The resolution, which is not binding, has also been interpreted as calling on the Commission to ‘break up’ Google, in passages referring to the “unbundling” of search services.

Suspicionless mass surveillance “cannot be justified by the fight against terrorism”The mass surveillance programs revealed by Edward Snowden “are not in conformity with European human rights law and cannot be justified by the fight against terrorism”, according to Nils Muižnieks, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. In a 120-page issue paper on the application of the rule of law to the digital world, Mr Muižnieks argues that suspicionless mass retention of communications data is both “ineffective” and “fundamentally contrary to the rule of law”.

Pressing ForwardAn Evolution in Membership Benefits that could Revolutionise the UK Internet

In November a new pricing proposal was put before the LINX membership for approval during the EGM session of the LINX87 meeting.

A number of enhancements to the membership and governance structure were proposed plus budget plans for 2015. Following voting, the membership formally and overwhelmingly approved all motions, which all took effect from 1 January this year. This article aims to put the pricing changes into context and explain why they are so important to the UK Internet and to the wider membership around the world.

Member BenefitsMembership of LINX has historically given Internet network operators access to use of the public and private peering facilities provided along with representation on regulatory matters impacting the industry. In addition members also pay additional fees for the capacity they take at the exchange in the form of ports.

The new changes will see members able to take up to 6 x 1Gb (6,000Mb) of port capacity, one 1Gb at each LINX operated peering LAN, as part of their membership fee.

As we know LINX has been established for 20 years and for much of this time the UK’s Internet infrastructure has been concentrated on London. In the past two years LINX has opened IXPs in Manchester (IXManchester), Edinburgh (IXScotland), and Cardiff (IXCardiff) in order to provide its member ISPs and content owners a diverse interconnection solution that reduces the UK’s dependency on its two London peering LANs.

It was at this time last year that LINX opened its first overseas exchange, LINX NoVA, which is based in the outskirts of Washington DC. LINX has around 100 US members and the new membership model will now allow these and other networks to have a redundant peering solution in the region at no additional cost.

10 HotLINX Issue 40 | Inside Stories

“Strengthening the UK’s Internet Infrastructure”“By enabling members to take up to 1G of capacity at every LINX peering LAN as part of their membership fee we hope to encourage more network operators to use the IXPs available to them throughout the UK. This will not only help strengthen the underlying infrastructure of the UK Internet, but should mean consumers and businesses will enjoy even faster and more reliable services”.

Ben Hedges, LINX CMO

HotLINX Issue 40 | Inside Stories 11

“Focussed on Serving our Members”“LINX has been cutting its prices for a number of years now and that policy has led to increased member numbers and greater economies of scale. The new pricing structure takes this a step further making membership even more attractive. The LINX ethos remains clear: we are a mutual exchange focussed on serving our members, both with our local and international peering platforms, and in our efforts within the public affairs arena. Long may that continue”.

John Souter, LINX CEO

2015 LINX Fees & ConnectionMembers can connect to the public exchange directly or via a third party on the ConneXions programme. Port fees are the same regardless of how a member connects, but the ConneXions programme allows a larger choice in port size. LINX will provide IPv4 and/or IPv6 addresses for each interface connected to the exchange.

Using MPLS technology, members are able to connect to all LINX LANs via VLANs. Many LINX ConneXions partners will bundle ports with transport, and thus may not list the same rates as for direct connections to LINX LANs. It should also be noted there are no installation charges made by LINX for a VLAN connection.

Full details of LINX’s current fee structure can be found on the LINX website: www.linx.net/service/servicefees.

More Price CutsIn addition to the new membership benefits and peering opportunities, a range of price cuts have been introduced. The cost of 10GE and 100GE port sizes have been reduced by 13% discount across all LINX LANs and there’s no charge at all for 10GE ports at IXScotland and IXCardiff until 1st Jan 2016. At LINX NoVA no charge will be made on 10GE connections until 1st July 2015.

This continued a policy of LINX returning excess funds to members and reflects its commitment to lowering peering costs in the industry. It also emphasises the advantages of its mutual, not-for-profit business model where its customers - the members - are also its shareholders.

LINX has spent a generation working on behalf of its members by offering a premium peering service plus the added benefit of regulatory representation. Fundamentally, these changes, endorsed by the membership, reinforces LINX’s primary objective of...

‘Working for the Good of the Internet’

A History of Reducing the Cost of MembershipLINX has a long history of price cuts. In 2001 a £10,000 joining fee was in place which was slashed by 50% the following year before being abolished entirely in 2008. 10G port fees have more than halved since they were first offered in 2006 and the membership fee, in excess of £8000 in 2001, has been cut by 85%. With certain port sizes being totally free at the LINX local exchanges there is no doubt that connection to LINX has never been better value.

Local Exchange News

12 HotLINX Issue 40 | Regional Exchanges

Fourth IXScotland Meeting Attracts Record Attendence

IXCardiffWelsh Exchange Now Operational

IXManchester NewsFibre Work at IXManchester Now CompleteSince the last LINX meeting in November the LINX Engineering team have been busy upgrading IXManchester network. The Loop and Virgin Media, who have been contracted to carry out fibre installations, completed their work in December with Loop replacing two of the four Virgin Media spans.

Senior Network Engineer, Tim Preston, visited the Manchester site and successfully tested the Loop span between Telecity Williams House and Telecity Joules House. A second visit in early January will confirm the M247 and Virgin Media connectivity, as well as finish off the route server and captain redundancy items.

IXManchester Traffic and Member Numbers GrowingIt has been a good year for IXManchester in terms of member and traffic growth. Launched in 2012, LINX’s first regional IXP now has nearly 60 members and 60 connected member ports, 13 of which are at 10GigE. Traffic recently hit 12Gb/s thanks in part to the connection of Akamai Technologies and the BBC.

Future EventsAnother event geared for the local community is planned for the first half of the year. Look out for further announcements very soon.

LINX staged the fourth IXScotland meeting at Edinburgh University’s, St Leonard’s Hall on Monday 1st December. There was a record attendence at the event with 61 delegates registered from 45 different organisations.

Encouragingly for the future of the Scottish exchange was the fact that more than half the attendees were from non-members, government and enterprise bodies. This indicates a great deal of interest in peering in the city and the country as a whole.

Among the speakers were Colin Cook, Deputy Director Digital Strategies and Programmes for the Scottish Government and IXScotland steering committee chairman Charlie Boisseau who spoke about the exchange’s vision for the future. There were two community broadband initiative talks by William Waites (HUBS) and Barry Forde (B4RN) plus a panel session chaired by Richard Morrell. This was a lively discussion covering the issue of connectivity and broadband access provision in Scotland.

Telecity Joule House

IXCardiff has now been brought into service and the suite cabling completed. This means that once the management circuit install has been completed members will be able to connect from outside the suite.

The new exchange in Cardiff has an impressive technical specification built around the Extreme X460 switch. It features a management router, route collector and route server for multilateral peering plus a monitoring server. Also on offer is IPv4 and IPv6 peering LANs and a range of port sizes up to 10GigE. Other services available include rack space rental, connection via LINX’s ConneXions partnership scheme and dedicated phone and email support from LINX staff.

For more information about joining please contact the LINX team: sales@linx.net

HotLINX Issue 40 | Product News 13

Colocation Services Available on Local LANs from January 2015

LINX NoVA NewsIt has been a solid first 12 months for LINX’s first overseas IXP, LINX NoVA. Plenty of orders have been received with 12 currently in provisioning. These include Wide Open West, an ISP with 1.3m subscribers, and Century Link, an ISP with 5m subscribers - the 3rd largest in the US.

We now expect to have more than 200Gb/s member edge capacity by the end of year 1.

Promotional PricingIt has been announced that promotional pricing at LINX NoVA will continue until January 2016. LINX will eventually use the same approach for sub-10G port prices at LINX NoVA as as it does at its UK exchanges, but this will not apply this year. From that point sub-10G prices at LINX NoVA. are likely to be proportionate to 10GigE pricing.

As it stands there will be no charge on 10GigE ports until 30th June 2015 at which point they will be charged at 50% of the US$ list price for the remainder of the year ($1,250 pm).

Targets for 2015Among the targets for this coming year is to attract a good number of East Coast long-tail ISPs to LINX NoVA. As we’ve said there is the potential for the addition of a fourth PoP and there are plans to expand the channel programme too. All in all the future for LINX NoVA is looking very bright indeed.

Product News

LINX Announces ConneXions Programme ChangesLINX have announced that there have been some important changes to its ConneXions reseller programme.

The original 15%, 30% and 50% schemes have been replaced by new 1GE, 10GE and 100GE schemes which refer to the size of the ConneXions partner ports. Partners are now also incentivised on a per member basis and no longer need to have a separate port for their own traffic.

LINX anticipate some members who are looking to expand their peering to all LINX LANs will use ConneXion partners to help facilitate this. This offers a simple and cost-effective way for potential members to access the LINX exchanges.

Are you are interested in reaching other LINX Internet exchange points remotely? If you are please contact our staff via email using sales@linx.net.

Advantages• Supports LINX’s aim to facilitate

regional peering at multiple peering points, which makes our members’ services more resilient and faster

• Encourages international prospects to connect throughout the UK thus strengthening further the exchange for existing members

• Reduces admin overhead for members by reducing the number of suppliers in the supply chain

• Adds value to the overall LINX service proposition and provides members with more flexibility and choice.

What is the Colocation offering?LINX has operated colocation services at Telehouse North for some time but the offering is about to be opened up to include Interxion and Equinix in London plus LINX’s local exchanges in Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff and LINX NoVA in the USA. In addition LINX is also to offer expanded colocation, cross connect and ad hoc services to new members at its Telehouse sites in Docklands. These facilities are being introduced primarily to help members to more easily connect to the exchange and facilitate peering.

Members most likely to be interested in this offer are those who do not require large amounts of rack space or who do not want the inconvenience of having to deal with multiple suppliers when peering. It is expected, therefore, that smaller organisations and larger international companies expanding into Europe will be the main beneficiaries of this scheme.

More detail on LINX’s colocation services can be obtained by emailing: colo@linx.net

14 HotLINX Issue 40 | LINX Meetings

LINX87 Round UpThe final member meeting of LINX’s 20th anniversary year took place on 17th and 18th November. There were 198 people registered to attend, either in person or via the webcast, and the agenda featured an EGM where new pricing proposals were formally rattified for 2015 (see pages 6, 10 and 11).

Among the presentations were a peering reflections talk by Nina Bargisen of Netflix, a presentaion on peering in Italy by Seeweb’s Marco D’Itri plus an Optics

panel discussion including LINX Network Engineering Manager Mike Hellers, Susmita Adhikari of Cube Optics, Chris Cousins from BTI Systems and IXReach’s Steve Wilcox. Members can view video and presentation PDFs from the meeting on the LINX website: www.linx.net/LINX87

LINX Meetings

LINX88 Opens Another Busy Year of Member Events

Meet with LINXHere’s a list of where you can meet with LINX representatives over the next few months.

PTC’15 18-21 January 2015Honolulu, Hawaii, USAwww.ptc.org/ptc15

UKNOF30 26-30 January 2015London, UKindico.uknof.org.uk/event/uknof30

NANOG63 2-4 February 2015San Antonio, Texas, USAwww.nanog.org/meetings/nanog63

GCCM 2015 9-10 February 2015London, UKcarriercommunityevents.com/index.php/home-london-2014

ICANN52 8-12 February 2015Singaporesingapore52.icann.org

LINX88 16-17 February 2015Congress Centre, London, UKwww.linx.net/LINX88

APRICOT 2015 24 Feb - 6 March 2015Fukuoka, Japan2015.apricot.net

Capacity Middle East 10-12 March 2015Dubai, United Arab Emirateswww.capacityconferences.com/Capacity-Middle-East

Data Centre World 11-12 March 2015London, UKwww.datacentreworld.com

IETF92 22-27 March 2015Dallas, Texas, USAwww.ietf.org

Capacity Balkans 30-31 March 2015Bucharest, Romaniawww.capacityconferences.com/Capacity-Balkans

MENOG15 1-2 April 2015(inc. Middle East Peering Forum)Dubai, United Arab Emirateswww.menog.org/meetings/menog-15

DATE OF 2015 LINX AGMThe LINX89 AGM will take place at the Congress Centre in

London on Tuesday 19th and Wednesday 20th May 2015.

The LINX88 member meeting will be held at the Congress Centre in central London on Monday 16th and Tuesday 17th of February. As HotLINX went to press the final agenda was still being finalised but the event will feature the usual mix of technical and regulatory content along with member talks and updates from the LINX local exchanges. One session that has been confirmed is a talk by Barry O’Donovan of INEX, an Irish IXP based in Dublin.

Please note that Tottenham Court Road tube station is closed to the Central Line until Dec 2015.

The Congress Centre venue has been pre-booked for all LINX meetings in 2015 and 2016 execept for the August events LINX90 and LINX94 where we will again head out on the road. No venues for those meetings have been formally arranged as yet but with local exchanges in Cardiff and Edinburgh do not rule out a visit to the Welsh and Scottish capitals.

RegistrationRegistration for the LINX88 is now open and will close on Wednesday 11 February at 12:00pm. To sign up and view more information please visit: www.linx.net/LINX88.

HotLINX Issue 40 | LINX Industry Events 15

Industry Events Ben HedgesChief Marketing Officer

Global Peering Forum Celebrates 10th Anniversary

Member EventsSummer Member Events Raise £1000 for Alzheimer’s SocietyLINX are delighted to announce that following two member sporting events held in the summer, £1000 has been raised for charity. The Alzheimer’s Society was chosen by the membership in a poll at a LINX meeting earlier in the year and the money was raised by a combination of individual and team entrance fees.

A karting event held in Milton Keynes in July was won by Interxion while in August Fluidata triumphed in the 5-a-side football tournament held in the shadow of the famous Wembley Stadium. It was the second year that LINX had staged these engagement events and plans are already underway to hold more in 2015.

The Global Peering Forum (GPF) is a yearly networking event that encourages interconnection among networks, content, cloud, and digital media organisations and related entities. The 2015 meeting will be the 10th such meeting and will be held at the Grand Lucayan Resort in the Bahamas between the 27th and 30th April. The event is hosted by LINX, Equinix, AMS-IX, DE-CIX, JPNAP, CoreSite, and CyrusOne.

The main focus of the event is to provide the peering professionals and decision makers with the opportunity to successfully establish new peers, and extend existing peering arrangements as well as sharing information and experience beneficial to the whole peering community.

The concept of peering forums was first discussed in detail at a meeting between international IXPs in London in 2005. The purpose of this gathering was to set out and co-ordinate future events and the result was the birth of both the Global Peering Forum and European Peering Forum (EPF) which also celebrates 10 years this year.

To sign up for GPF10.0 please visit: www.peeringforum.com

LINX Provides Keynote Speaker at GCCM 2015The Carrier Community is staging its annual conference in London on 9th & 10th February 2015 and LINX’s Chief Marketing Officer, Ben Hedges, is amongst the keynote speakers. Attendees will be able to meet with over 500 Carrier Community Club members from 250 Tier-1, Tier-2 and Tier-3 operators in 40 countries.

The Carrier Members get together from Voice, Data, SMS, Mobile, VAS, Cable, Satellite, Data Centers and other related segments in order to gain access to the right contacts and to establish and develop new and existing business partnerships.

To find out more about this growing event please visit: http://carriercommunityevents.com/index.php/home-london-2014

APRICOT 2015LINX staff will be at the next APRICOT conference in Fukuoka, Japan between 24th February and the 6th March.

LINX CMO, Ben Hedges, will represent the exchange at the annual ten-day long summit which consists of seminars, workshops, tutorials, and other forums. The event has the goal of spreading and sharing the knowledge required to operate the Internet within the Asia Pacific region.

Members can keep up to date with all LINX event activity on the LINX website:www.linx.net/members/events

Events Round UpLINX to Attend Key Industry Events

DynUpsurge in Peering Route Leaks ReportedThe Dyn Research blog noted an uptick in the number of peer route leaks in 2014. When two networks agree to peer, the intended effect is for their customer routes to be mutually visible. But in an increasingly common scenario, peering routes are reannounced to other peers as if they were transit routes, resulting in mysterious traffic redirection. Global route monitoring and inbound traceroute studies can help flag peer leaks and “accidental transit” scenarios as they emerge.

LINX AssociatesIn Brief

16 HotLINX Issue 40 | LINX Associates

LINX AssociatesWhat are LINX Associate Members?Like LINX, associate members are usually ‘not-for-profit’ organisations. They are members in all respects but they have no voting rights and LINX does not charge them for membership. www.linx.net/good/assocmember.html

Internet Systems Consortium:

ISC has signed a memo of understanding with NLnet Labs, makers of Unbound and NSD, to collaborate in providing support to users of their DNS software. NSD is a popular alternative to BIND for authoritative DNS services, and Unbound is a high-performance recursive resolver. As a first step in this collaboration, ISC is now selling advance security notification of vulnerabilities in NSD and Unbound, the same service they have been offering for ISC’s BIND and DHCP. ISC will cover the expense of the administrative overhead, and pass the entire amount paid for the NLNet Labs portion off to them.

As a bonus for organisations already supporting ISC’s open source, existing BIND ASN subscribers will automatically be given the Unbound and NSD ASN for the remainder of their current contract with ISC. When their contract is up for renewal, they will be offered the opportunity to add Unbound and NSD to their BIND ASN agreement.

For more information on this development please visit: www.isc.org/blogs/isc-is-now-offering-advance-security-notification-for-unbound-and-nsd

OCCAIDSixXS USA projectIn partnership with SixXS, the SixXS USA project will extend the successful European development for end-user IPv6 connectivity throughout America. Realising the challenges that broadband ISPs face in deploying IPv6 to end-user customers, the SixXS USA project will allow their customers to find a closer and faster IPv6 connection through OCCAID. OCCAID is the main facilitator of the SixXS USA Project and has just opened its third iteration of a PoP on the USA’s west coast in Los Angeles which has been named uslax03.

Netnod Reasons to CelebrateSwedish IXP Netnod have had plenty of reasons to celebrate recently. In October they topped 1 Tbps in traffic volume across the Netnod IX:es and they’ve welcomed RETN and Rascom as part of their ‘Reach’ reseller programme too. A Communications Officer and an Executive Assistant have both just joined the exchange and the recruitment process for two Junior Systems and Network Engineers, a Senior Software Engineer and a Marketing and Events Officer is still ongoing.

Staff, customers and partners alike were unsurprisingly in high spirits on December 11th as they gathered for Netnod’s annual Christmas Drink Social.

Packet Clearing HouseSmart Rwanda 2014PCH’s Research Specialist Gael Hernandez spoke during the Smart Rwanda 2014 conference in Kigali. Gael discussed the implications of using the Rwandan Internet exchange point (RINEX) and its role enabling the development of a local content industry. Video footage from the conference can be viewed here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHCzqeNXhfI

RouteViewsNew Collector in Singaporeroute-views.sg.routeviews.orgRouteViews has now established a routing data collector at the EQUINIX exchange in Singapore. They are now accepting peers, so if you would like to participate in the project by contributingyour routes, please contact RouteViews at: help@routeviews.org.

Their peering details can be found at:www.peeringdb.com/view.php?asn=6447

ISC is now offering Advance Security Notification for Unbound and NSD

HotLINX Issue 40 | In the Spotlight Charlie Boisseau 17

In theSpotlight

with Charlie Boisseau, Director at Fluency Communications

HotLINX Editor Jeremy Orbell speaks with IXScotland steering committee chairman Charlie Boisseau about regional exchanges and the Scottlish peering sceneCharlie, please tell us about your background in the industry and career to dateI studied networking at university but my background is very broad, having dabbled in software development, databases and various other areas of IT. For a long time I ran an IT support / consultancy firm, which is what led me to start Fluency. I set up Fluency in 2010 when I saw a gap in the market in Scotland for decent business connectivity services. A short time after, Commsworld, who are a larger Scottish telecoms provider, approached us and they were interested in the network we were building. They acquired us in 2012 and this is when the company started to accelerate in a big way. We now operate a network of 14 points of presence (and growing) across Scotland and the rest of UK. We joined LINX in 2013 and haven’t ever looked back.

There have been attempts to start an IXP in Scotland before.Why do you think that didn’t come off first time around?When I first setup Fluency, being the latency snob that I am, there was an immediate need to start peering with our local providers

in Scotland. I began talking to people about setting up an exchange, and while the community in Scotland had an interest, there was apprehension as there had been previous attempts that hadn’t worked. After speaking to some of the people involved it seemed that the previous attempts never got the critical mass they needed to succeed. At least one attempt had been only community led and others driven by higher powers but ended up being enthralled in the political interests of the various data-centre owners. With IXScotland being operated by LINX, the mix of heavyweight IXP pedigree and the element of community guidance (which we on the Steering Committee are trying to achieve), I believe we have what it needs to make the exchange succeed. We are also trying to play a political card - with the Scottish Government pushing it’s digital initiatives so hard, we are hopefully at the right place at the right time to take best advantage. Having said that, overall I firmly believe that the simple fact that it is LINX operating the exchange is fundamentally the thing that is going to let IXScotland succeed where the others have not.

Has it been a case of waitng to see what happens before taking that leap into peering in Scotland?A little bit yes. I think we’re in a lucky position now where IXManchester has recently seen a spurt of expansion with some key networks joining. IXManchester was a lot bigger to start with though and had a much larger community. There was already a functional exchange which a lot of people moved over from so they were off to a good start. From a strategic progress point of view it was almost at the same stage as IXScotland: it had got the community people involved and anyone who could join it did, just leaving the big networks to join. IXManchester has now got to the point where that change is finally happening which is really encouraging as it means operators changed their mindset and are seemingly committed to regional peering. The success of IXManchester will be a positive thing for IXScotland in the long run. The same people that join IXManchester have the right frame of mind and they are obviously committed to it and at some point we should see them in Scotland too.

With IXCardiff just starting out as well, how do the exchanges differ and what can be learnt from what’s happening there?There are some key take-aways, with the Government grant scheme being particularly interesting. The Scottish Government has a very strong digital agenda and so I think these could open some doors for Scotland. The other thing which is encouraging about IXCardiff is the idea that so many are going to be able to join remotely. This aspect is important in Scotland and Wales where you don’t have the same concentration that you have in London or Manchester. Having ways to facilitate remote participation is therefore really important and that’s something that Fluency are going to help with by becoming a LINX ConneXions partner.

What’s needed to push IXScotland through to the next level? What is the steering committee doing to help achieve that?We originally set out a 5-year, 50 members, 50Gb/s target for IXScotland which is pretty ambitious. We have tackled the community, we’ve got the local community engaged and we’ve got the majority of local members connected. The task at hand just now is to get a larger network on-board to kickstart the growth of the exchange which unfortunately becomes a content/access chicken and egg situation. What we in the Steering Committee, alongside LINX are trying to do is push the exchange as a high-priority item onto the agendas of the larger networks, as well as newcomers to LINX and importantly the Scottish Government. If everyone does that then I have no doubt we will attract some of the larger players in time. In a year or two we’ll be in a completely different position I’m sure.

RIPE NCC100 RIPE Atlas Anchors Now DeployedTogether with the help of the Internet community, the RIPE NCC is building the world’s largest Internet measurement network, RIPE Atlas. Now with over 7,500 probes and 100 anchors deployed around the globe, the network is stronger than ever. Anchors function as enhanced RIPE Atlas probes with more measurement capacity, as well as regional measurement targets. Learn more about anchors, including how to host one, at: https://atlas.ripe.net/about/anchors

DNS BelgiumNewborn Domain Extension To celebrate the birth of the .vlaanderen domain extension in appropriate style, DNS Belgium ran a competition in which children born in 2014 could win a free .vlaanderen domain name and website.The two week competition began on 13th November, the day on which private individuals were able to begin registering a personal .vlaanderen or .brussels domain name using their eID, with a new winner every day. This means that 14 sets of new parents and babies now have been issued with their own personal domain name and website.

We have been reviewing the information currently available to the membership regarding the role of the ‘LINX guardian’.The LINX guardian role is integral to the member organisation’s relationship with LINX. For this reason we have put together the following description to more completely define its purpose.

Essentially we expect the guardian to give us key authoritative assistance in managing the member organisation’s relationship with LINX. We ask that they authorise and verify any member staff information or change requests relating to the member’s LINX membership. This provides an essential security layer to the member’s dealings with LINX, as both parties are then assured of who they are communicating with.

We check with the guardian for each request received through the LINX portal or via support@linx.net or mr@linx.net email correspondence to add new, change or delete web-site user

Your SayFor each edition of HotLINX, we would very much like our readers to share their thoughts on what’s happening in the LINX community and in the industry as a whole. It could certainly be worth your while because the best comments we receive in each issue will win a rather splendid limited edition HotLINX mug! Please send your comments, questions and feedback to: hotlinx@linx.net

Short email Address DiscriminationBy Adrian Kennard, Andrews & Arnold This annoys me a lot, that web sites and organisations won’t accept that my email address is valid. It is 6 characters long. It is like z@k.gg and we all have similarly small email addresses in the family.

The problem is that people make up their own arbitrary rules to validate an email address, and one of the common ones is to not accept ones that are too short. The designer will typically base this on “I have never seen an email shorter than 10 characters” or something stupid like that rather than “Is there an Internet standard for email addresses that I can check”. It is sloppy, and lazy.

When someone holds my personal data, e.g. an organisation that I have an ongoing connection with like my bank or some such, then I can expect them to ensure the details they hold on me are correct. So, like the issue with phone numbers where the expect a mobile to start 07, not accepting a short email address gives them legal problems. Anyone collecting and holding personal data has a legal obligation to hold correct data and correct it if it is wrong under The Data Protection Act. Sadly the enforcement is via the ICO, so even with letters demanding they fix things, it does not get far.Read more here: www.revk.uk/2014/12/short-email-address-woes.html

The views expressed in ths article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of LINX

LINX Guardians: What they are and why we need themBy Emma Saunders, LINX Member Relations

Ask the Expert

18 HotLINX Issue 40 | Ask the Expert

Have a question?Send us your queries and

comments to either the HotLINX or Member Relations teams

hotlinx@linx.net / mr@linx.net

The best question or email we receive in each issue

will win an exclusive HotLINX mug!Please contact us usinghotlinx@linx.net

accounts, and also for similar requests to subscribe, modify or unsubscribe to LINX mailing lists.

We recommend that each member maintains more than one guardian role, to assist with speedy administration of these requests, especially in situations where one guardian may be unavailable to respond. It also helps where staff holding the guardian role leave the member organisation.

It is also important that guardians take responsibility to inform LINX of any important changes such as physical/email address(es) or telephone number(s), staff records, billing address or company name or legal identity. In the latter case, we will assist you with the completion of the appropriate formal change processes. With this responsibility fulfilled, we can ensure that the information LINX holds on the member’s behalf is accurate, up-to-date and appropriately authorised.

If you require any further information please email the LINX Member Relations team at mr@linx.net. If you have a question to ask one of our LINX teams, please contact hotlinx@linx.net.

HotLINX Issue 40 | Meeting Sponsor: Extreme Networks 19

The Top SDN Trends in 2015By Steve Johnson, Head of UK & Ireland, Extreme NetworksAs businesses continue to adopt cloud, mobility and big data technologies to remain competitive, the IT department will look to how they can best support these developing trends to benefit the customer and employee experience. One approach that technology decision makers are considering is the adoption of a software defined network that will provide a faster, more agile and scalable infrastructure. In fact, IDC recently predicted that the global SDN market is set to grow from $960 million in 2014 to more than $8 billion by 2018.

Here are what I believe to be the top five SDN trends that every enterprise should be aware of this year and why:

Service function chaining for security will continue to be a top use case in data centersIn 2015, enterprises will begin to see the opex and capex benefits in virtualising their networks services such as firewalls, load balancers and intrusion detection systems. This will help them to become more agile and leverage the innovation and cost savings that x86- based architectures are demonstrating today.

Overlays will become mainstream for larger data center deploymentsWe will see a higher adoption of overlay-based network virtualization solutions in the data center alongside fabric-based solutions that leverage traditional orchestration of physical and virtual network elements.

Innovation for vertical marketsWe will begin to see an increased need for vertical specific SDN solutions within healthcare, finance and retail due to the rise of wearables, IoT and mobile applications entering these environments.

SDN enters the campus marketSDN will enter the campus wired and wireless infrastructure; the disparate and often detached locations within a campus will make it more complex to deploy but the benefits will by far outweigh the challenges.

First OpenDaylight-based production deploymentIn 2015, we will begin to see the first deployments from the SDN collaborative project, OpenDaylight, which aims to help accelerate the development of technology available to users and enable widespread adoption of SDN.

In order to implement an SDN solution, it will be imperative for enterprises to firstly understand what they wish to achieve and secondly, investigate best-of-breed vendor solutions that can deliver a high performing and automated network to boost existing investments without the need to overhaul longstanding technologies. This way, businesses can reap the benefits of SDN whilst saving time and expenditure quickly.

For more information on Extreme Networks please visit: www.extremenetworks.com

Definition of SDNSoftware-defined networking (SDN) is an approach to networking in which control is decoupled from hardware and given to a software application called a controller.When a packet arrives at a switch in a conventional network, rules built into the switch’s proprietary firmware tell the switch where to forward the packet. The switch sends every packet going to the same destination along the same path - and treats all the packets the exact same way. In the enterprise, smart switches designed with application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) are sophisticated enough to recognize different types of packets and treat them differently, but such switches can be quite expensive.The goal of SDN is to allow network engineers and administrators to respond quickly to changing business requirements. In a software-defined network, a network administrator can shape traffic from a centralized control console without having to touch individual switches. The administrator can change any network switch’s rules when necessary - prioritizing, de-prioritizing or even blocking specific types of packets with a very granular level of control. This is especially helpful in a cloud computing multi-tenant architecture because it allows the administrator to manage traffic loads in a flexible and more efficient manner. Essentially, this allows the administrator to use less expensive, commodity switches and have more control over network traffic flow than ever before. SDN is sometimes referred to as the “Cisco killer” because it allows network engineers to support a switching fabric across multi-vendor hardware and application-specific integrated circuits. Currently, the most popular specification for creating a software-defined network is an open standard called OpenFlow. OpenFlow lets network administrators remotely control routing tables.

Source: Tech Targethttp://searchsdn.techtarget.com/definition/software-defined-networking-SDN

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20 HotLINX Issue 40 | Stats Update

New LINX MembersHere’s a list of LINX members connected since the beginning of October. It has been a remarkable quarter with 31 new connections. including 19 from the UK, four from the USA and two each in Spain and Denmark. Other countries represented include Italy, New Zealand, Taiwan, Latvia, The Netherlands, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Astrix Integrated Systems AS201363

Block Solutions AS199706

Broadband for the Rural North T/A B4RN AS58273

Chunghwa Hinet AS9680

Clearstream Technology AS59455

Computer Services Group AS201357

Deeplake Wales AS201445

Digitalas Ekonomikas Attistibas Centrs AS12993

DVS Soft AS201300

Excellence IT (UK) AS201317

Frogfoot Networks AS22355

Global Broadband Solution AS43256

HostDime AS33182

Incapsula AS19551

Internap Network Services UK AS15570

InternetOne AS44160

Meibion Maesycastell Limited T/A Morgan & Morgan AS201320

Ministry of Automattic AS2635

NFOrce Entertainment AS43350

One.com AS51468

Oranlink S.L AS57023

Outsourcery Hosting AS43198

Principality Document Solutions AS201299

Reliance Jio Infocomm UK AS132410

RingCentral UK AS40627

SectorSix AS51409

ServiceNow AS16839

Siarad Network AS201319

Spectrum Internet AS48294

Vibe Communications AS45177

WAPOP Africa Interconnect Exchange AS60171

Yellow Fiber Networks AS40015

Zen Systems AS28717

Ziron (UK) AS202112

You can view a complete list of members on the LINX website: www.linx.net/about/memberlist

For this issue we’ve revised our LINX stats page to include more information regarding our local exchanges plus notable stats from last year. The above graphic shows the headline figures for the exchange as a whole but we felt that readers would be interested to see more information such as available routes and also breakdowns of figures from the sites at IXManchester, IXScotland and LINX NoVA.

584Member ASNs62 Countries

New LINXapplications in 201411 Member-facing 100GigE ports102Connected

member ports 1427844 Member-facing 10GigE Ports

Over 5.000 Tbs Peak Traffic inc. PI 9.940

Terrabits of connected

capacity

Record Number of Applications

Record Number of Ports Ordered by Existing Members

Record Number of 10G Ports Ordered by Existing Members

Record Level of Connected Capacity

Connected Members at IXScotland

LINX NoVA Peak Traffic

IXManchester Peak Traffic

Please note: LAN applications may contain ports on multiple LANs (Juniper, Extreme, IXManchester, IXScotland, IXCardiff and LINX NoVA.) These figures show applications only, not physically connected ports.

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