An Internet exchange point (IXP) can only be truly successful if it is sustainable, actively managed, and continuously evolving. In other words, if it’s not a zombie.
Zombie IXPs are those that are operating on autopilot, with little planning, investment, or new peers. But they don’t all look the same, and can emerge from different governance models and challenges.
We’ve already discussed how to spot the risks of an IXP becoming a zombie. Now, we’ll look into some of the most common types of zombie IXPs to identify their symptoms and begin addressing their recovery.
The “Good Guy” Zombie IXP
These IXPs are some of the most difficult to handle. Often, they are created with good faith and community spirit, designed to help all their members gain the benefits of peering at a low cost.
Over time, they can grow to a large scale, but practices that start with good intentions—like informal billing structures and discounted prices—can become a burden that makes their finances struggle.
As they grow, with more peers and more data flowing through, infrastructure needs and fees from increased transit and hosting start to creep in. These IXPs reach a point when there’s not a lot of room for investment, stagnating their growth and discouraging their management—which may eventually even blame the community or content delivery networks (CDNs).
IXPs need a business plan from day one. They should have contracts that set prices, taking into account rising operational costs, and a timeline for implementing payments. Once these financial issues pile up, it can be an overwhelming and difficult situation to get out of.
But we can help. Internet Society peering experts work with IXPs to help formulate business plans and implement best practices that can turn the zombie around into a flourishing business.
The Autopilot Zombie IXP
These are the IXPs that have been working for a while and have everything they need to run and make money, except for a plan.
The IXP’s creator starts out by putting operational responsibilities in place, but not management or technical ones. Members share and rotate operational responsibilities, but over time, they forget whose turn it is to oversee issues and what to do if they spot any.
Autopilot zombies can arise no matter their creator—be it a regulator, university student, or passionate person who was awarded a grant to build it. But they have something in common: whoever started the IXP has moved on to a different role or country, leaving it on autopilot. The IXP still runs, but no one is updating its information at Peering DB, promoting it, or implementing best practices.
Over time, the IXP traffic continues to grow until its ports reach capacity, there are no additional resources to invest, and no one knows who should be responsible for identifying and implementing a solution.
With the right policies and best practices in place—like assigning clear responsibilities and investment requirements over time—the IXP can get some of its life back. Once the IXP solves the underlying problem of long-term management and responsibility, it may become eligible for a grant to support equipment upgrades and its growth.
The Academic Zombie IXP
These IXPs are some of the most exciting, but also disappointing. Academic institutions—usually universities—often create them to bring faster, more affordable Internet to a country or region. They are launched and hailed as a success, a promise of future improvement in the local peering environment. Then, not a lot happens.
They start with their host university connected, and maybe a couple of root servers and a small CDN. But none of the big Internet service providers (ISPs) in the country connect. The most common reason is that the technical community launches these projects alone, with no staff dedicated to the IXP. There is no one taking care of marketing or sales, and no one pushes it to get more clients, as it is “working” after all. These IXPs can go on for years with just a few Mbps of traffic.
Once again, implementing best practices to ensure the IXP’s management goes beyond its technical operations and that it has a plan for growth can help get the exchange back on track. That plan may include assigning someone to the role of peering coordinator to attract members, attending peering events to keep up on best practices, and increasing awareness.
The Government or Regulator Zombie IXP
Finally, IXPs that regulators or governments launch share similarities with academic ones: they are launched and hailed as successes at a few cocktail parties, but not much happens afterward.
Their main difference is that, since public stakeholders started them, a couple of the larger ISPs are pushed to connect to the IXP for appearances, but it stops there.
Just like the academic zombies, they can start living again by establishing better governance and implementing best practices. Sometimes the regulator or government that launched it can do this. Their operations can also transition to a nonprofit model or a partially state-owned one, to bring fresh ideas and business to the IXP.
No matter the type of zombie IXP, the Internet Society can help evaluate and establish best practices to accelerate recovery and maintain a healthy, sustainable local peering environment.
Learn more about what we do to support IXPs and how to get involved.
Image © Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash