An Analysis of the Largest National Ecosystem of Public Internet eXchange Points: The Case of Brazil

Abstract

Abstract-Internet eXchange Points (IXP) have become an increasing research target when aiming at understanding the complex and evolving Internet ecosystem. IXPs are shared infrastructures where Autonomous Systems (AS) implement peering agreements for their traffic exchange and thus represent an interesting microcosm of the Internet diversity and a strategic vantage point to deliver end-user services.In this article, we provide an in-depth analysis of the largest set of public IXPs in a single country, namely the case of Brazil. The Brazilian public peering ecosystem counts with over 25 IXPs maintained by an overarching project called IX.br following a non-profit business model that facilitates multilateral agreements. The nation-wide peering initiative provides an appealing environment for innovation and fostering IP connectivity market practices. Without IX.br, access providers are limited in terms of coverage, performance, cost, and dependence on transit providers. The open and incentive-rich IXP approach can be regarded as an interesting development that may inspire other development countries as well as more established regional markets. Based on BGP data from all looking glass servers in IX.br, we provide insights into the peering ecosystem per IXP and from a nation-wide perspective by inspecting properties of the connectivity graphs and the IPv4 and IPv6 prefix distribution. We propose peering affinity as a metric well-suited to measure the connectivity between different types of ASes and overall found lower peering density in IX.br when compared to more mature ecosystems, such as AMS-IX, DE-CIX, LINX, and MSK-IX. When dissecting AS-level graphs we also observe the formation of IXP-enabled k-clique communities. As a final contribution, we have shared our 16 GB dataset along all supporting code to allow for new research studies by the community.

Code Ethnography and the Materiality of Power in Internet Governance

“…IXPs began to form in Brazil, one of my research sites, in the 1990s, and in the early 2000s the project was imbued with the need to maintain national sovereignty, so that the exchange of traffic between internet providers, which used to take place in the United States or be mediated by a North-American company, could play out on national territory, under local governance (Rosa 2020). Brazil has the largest public IXP ecosystem in the world (Brito et al 2016), with over 30 units, 4 with significant impact (Woodcock 2013), but many factors influence internet data flows and off-IXP routes. For example, if the data to be accessed is located abroad, international transit will be inevitable.…”

SD-BROV: An Enhanced BGP Hijacking Protection with Route Validation in Software-Defined eXchange

“…Hence, this research proposes an idea for improving ROV mechanism by leveraging SDN to IXP (i.e., SDX) to make further engagement. The used techniques and expected contributions are listed below: The responsibility of an IXP [17] is to operate and manage a physical infrastructure to support Internet interconnection among network service providers. It also makes a vibrant marketplace for network transmission, which is shown as Figure 2.…”

The Internet in East Africa, a mixed methods study

“…It has been witnessed in other jurisdictions that an increase in the number of IXPs helps to increase network speed and reduce costs. IX.br, the Brazilian ecosystem, has grown from four IXPs to 25 in operation and 16 new locations under evaluation using a non-profit business model (Brito et al, 2016 (Fanou et al, 2015). The South African Internet ecosystem bears little resemblance to the rest of the continent in terms of scale, for example, South African IXPs have over 700 connected networks between them whereas the combined peers of all East Africa IXPs is just over 100 (Lodhi et al, 2014), (PeeringDB, n.d.).…”