Amsterdam Internet Exchange
Encyclopedia
The Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) is an Internet exchange point
Internet Exchange Point
An Internet exchange point is a physical infrastructure through which Internet service providers exchange Internet traffic between their networks . IXPs reduce the portion of an ISP's traffic which must be delivered via their upstream transit providers, thereby reducing the average per-bit...

 situated in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. AMS-IX started in 1994 and is a fast growing, non-profit, neutral and independent peering
Peering
In computer networking, peering is a voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the customers of each network. The pure definition of peering is settlement-free or "sender keeps all," meaning that neither party pays the...

 point. The AMS-IX is one of the largest Internet Exchange in the world.

History

In February 1994, a layer 2 shared infrastructure, used between academic institutes, was connected with CERN
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...

 to exchange traffic. Other internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...

s were allowed to connect and the name AMS-IX was first used. In 1997, the AMS-IX Association was founded by twenty of the connected internet service providers and carriers.

In 2002, the Netherlands Internet Exchange
Netherlands Internet Exchange
The Netherlands Internet Exchange is an Internet exchange in the Netherlands, which is distributed across twenty-five data centres in ten cities: Aalsmeer, Almere, Alphen aan den Rijn, Amsterdam, Capelle aan den IJssel, Ede, Haarlem, Hilversum, Rotterdam and Schiphol-Rijk...

 was founded as an alternative or backup for the Amsterdam Internet Exchange.

, AMS-IX connected 396 members on 684 ports. The all time peak of incoming traffic was 1.205 Tbit/s and of outgoing traffic 1.203 Tbit/s compared to 0.768 Tbit/s average incoming and outgoing, at January 5, 2011.

The total amount of data transferred by month was (Avg. incoming and outgoing) 75,940 TB in November 2008. By April 2009, it had grown to 124,550 TB, 64% more traffic in a 5 month period.

These traffic speeds make the Amsterdam Internet Exchange the second largest internet exchange in the world, when measured by number of connected members and by internet traffic, before the Equinix
Equinix
Equinix, Inc. is an American public corporation that provides carrier-neutral data centers and internet exchanges. Equinix provides network-neutral data centers and interconnection services...

 (members) and the Deutscher Commercial Internet Exchange
DE-CIX
Deutscher Commercial Internet Exchange is an Internet Exchange Point situated in Frankfurt ....

 (traffic).

Co-locations

AMS-IX members are able to connect at seven locations, all located within Amsterdam:
  • SARA
    Stichting Academisch Rekencentrum Amsterdam
    Stichting Academisch Rekencentrum Amsterdam is a Dutch foundation that provides supercomputers, colocation, networks and high-end visualisation to academic institutions...

     (Science Park Amsterdam
    Science Park Amsterdam
    Science Park Amsterdam is a science park in stadsdeel Oost/Watergraafsmeer in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with accommodations for science and business and housing. Science Park Amsterdam focusses on IT and life sciences. Among the knowledge-based institutions present at the science park there are...

    , Oost/Watergraafsmeer
    Oost/Watergraafsmeer
    Oost-Watergraafsmeer is a stadsdeel of Amsterdam. It borders to Diemen, Duivendrecht, and the boroughs Amsterdam-Centrum, Oud-Zuid, Zeeburg, and Zuideramstel. The Watergraafsmeer part of the borough is a polder.Located in Oost/Watergraafsmeer:...

    )
  • NIKHEF
    NIKHEF
    NIKHEF is an acronym for Nationaal Instituut voor Kernfysica en Hoge-Energiefysica . Nowadays this acronym is not used anymore and the name is changed to Nationaal instituut voor subatomaire fysica...

     (Science Park Amsterdam, Oost/Watergraafsmeer)
  • GlobalSwitch (Slotervaart
    Slotervaart
    Slotervaart is a former stadsdeel of Amsterdam, it has 48.540 inhabitants and an area of 11.14 km². As of 2010, Slotervaart is part of the newly formed stadsdeel Nieuw-West....

    )
  • Telecity (Amsterdam Zuidoost
    Amsterdam Zuidoost
    Amsterdam-Zuidoost is one of fifteen boroughs of the city of Amsterdam. It consists of four residential areas—Bijlmermeer, Venserpolder, Gaasperdam and Driemond—as well as the Amstel III/Bullewijk Business Park and the ArenA Boulevard area.Amsterdam-Zuidoost has approximately 86,000...

    )
  • euNetworks (Amsterdam Zuid)
  • Equinix
    Equinix
    Equinix, Inc. is an American public corporation that provides carrier-neutral data centers and internet exchanges. Equinix provides network-neutral data centers and interconnection services...

     (Amsterdam Zuidoost)
  • Interxion
    Interxion
    Interxion is a European provider of carrier-neutral colocation data centre services. Founded in 1998 in the Netherlands, the firm was publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange on January 28, 2011...

     (Schiphol Rijk)


Third-party network transport links also offer access to AMS-IX.

Network

The AMS-IX platform is continually evolving due to its rapid growth in traffic and number of connected member ports. Up until end of 2009, it is using a redundant hub-spoke architecture using a core switch and multiple edge switches. This double-star topology brings the advantage of being able to perform maintenance on the network without any impact on customer traffic, and to anticipate on fiber and equipment problems by (automatically) switching to the backup topology as soon as a failure in one of the active components occurs. The active switching topology star is determined by means of the VSRP
Virtual Switch Redundancy Protocol
The Virtual Switch Redundancy Protocol is a proprietary network resilience protocol developed by Foundry Networks and currently being sold in products manufactured by both Brocade Communications Systems and Hewlett Packard...

 protocol. This topology is AMS-IX version 3.

However, since 2009; AMS-IX platform has migrated from a pure Layer2 network to a VPLS/MPLS network (using Brocade hardware) in order to cope with future growth (this is AMS-IX version 4).
AMS-IX members connect to the platform with 10, 100 Mbit/s, 1G or 10 Gbit/s Ethernet connections, or using multiple gigabit
Gigabit Ethernet
Gigabit Ethernet is a term describing various technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second , as defined by the IEEE 802.3-2008 standard. It came into use beginning in 1999, gradually supplanting Fast Ethernet in wired local networks where it performed...

 or 10 gigabit
10 Gigabit Ethernet
The 10 gigabit Ethernet computer networking standard was first published in 2002. It defines a version of Ethernet with a nominal data rate of 10 Gbit/s , ten times faster than gigabit Ethernet.10 gigabit Ethernet defines only full duplex point to point links which are generally connected by...

 aggregated ports
Link aggregation
Link aggregation or trunking or link bundling or Ethernet/network/NIC bonding or NIC teaming are computer networking umbrella terms to describe various methods of combining multiple network connections in parallel to increase throughput beyond what a single connection could sustain, and to provide...

, utilizing the 802.3ad standard. Gigabit Ethernet and lower speed ports are directly connected to Foundry Networks
Foundry Networks
Foundry Networks, Inc. was a networking hardware vendor selling high-end Ethernet switches and routers. The company was founded in 1996 by Bobby R. Johnson, Jr. and was headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA...

 BigIron 15000 or RX-8 network switch
Network switch
A network switch or switching hub is a computer networking device that connects network segments.The term commonly refers to a multi-port network bridge that processes and routes data at the data link layer of the OSI model...

es. 10 Gigabit member ports are connected to Glimmerglass Systems photonic switches which maintain an optical connection to the stub switch on the currently active side of the network, following the VSRP protocol. For each 10 Gigabit port there is an active and a backup stub switch, for which BigIron RX-8, RX-16 or NetIron MLX-16 switches are used. The core consists of two Foundry NetIron MLX-32 switches, to which all edge switches are connected using 10 gigabit aggregated connections and WDM
Wavelength-division multiplexing
In fiber-optic communications, wavelength-division multiplexing is a technology which multiplexes a number of optical carrier signals onto a single optical fiber by using different wavelengths of laser light...

technology.

With the new VPLS/MPLS setup; the BigIron RX and legacy BigIron 15000 are no longer in-use. AMS-IX has migrated all the hardware to the MPLS-capable MLX platform. Stub switch is either MLX-8, MLX-16 or MLX-32.

Since May 2011, AMS-IX engineers have started testing 100GE along with LimeLight Network.

External links

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