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As the internet becomes increasingly intrinsic to business operations and daily lives alike, the interconnection between networks, content providers and users becomes more critical to creating the ‘network of networks’ that is the Internet. Research shows that 63% of the global population are using the internet regularly, that’s double where it stood just ten years ago. At the forefront of this huge increase in internet usage are Internet Exchange Points (IXPs)—facilities where all Internet players can interconnect to one another, ensuring network quality remains efficient and affordable, even at huge scale. 

What is causing the surge in internet usage?

IoT
IoT platforms generate massive volumes of data that must be transmitted, processed, integrated and stored beyond the connected “things” themselves. ​​IoT applications are already creating tremendous volumes of data, and it’s set to continue, with some estimates putting IoT generated data demand at 80 zettabytes. Traditional, centralised IT architectures can’t sustainably support this traffic.

5g
With the ability to support significantly higher speeds, lower latency and higher capacity, 5G is the first generation of mobile/wireless communications built to handle advanced enterprise applications. It is poised to speed up digital business innovations like self-driving cars, smart cities, connected healthcare and more. But the acceleration of 5G adoption also comes with an increase in data demands, and a need for more interconnection points to securely host and stream data at significantly higher speeds, volumes and lower latencies.

Remote working
The last couple of years have seen a huge rise in remote working, and with that an increase in internet traffic. Data-heavy applications in particular have increased, such as video conferencing software. Look at Zoom, whose users increased by 2900% with the pandemic.

Live streaming
From football finals, to eSports matches, to concerts; live streaming is everywhere. The live streaming industry is set to grow by over $25 billion in the next four years alone, putting huge pressure on digital infrastructure to effectively support the increase in data. As more than half of viewers will abandon poor streams within the first 90 seconds, it’s extremely important for hosting providers to ensure high quality and low latency.

How can IXPs help?

The public internet isn’t the answer when tens of gigabits of business-critical data are involved. Peering is more relevant than ever for networks, and is becoming more and more relevant to enterprises that need a robust network. Here’s how IXPs can help support large volumes of traffic.

Keeping large volumes of traffic affordable.
When using an IXP, the traffic ISPs must deliver to their connectivity provider diminishes; and so do the costs. As the fastest and shortest route to other peering members, connecting at IXPs greatly reduces latency, increases speed and reduces the cost of an organisation’s Internet traffic whilst improving bandwidth and routing efficiency. This keeps networking operations affordable even at times of high demand.

Maintaining adequate latency at peak traffic times.
Direct interconnection prevents data from travelling large distances in order to go from one network to another, thus reducing latency. IXPs also help to considerably improve bandwidth between the clients of two neighbour ISPs within the point, again ensuring content providers and other tenants can continue to provide high quality, low latency services to their end users—even when demand is high.

Enabling easy scale with demand.
As IXPs can provide multiple ports of varying capacities, they enable users to scale capacity if and when needed. This, again, is very useful to help meet surging demand and ensure no disruption to services.

Peering at Italy’s leading Internet Exchange

With IXPs across Italy, (Milan metro area, Bologna and Palermo) totalling 10 points of presence (PoPs), MIX offers the perfect strategic gateway between central and southern Europe. The MIX interconnection platform offers customers an opportunity to exchange Internet traffic with enhanced network performance, increased data flow control, reducing latency and IP-Transit costs. For more information, you can reach out to our IXP experts here

The Internet. Crucial to businesses, but frequently underutilised

Internet is an essential utility. We have come to expect instant access to fast, secure Internet 24/7, and – like with water and electricity – we really feel its absence. So it seems strange that poor connections, delays on conference calls and failed transactions are seen as normal, albeit frustrating, occurrences within enterprise life.

Imagine if you couldn’t consistently get access to clean water in your offices, or if all the lights turned off in the afternoon when too many people were in the building. Would employees just shrug it off and carry on as normal? Of course not! This would cause huge disruptions within the business, and would quite rightly be a top priority for executives to fix. So why don’t we hold Internet services to the same standards as other utilities? That’s the question that digital transformation drives are trying to solve. Digital transformation is revolutionising the way we use the Internet. Digital transformation initiatives aim to level up large enterprises’ use of Internet services, utilising a wider range of digital solutions to improve businesses operations, from distribution to research and development, sales to finance. Forward-looking enterprises who embrace new digital services are rewarded with higher performance, increased agility, and more reliable connections.

Peering at Internet Exchange Points offers a major boost to digital transformation efforts

One solution becoming increasingly popular with enterprises is peering, the free exchange of data between networks at an Internet Exchange Point (IXP). IXPs are thriving ecosystems of carrier networks, content delivery networks (CDNs), Internet service providers (ISPs), Public cloud providers and IT service providers. As these operators share the common interests of delivering quality services at controllable prices, they choose to interconnect with each other at IXPs. As the fastest and shortest route to other peering members, connecting at ISPs greatly reduces latency, increases speed and reduces the cost of an organisation’s Internet traffic whilst improving bandwidth and routing efficiency. It’s clearly a clever business solution, and there are a few key reasons why many enterprises are looking towards peering to augment their digital transformation strategies.

Improve performance to better your services

By providing the fastest and shortest route to other peering members, IXPs greatly reduce the latency of an enterprise’s Internet traffic. This high speed, super-reliable connection is a must-have for ambitious enterprises looking to digitally transform their businesses; by enabling stronger compute power, faster data processing, and the development of more resilient customer-facing digital products.

As well as efficiency and power, peering can also help to improve the network resilience of businesses. IXPs have a proven track record of stability, and can provide the necessary SLAs which can handle enterprise expectations. Corporate users are beginning to realise that peering offers the redundancy and resiliency required for their digital transformation ambitions, without the high costs and unpredictability of the public Internet.

Growing relationships between IXPs and enterprises are mutually beneficial. Peering enables enterprises to gain resilience for critical applications and optimise their network performance. Whereas IXPs gain more members, who attract even more members, which helps to grow the community of operators and further expand their marketplace.

Save money which can be redirected to product innovation

IXPs offer ongoing value for money. Through a monthly subscription, enterprises can peer with a myriad of Public Cloud Providers, as well as security applications and social networks.

Peering is much more cost-effective than paying another company to carry your traffic – you can reach a much broader ecosystem with peering than you would be able to otherwise. What’s more, IXPs also tend to be hubs for competition, which can drive down prices and ultimately provide a better service for your end users.

The money saved through peering services can then be invested into product innovation, improving customer experience, and procuring more advanced digital tools – all instrumental elements of a successful, on-going digital transformation strategy.

Peering at Italy’s leading Internet Exchange

With IXPs across Italy, (Milan metro area, Bologna and Palermo) totalling 10 points of presence (PoPs), MIX offers the perfect strategic gateway between central and southern Europe. The MIX interconnection platform offers customers an opportunity to exchange Internet traffic with enhanced network performance, increased data flow control, reducing latency and IP-Transit costs. For more information, you can reach out to our IXP experts here.

MIX, the main Internet networks interconnection platform in Italy, is pursuing its own decentralization strategy.

Alessandro Talotta, Executive President and Chairman of MIX, has said of the addition: “MIX continues its growth path by expanding its presence in Bologna. The point of presence (PoP) at Lepida opens the way to future partnerships within the public sector, and represents concrete support to sector operators who need greater proximity to internet services”.

MIX Bologna, the tenth and most recent PoP of MIX, is housed within BOIX, the Lepida datacenter, the ICT services hub of the Emilia Romagna Region.

The Bolognese PoP is MIX’s second outside Lombardy, after Palermo opened in 2017, and is configured in all respects as an IXP with its own autonomy.

Created with the aim of expanding the local interconnection infrastructure and attracting Internet operators to the region, MIX Bologna guarantees the best possible latency. It offers an optimal solution for the connection of content and service providers that require reduced access times.

All operators connected to MIX Bologna can also perform direct peering with the 350+ networks present on MIX’s public LAN.

The activation of this new PoP is part of the decentralization process undertaken by MIX, driven on the one hand, by the need to facilitate and encourage the exchange of data at the local level and, on the other, by the availability of access to technologies.

The motto “keep local traffic local”, which for years has summed up the goal of the joint efforts of MIX and the member operators, is once again cemented in MIX’s wider business strategy.

Italy’s leading internet network interconnection platform strengthens its development strategy with a powerful new PoP and improvements to its customer portal.

MIX announces the activation of a new Point of Presence (PoP) at ML5, Equinix’s Settimo Milanese data centre near Milan. 

The new MIX node in ML5 further increases the coverage of the public peering network already present in major data centres across the country. The PoP connects customers at 100 Gbps and further expands the offering of MIX-IT’s peering LAN network, to which over 350 networks—with a total capacity exceeding 10 Tbps—are already interconnected.

It is now possible to connect to MIX in ML5 with 10GE or 100GE ports, and several MIX switches to balance IP traffic at full wire speed.

Like all primary MIX nodes, the architecture is designed to ensure total reliability on different paths for all customers in ML5 who want to connect to the peering LAN with redundant connections— easily meeting the needs of content owners and distributors.

To enhance user experience, MIX has also launched a new version of the MIX Customer Portal©, the online platform dedicated to MIX customers. This release introduces several new features, including greater administrative control and improved traffic statistics.

Alessandro Talotta, President and Executive President of MIX, comments, “MIX continues to increase its presence by investing in the development of its Internet interconnection platforms and thus facilitating a growth path for operators in the sector”.