From: Martin Hannigan (no email)
Date: Mon Feb 06 2006 - 12:10:03 EST
At 02:05 AM 2/6/2006, Nick Feamster wrote:
>Martin Hannigan wrote:
>>[ SNIP ]
>>
>>> > If you are changing providers, which takes
>>>>awhile anyway,
>>>
>>>That process seems to be getting quicker:
>>>http://www.equinix.com/prod_serv/network/ed.htm
>>
>>NOT an ISP product.
>
>Independent of ED, one should be cautious when designing routing
>protocols based on logistical and business assumptions (e.g.,
>switching providers takes awhile, most business policies are vanilla
>peering, etc.).
>
>These assumptions are certainly not fundamental, and they may not
>always be true, regardless of what exists today.
I got some "can you elaborate" comments so please forgive my
second response.
What I thought I read was that you thought Equinix had an interesting
play in a transitioning and provisioning strategy for ISP's.
My answer, in short, was to say that I see it as more of an enterprise
play because it's a managed service and the hardest part of
provisioning is typically the order cycle.
If you are an ISP, you are theoretically multi homed by definition
and your providers are going to remain fairly stable (you hope)
based on your own needs.
Equinix direct is a bandwidth commodity in my mind. Anyone remember
Invisible Hand (still in business, btw http://www.invisiblehand.net/)
Equinix handles the software interaction and is the market maker. Customers
appear to providers and providers can decide if they want to sell to
customers. For example, if you show up at ED and need X gigs, a provider
could opt out of the market because you are a highcap customer. In the end,
the market maker gets a piece of the action from the provider and sends the
"customer" a bill since it is theoretically the provider. I think there's
a question about neutrality, but there are no more pure neutral colo
houses so that is somewhat irrelevant unless it's completely bogus like
selling interconnect network or something vs. the ILEC.
In an environment like Equinix or S&D, you could attach to the public
peering fabric and "make connections", and then if you need someone
specific you can hope to get them on ED (in Equinixs case) without
buying dedicated transit. In short, it's easy.
With that said, I believe most ISP's would be better suited to
overlapped service or TE'ing vs. using commodity markets for
b/w, IMHO.
Thanks,
-M<
Martin Hannigan (c) 617-388-2663
Renesys Corporation (w) 617-395-8574
Member of Technical Staff Network Operations
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