PeeringDB

Last updated
PeeringDB
Original author(s) Richard Steenbergen (Original) & PeeringDB Volunteers
Developer(s) PeeringDB
Initial releaseJuly 29, 2010 (2010-07-29)
Stable release
2.56.1 / March 27, 2024;0 days ago (2024-03-27) [1]
Repository www.github.com/peeringdb/peeringdb
Written in Python
Operating system Cloud
Platform Cross-platform
Available in English and 16 translations
License Code is published under a BSD 2-clause license
Website www.peeringdb.com

PeeringDB is a freely available, user-maintained, database of networks, and the go-to location for interconnection data. [2] The database facilitates the global interconnection of networks at Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), data centers, and other interconnection facilities, and is the first stop in making interconnection decisions.

Contents

Almost one third of the critical default-free zone ASNs at least partially register their interconnection options in the database. The database shows the colocation facilities in which networks have a presence and the IXPs they peer at.

While, like Wikipedia, PeeringDB's database contains user contributed data, networks can give permission for exchanges using the IX-F Member Exchange Format to submit technical information about their presence at an exchange. This can then be used as a source of configuration data.

Traditionally a list of potential peering partners would have been maintained by the host Internet exchange point or colocation centre, but these lists lacked important information such as peering policies and were difficult to keep up-to-date. Being a distributed database, it was also necessary for peers to consult multiple lists in order to establish peering relationships. PeeringDB has become the "first stop when deciding where and whom to peer with". [3]

PeeringDB's software was originally written by Richard Steenbergen in 2004. A non-profit organization was incorporated in 2015 [4] to operate the PeeringDB service. It has four volunteer committees that design, maintain, and promote the service. They are:

PeeringDB's software is open source and volunteers can contribute code. Users are welcome to request features and report bugs by opening an issue on GitHub. They can also engage in discussion using PeeringDB's mailing lists.

Types of Data

PeeringDB hosts five types of data about interconnection:

  1. Networks
  2. Internet Exchange Points
  3. Facilities - often data centers but can be anywhere where networks place equipment for the purpose of interconnection
  4. Carriers - providers of high speed Layer 1 and Layer 2 service into a facility
  5. Campuses - a collection of facilities operated by the same organization that provide inter-building cross-connects

Interaction and Access

Users can search and update the PeeringDB database using the web interface or an API. The API [5] can be used to integrate PeeringDB's service into proprietary tools. PeeringDB publishes peeringdb-py as a reference implementation of a local cache of PeeringDB data. Users are encouraged to use peeringdb-py or an equivalent to avoid API query limits.

PeeringDB also publishes a .KMZ formatted dataset of interconnection facilities for which it has coordinates.

When searching PeeringDB, users only need an account if they want access to contact information for organizations.

PeeringDB's OAuth service can be used to authenticate when using third-party applications. About 150 applications had enabled PeeringDB OAuth in May 2021.

Governance

Membership depends on two factors: an active PeeringDB.com account and an individual representative who is subscribed to the governance mailing list. Each member has a single vote in annual elections to appoint board members. Directors are elected for two year terms and are not compensated for their service.

Funding

PeeringDB is supported entirely through sponsorships. Many sponsors are large network operators, data center operators, or Internet Exchange Points. Its finances are published on its documentation site. Its income in 2022 was about $216,000.

See also

Related Research Articles

A colocation center or "carrier hotel", is a type of data centre where equipment, space, and bandwidth are available for rental to retail customers. Colocation facilities provide space, power, cooling, and physical security for the server, storage, and networking equipment of other firms and also connect them to a variety of telecommunications and network service providers with a minimum of cost and complexity.

In computer networking, peering is a voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the "down-stream" users of each network. Peering is settlement-free, also known as "bill-and-keep" or "sender keeps all", meaning that neither party pays the other in association with the exchange of traffic; instead, each derives and retains revenue from its own customers.

An autonomous system (AS) is a collection of connected Internet Protocol (IP) routing prefixes under the control of one or more network operators on behalf of a single administrative entity or domain, that presents a common and clearly defined routing policy to the Internet. Each AS is assigned an autonomous system number (ASN), for use in Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing. Autonomous System Numbers are assigned to Local Internet Registries (LIRs) and end-user organizations by their respective Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), which in turn receive blocks of ASNs for reassignment from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The IANA also maintains a registry of ASNs which are reserved for private use.

Internet exchange points are common grounds of IP networking, allowing participant Internet service providers (ISPs) to exchange data destined for their respective networks. IXPs are generally located at places with preexisting connections to multiple distinct networks, i.e., datacenters, and operate physical infrastructure (switches) to connect their participants. Organizationally, most IXPs are each independent not-for-profit associations of their constituent participating networks. The primary alternative to IXPs is private peering, where ISPs directly connect their networks to each other.

Switch and Data Facilities Company, Inc. was a U.S. public corporation that provided network-neutral data centers and Internet exchange services to network-centric businesses. Switch and Data was acquired by Equinix in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tower 55</span> Commercial offices, Data center in San Jose, California

Tower 55 is a 15-story building at the corner of South Market Street and Post Street in downtown San Jose, California. Built in 1985 as the Market Post Tower, it was designed to provide a mix of office and retail space. When first built, the building was controversial due to its gold-colored glass exterior, which produced high light and heat reflection. In its early years, the owners struggled financially with the property and were forced to put it up for sale in 1987. While the intended tenants did not materialize, the building proved popular with telecom carriers as an Internet exchange center, with MAE-West on the 13th floor, one of the oldest and most well known Internet exchanges. Many carriers maintain collocation space in the building to support their interconnections through MAE-West as well as direct interconnections.

Reykjavik Internet Exchange (RIX) is an Internet Exchange Point located in Reykjavík, Iceland, founded in 1999. It is operated by ISNIC, the same organisation that oversees the registration of Iceland's ccTLD, '.is'. Its primary site, RIX-TG, is located at Tæknigarður (The Centre for Technical Innovation), part of the University of Iceland. As of 2022 it operates 2 other peering sites in addition to their original site: RIX-KT (Katrínartún) and RIX-MH (Múlastöð, Ármúli 25).

Cogent Communications is a multinational internet service provider based in the United States. Cogent's primary services consist of Internet access and data transport, offered on a fiber optic, IP data-only network, along with colocation in data centers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toronto Internet Exchange</span> Not-for-profit Internet Exchange Point

The Toronto Internet Exchange Community (TorIX) is a not-for-profit Internet Exchange Point (IXP) located in a carrier hotel at 151 Front Street West, Equinix's TR2 data centre at 45 Parliament Street and 905 King Street West in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. As of March 2021, TorIX has 259 unique autonomous systems representing 285 peer connections and peak traffic rates of 1.344 Tbps, making it the largest IXP in Canada. According to Wikipedia's List of Internet Exchange Points by Size, TorIX is the 16th largest IXP in the world in numbers of peers, and 17th in the world in traffic averages. The Exchange is organized and run by industry professionals in voluntary capacity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Packet Clearing House</span> Organization maintaining the Domain Name System and Internet exchange points

Packet Clearing House (PCH) is the international nonprofit organization responsible for providing operational support and security to critical Internet infrastructure, including Internet exchange points and the core of the Domain Name System. The organization also works in the areas of cybersecurity coordination, regulatory policy and Internet governance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DE-CIX</span> Internet exchange point in Germany

DE-CIX is an operator of carrier- and data-center-neutral Internet Exchanges, with operations in Europe, North America, Africa, the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia. All DE-CIX activities and companies are brought together under the umbrella of the DE-CIX Group AG.

The Northern Lights Local Exchange Point (NLLXP) is a free Internet Exchange Point (IXP) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States. The NLLXP public peering exchange is closely linked with the Northern Lights GigaPoP (NLG), an Internet2 project of the University of Minnesota Office of Information and Technology: the NLG is the regional Internet2 access point for research and educational institutions, and the NLLXP is the regional peering exchange between those institutions and commercial networks, and among commercial networks.

IPTP Networks is an international telecommunications company. Founded in Cyprus as a System Integrator in 1996, it developed into an international group over the next decade. IPTP Networks operates a global backbone as a Tier-1-class-network Internet Service Provider (ISP) providing connectivity through 225+ PoPs worldwide.

Hurricane Electric is a global Internet service provider offering internet transit, tools, and network applications, as well as data center colocation and hosting services at two locations in Fremont, California, where the company is based.

Interxion is a provider of carrier and cloud-neutral colocation data centre services in Europe. Founded in 1998 in the Netherlands, the firm was publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange from 28 January 2011 until its acquisition by Digital Realty in March 2020. Interxion is headquartered in Schiphol-Rijk in the Netherlands, and operates 53 data centres in 11 European countries located in major metropolitan areas, including Dublin, London, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, and Madrid, the six main data centre markets in Europe, as well as Marseille, Interxion’s Internet Gateway.

Detroit Internet Exchange ("DET-iX") is a nonprofit 501(c)(6) Internet exchange point (IXP) located in Southfield, Michigan. It was founded in 2014 to help establish peering for local and regional Internet service providers. DET-iX currently has 67 members and 81 connections, with a maximum peak transfer speed of 1866.9 Gbit/s. DET-iX is the first peering exchange of its kind in the Detroit area.

Teraco Data Environments is a carrier-, cloud- and vendor-neutral data centre provider founded by Tim Parsonson and Lex van Wyk in 2008. On 1 August 2022, Digital Realty announced that it had completed the purchase of a majority stake in Teraco, previously controlled by Berkshire Partners, Permira and a group of investors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uganda Internet Exchange Point</span> Critical national communications infrastructure operator

The Uganda Internet Exchange Point (UIXP) is a non-profit Internet exchange point operator founded in 2001 with the goal of improving Internet connectivity within Uganda and the East African region, and is the only known internet exchange point in Uganda.

References

  1. ↑ "Releases · peeringdb/peeringdb". github.com. Retrieved 2024-03-27.
  2. ↑ Lodhi, Aemen; Larson, Natalie; Dhamdhere, Amogh; Dovrolis, Constantine; claffy, kc (2014-04-08). "Using peeringDB to understand the peering ecosystem". ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review. 44 (2): 20–27. doi:10.1145/2602204.2602208. ISSN   0146-4833. S2CID   11113342.
  3. ↑ Lardinois, Frederic (2017-08-24). "Inflect's infrastructure marketplace adds 30 new service providers and 2,200 data center and peering locations". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-03-12.
  4. ↑ Secretary of State. "PeeringDB Articles of Incorporation" (PDF). Governance - PeeringDB Docs. Retrieved 2023-03-07.
  5. ↑ "PeeringDB API Documentation". www.peeringdb.com. Retrieved 2023-03-08.
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