Noction releases IRP 3.2 enhancing its support for Internet Exchanges

Noction is pleased to announce the launch of IRP version 3.2. Since the time we added optimization for Internet Exchanges in IRP 2.1, it has become an indispensable feature for service providers and enterprises around the world. In IRP 3.2 we have put an emphasis on improving this feature and adding flexibility to its behavior. In the new release we have added new optimization capabilities for infrastructures that heavily rely on connectivity to Internet Exchanges.

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Customizable Improvement Metrics for IXes

As Internet Exchanges are often the preferable route to follow to reach an internet destination, we have increased the aggressiveness of keeping traffic following the IX route in 2 ways:

1. By adding the possibility to configure a higher relevant latency improvement level that would be applied only when rerouting traffic away from an IX;
2. By adding the option to reroute traffic towards an IX even if latency would worsen by an acceptable value that can be configured by the platform administrator.

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New “Improvements to Exchanges” Report

The platform front-end has been equipped with a new report that displays in real-time route improvements that moved traffic towards Internet Exchanges. It also shows the exact traffic volume that was rerouted as a result of the IRP announcement. By using this report platform administrators can closely monitor how IRP continuously shifts traffic in favor of IXes based on customer-defined thresholds.

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Peering Partner Auto-Reconfiguration

Another important enhancement for IX connectivity is specifically related to hybrid types of Exchanges. Since such IXes provide both direct Peer to Peer connections as well as via a route server, the connection towards a specific peering partner might be available via one BGP session or another. Now IRP is able to perform periodical auto-reconfiguration of peering partners with the purpose of identifying the BGP session through which a particular peering partner is currently available.

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PBR Auto-Evaluation Switch

Policy Based Routing (PBR) is an important technique used when configuring IXes to ensure that the right IRP probes are originating from the corresponding source IP.  IRP periodically runs traceroutes towards peering partners to ensure that these PBR policies are functional. However some peering partners are not responsive to traceroute requests due to their policies. IRP 3.2 offers the ability to disable PBR evaluation for specific unresponsive peers.

As a result of the above enhancements, IRP 3.2 offers a more customizable platform behavior in an effort to optimize traffic routing across Internet Exchanges, which eventually leads to more efficient employment of your existing connectivity.