THE TRANSIT EXCHANGE - A NEW MODEL FOR OPEN; COMPETITIVE NETWORK SERVICES

摘要

New and innovative multi-functional networks and services can be easily created using transit exchanges. The universities and institutes in British Columbia require experimental networks for computer scientists, high throughput networks for physicists, chemists, and other supercomputer users, as well as links to the global internet and the local community for teaching and community service. This has to be done cheaply, reliably, foster competition, and use next generation network equipment and services. To do this, BCNET has created a set of transit exchanges (TX) across the province. Each member institution is given dark fibre connecting its campus to a downtown meetme point (the TX), which consists very simply of a patch panel (for fibre crossconnects), ethernet switch (for VLAN cross-connects) and a router (strictly for local peering). At the TX, members can peer with each other for free, can obtain Internet service from a set of competitive providers, and connect to advanced networks such as CA*net4. In BC, over the past 2 years, TXs have allowed member institutions to increase Internet bandwidth by a factor of 4 and decrease costs by 30%. Research bandwidth has increased by an order of magnitude for very small marginal costs. By connecting each member to multiple internet service providers at each local TX as well as to the research network, reliability has also increased. The simplicity of the TX model, as open POPs, can encourage competitive access and therefore ensure network neutrality results. The set of TXs within the province of British Columbia is a case study illustrating one way to accomplish these goals.