LON2 is approaching 25 years in operation and closing in on the 1Tb traffic mark. It launched in 2002 as a second peering LAN to remove single points of failure in London, became the world’s first IXP network to run a disaggregated architecture in 2018, and has now been fully refreshed onto Nokia across all 17 sites, remaining diverse from LON1 throughout.
Building a second LAN
When LINX first began operating in London, all traffic ran across a single peering LAN, LON1 as it’s known today. One fabric, shared by every member. As LINX became a core component of the UK’s internet infrastructure and scaled, so did the importance of reducing single points of failure and improving resilience across the exchange.
Splitting one network into two
In 2001, the decision was made to split the network and operate two separate peering LANs in London. During the pre-work to make that happen, the importance of that decision was proven, when a member port carrying undocumented filters was moved and triggered a broadcast traffic event that brought down a large portion of the UK’s internet.
The incident made national news and was one of the most significant outages LINX had experienced.
Vendor diversity played a crucial role, and we operated with two technical partners at the time for LON1; although issues were experienced on the Foundry switches, the Extreme Networks switches were unaffected, meaning traffic was still able to flow across them.
LON2 launched in 2002 on Extreme Networks hardware, running in parallel to the Foundry based LON1. Although it operated from the same data centre sites, it ran on different infrastructure supplied by a different vendor and reduced single points of failure and building added resilience into the LINX network.
The LINX dual LAN resilient solution in London is born.
A world first: disaggregating LON2
In 2016, after careful consideration and research with potential suppliers, LINX made the decision to restructure LON2 around a disaggregated architecture, separating the hardware from the software and reducing reliance on a single integrated vendor stack.
Edgecore Networks was selected to supply the hardware, with IP Infusion’s OcNOS chosen as the network operating system.
The deployment required EVPN services to be built into OcNOS to support LINX’s multi-site architecture, with extensive proof of concepts completed to make sure the solution was right.
The migration completed in 2018, and LON2 became the first IXP worldwide to adopt a disaggregated model, employing EVPN over VXLAN with a leaf-spine topology, full automation and 100GE readiness.
The 2026 Nokia refresh
With the Edgecore platform reaching end of life, LINX recently completed a full refresh of the LON2 network across all 17 sites, selecting Nokia as the technical partner. The decision followed a series of proof of concepts with a shortlist of vendors, with Nokia meeting all core requirements including readiness for 800GE port options.
LON2 now runs on Nokia IXR hardware with SR-Linux, maintaining the VxLAN-based EVPN architecture that has underpinned the network since 2018. LON2 remains diverse from LON1, continuing to use different hardware and software to eliminate single points of failure, something that has always been central to how our two LANs in London operate.
Richard Petrie, CTO at LINX, comments: “The LON2 refresh is a cornerstone of our strategy to deliver resilient, scalable and cost-effective interconnection. Nokia’s platform not only meets our technical requirements but also supports our long-term vision for a diverse and robust network ecosystem. When looking for a new technical partner for LON2, we had criteria we needed to meet — including support for all our interconnection services, EVPN capability, and the ability to scale from 10GE to 100GE, 400GE and even 800GE port options for the future.”
Dual LAN infrastructure
Running two independent LANs in London means our members can connect to both LON1 and LON2 for added resilience and redundancy. With LON2 approaching 25 years in operation and close to the 1Tb traffic mark, it remains a key point of interconnection for the UK and a cost-effective way to access LINX services in London.
To find out more about connecting to LON2, visit our dedicated webpage.
Existing members can get started through the LINX member portal.
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