Settlement-Free Peering Requirements. I am explaining this topic in deep detail in my “BGP Zero to Hero” Course. I explained the Peering , Types of Peering basics in one of the previous posts. When we talk about peering, we generally mean settlement-free peering. But what are the common requirements for companies to peer with each other ?
Settlement-free peering is called as Internet Peering as well. So, companies setup BGP neighborship, advertise each others their infrastructure and the customer prefixes, nothing more.
And of course, they do settlement-free peering , because it is free. They don’t exchange money. If my customer sends a packet to your customer, I don’t pay you. You don’t pay me. In this post, I will mention the generic requirements, which might be requested by most of the companies during peering negotiations.
Settlement-Free Peering Requirements :
- Backbone capacity and Diversity: Peer can ask from the other specific amount of backbone capacity and redundant paths for reliability. Companies advertise their backbone capacity and many other parameters in peeringdb.
- POP Locations: It is important to have POP locations where there are maximum amount of traffic or closer to the eyeballs. Number of POP can be a peering requirement as well
- Traffic Requirement: Traffic requirement is important factor for Internet peering , it is economically make sense to peer with someone which you have a good amount of traffic, otherwise having an IP Transit might be cheaper.
- Operational Requirement: is also important, for example peer should have a 24/7 NOC team which can response when failure or attack happens.
- Traffic Requirement , POP Locations and Backbone capacity may not be important for the companies which have Open Peering Policy. But Operational requirements are important for every company.