bgp-and-beyond.com

Threats to the Internet Routing and Global Connectivity

nospam@example.com (Fredy Künzler) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:31:00 +0200

on blogg.ch (German, based on an English document): Threats to the Internet Routing and Global Connectivity

Sweden is monitoring IP traffic from / to Russia

nospam@example.com (Fredy Künzler) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:23:51 +0200

on blogg.ch (German): Schweden überwacht russischen IP Verkehr

BOGONs should be updated every now and then ...

nospam@example.com (Fredy Künzler) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:57:00 +0200

by Fredy Künzler

We recently received an email saying

Please remove 174.0.0.0/8 from your bogon filter...

and indeed, as time flies by, we had an outdated BOGON filter list implemented. IANA keeps allocating /8 to RIRs and if network administrators don't pay attention, parts of the internet could silently become unreachable.

In the past few month these blocks should have become routable:

112.0.0.0/8
113.0.0.0/8
114.0.0.0/8
115.0.0.0/8
173.0.0.0/8
174.0.0.0/8
186.0.0.0/8
187.0.0.0/8

Therefore it's probably wise to check if you see any more specifics of these prefixes (on Cisco / Foundry / Quagga type "sh ip bgp 113.0.0.0/8 longer").

I know that BOGON filtering could be automated, but we never found the time to get it done properly, and, as the available IPv4 space is running out, the Bogon Route Server Project will become obsolete anytime soon.

IPv6 now! (says OECD)

nospam@example.com (Fredy Künzler) — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:51:00 +0200

by Fredy Künzler

Even the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) preaches now IPv6! ... and I guess when official institutions start to worry, it's serious. Functionaries usually don't tend to be fast movers.

I recently asked a fellow service provider about his IPv6 plans, and the answer was a bit ignorant: "noone is paying me to implement IPv6, therefore I don't have a project". Looking back to the early days of the Internet, a lot of research and test-implementations have been done withouth payment, and it became the foundation of a whole industry. Money should not be the focus when evaluating IPv6, at least for another year or so.

I gave a presentation at the recent SwiNOG #16 meeting about implementing IPv6 in a providers backbone. In fact, IPv6 is much easier than people generally think. If you are a network professional, everything you know about BGP, subnetting, OSPF etc. is still valid, at least more or less.

If you plan to deploy IPv6 anytime soon, click through the slides, they might be helpful (or download the IPv6 Now! presentation):

| View | Upload your own

IPv6-only hour at RIPE #56

nospam@example.com (Fredy Künzler) — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:49:00 +0200

by Fredy Künzler

Notes about the IPv6-only hour over there at blogg.ch. Yes, it works (more or less).

P.S. Peter, sorry. You have to bother translate.google.com again.

Less than 1000 days left to IPv4 exhaustion

nospam@example.com (Fredy Künzler) — Sat, 03 May 2008 00:56:00 +0200

by Fredy Künzler

Quoting Mike Leber of he.net:

Since nobody mentioned it yet, there are now less than 1000 days projected until IPv4 exhaustion:

http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/

Do you have an IPv6 plan?

How long do you think it will be until Sarbanes Oxley and SAS 70 auditors start requiring disclosure of IPv4 exhaustion as a business continuity risk, as well as the presence or lack thereof of an IPv6 plan?

When do you plan on telling your customers? (afterwards?)

Ahhh, you don't have any customers that have to plan to buy equipment 2 years in advance. Ok, I understand.

Mike.
ps. 1000 days assumes no rush, speculation, or hoarding. Do people do that?

pps. Of course these are provocative comments for amusement.

ppps. Or not if you don't have any kind of IPv6 plan. Sorry, sorry...

Mike, you're right. Please tell us again in 500 days ...at least I included the IPv4 exhaustion counter here ...

PS: we can deliver IPv6 feed, too.

Net Neutrality

nospam@example.com (Fredy Künzler) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 23:06:00 +0200

by Fredy Künzler

I had an interesting discussion recently with "eyeballs" (being myself content-heavy with both Init7 and Zattoo) about Net Neutrality. It ended up with the unanswered question "what is more valuable, content or users?"

From my point of view, both are equal. Even more: content and users are symbiotic. If no content would exist, noone would buy a broadband connection and still rely on old dial-up modems to send and receive their emails. On the other hand, without a decent number of users, all nice drawn business models of content owners would be maculature.

Not new thoughts, though. Still there are many network people out there which consider (heavy bandwidth-consuming) content the root of all evil, completly ignoring that their residential broadband customers provide their paycheck.

Of course "eyeballs" are in trouble if the market price for an avarage DSL | Cable connection is below cost. This happens quite often, in some European countries due the fact that the incumbent is squeezing margins, and the regulator is weak | deaf | ignorant. What to do in such a case?

Cost optimization ... reconsider everything. Especially old-worn IP transit contracts. After 12 to 15 month the latest one should re-negotiate price with the current vendor, and ask other vendors, too. (Independent) eyeball networks should also consider buying from content networks, as they tend to have a lot of excess capacity and may be willing to sell ridiculously cheap.

On factor remains: the user. Commonly they have no clue about the political aspect of Net Neutrality, and they don't care either. Therefore I'll point to an old Youtube-Video, in case someone typing "Net Neutrality" into a search engine and gets pointed to this blog entry ...

AS1299 and AS5511 to merge?

nospam@example.com (Fredy Künzler) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:58:00 +0200

by Fredy Künzler

AS1299 + AS5511 = ? Not sure how the Swedish / Finnish and the French can cope in general ... but when reading news about France Telecoms intention to buy TeliaSonera, I remembered that Anabelle (AS5511) and Christian (AS1299) have been whispering alot recently at the global peering forum. Now we all know why ... obviously they have been preparing this plot.

The history of AS1

nospam@example.com (Fredy Künzler) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:36:00 +0200

von Fredy Künzler

I stumbled across a document about the history of AS1 today in a blog entry of Renesys and I thought it's worth to share:

[...] AS1 was originally assigned to Bolt, Beranek & Newman (BBN), a pioneering company in the field of network packet technology. BBN engineers are credited with developing the earliest routers, with sending the world’s first e-mail and with establishing the “@” convention used in all e-mail sent today. Through a series of subsequent corporate transactions, ownership of AS1 passed to Genuity, Inc., a communications company whose assets were acquired by Level 3 in February 2003. [...]

How open vs. restrictive peering policy affects the AS-Path length

nospam@example.com (Fredy Künzler) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:50:00 +0200

by Fredy Künzler

I got the nice graph below from Oli Hitz, network engineer of senseLAN (AS31736). senseLAN is a regional cable ISP in western Switzerland, and could be classified as a Tier-3 provider. They are peering at SwissIX and are purchasing transit from Level(3) AS3356 and UPC AS6830, and added now a partial feed from Init7 AS13030 (appx. 125k routes).

While Level(3) and UPC both are following a restrictive peering policy (according to the respective entries in the PeeringDB), Init7 peers open. The average AS-Path length went down from 3,18 to 3,13 by adding AS13030. Considering that AS31736 is inbound-heavy, this view may be not too relevant for the actual traffic flow, but it's still a nice statistic (don't we all love statistics?!)

BTW I tried to find a link to UPC's Backbone website ... no luck.

Peering Community

nospam@example.com (Fredy Künzler) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:55:00 +0200

by Fredy Künzler

Originally shown at the Peering BOF at NANOG #42 (I'm in the movie too!):

... about bgp-and-beyond.com

nospam@example.com (Fredy Künzler) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:31:00 +0200

by Fredy Künzler I'm a blogger since July 2005, writing the blog CH Internet Szene. My very first blog entry was Cyberlink übernimmt magnet.ch, about a merger of two ISPs in Switzerland. At this time I was CEO of the independent business and wholesale provider Init7 in Switzerland. Blogg.ch approached topics as internet law, interconnections, Swiss telecommunication politics, more mergers and rumours about and of course, new technology. By the end of 2007, I stepped down as CEO of Init7, remaining to be member of the board and shareholder. I'm now focusing on Init7's strategy, and this is mainly building the international backbone of Init7, operational with the AS-Number 13030. My current employer is Zattoo, a startup company in the IP-TV space. Unlike classical IP-TV Zattoo is a piece of software which allows to watch live television on the computer. No setop box is required, Zattoo doesn't aim to replace the TV set in the living room; Zattoo rather allows to watch TV while surfing the web, chatting, writing emails or working on spreadsheets. I've joined Zattoo in June 2006, first as a contractor, later as an employee, and currently I'm the network architect of the company. The Zattoo P2P supported CDN is my field, among BGP routing, datacenters and other related stuff. Together with the experience of more than a decade now in the ISP and telecommunication industry gives me some insight, which I would like to share here. While Init7 operates it's business in Switzerland with the support of the international backbone, joining Zattoo shifted my focus truely global. That's why I hang out on events as NANOG or the Peering Forum. At the last forum, fellow community member Peter Cohen asked me why my other blog CH Internet Szene - blogg.ch is not written in English. The answer is simple: my mother-tongue is German. Peter suggested a change, because the machine translation of Google is, well, not bad but sometimes funny. Changing the language of a blog is generally not a good idea, but starting a 2nd one seems to be more adequate. And that's the story about bgp-and-beyond.com ... kudos to Init7-Engineer Basile for suggesting the domain name. The older sister blogg.ch remains active with a focus on Switzerlands internet. Expect references to blogg.ch here, and don't expect translations for everything. ;-) More information about me can be found on the about-page of blogg.ch and in my Xing-Profile.