The London Internet Exchange (LINX) have completed the migration phase of its LON2 network architecture refresh, a radical solution which uses EVPN routing technology and open network hardware.

In this video LINX Chief Technology Officer, Richard Petrie, and LINX Lead Architect, Flemming Heino, explains how long has the migration process took, what infrastructure changes have been made to the LON2 network and how it differs from other Internet exchanges.

Richard also covers what this new approach could mean for the LON1 platform while Flemming adds a few final thoughts on the project now that the migration has been completed.

Read more about the LON2 migration project

LINX has been presented with the Best Internet Exchange Operator of the Year award 2018 at the Carrier Community Global awards in Berlin.

Independently judged by a panel of telecoms analysts and industry experts, the CC-Global Awards are Carrier Community’s official recognition of innovative achievements among the telecom wholesale operators, both regionally and globally.

The Best Internet Exchange Operator of the Year category seeks to recognise IX-operators who have shown high levels of network innovation and creativity with their service offering. LINX CMO Kurtis Lindqvist was on hand to receive the prize at a special ceremony at the Central and Eastern Europe “CEE” 2018 GCCM event on the 18th June.

“It was a great honour to accept this award on behalf LINX and comes at a very exciting time for the exchange,” said Lindqvist. “We have just completed the migration phase of our LON2 platform in London using a radical new disaggregated network model using EVPN routing technology on open network hardware.”

“We feel that this award is recognition of our long-standing commitment to delivering long-term innovative technology to our members, as well as increased levels of service quality that allows us to provide services at a greatly reduced cost.”

The GCCM Awards were introduced by Wida Schmidt, CEO at Carrier Community, and moderated by Erik van Stokkom from VS Consulting with Viktoria Mincheva from Leixico. Many leading telecom companies were nominated for the 30 different award categories.

The London Internet Exchange (LINX) have announced that it has completed the migration of its LON2 platform to a new disaggregated network model that uses EVPN technology, the first IXP anywhere in the World to do so.

The new LON2 architecture employs EVPN over VXLAN, leaf-spine topology, full automation and is 100G ready. The solution, which uses IP Infusion’s OcNOS™ network operating system and switch hardware from Edgecore Networks, became fully operational on 5^th June following an extensive testing, proof of concept, and migration process lasting nearly two years.

 “By introducing a disaggregated platform, LINX members will benefit from increased flexibility plus continued value from their investment,” said Richard Petrie, LINX CTO. “The EVPN technology allows LINX to deliver long-term innovative technology to our members, a commitment to ever-greater levels of service quality and to allow us to provide services at a greatly reduced cost base.”

LINX Lead Architect, Flemming Heino, added, “With EVPN everything is programmed. Switches talk to one another, they are synchronised and ultimately more predictable and stable. The system offers many benefits and the flexibility for more features to be added such as multi-homing.”

George Tchaparian, CEO, Edgecore Networks, said, “There are many operational and cost benefits of the new architecture model and Edgecore are extremely proud to have worked with LINX on this ground-breaking project. We’ve clearly demonstrated that open network systems are ready outside of data centre applications and are viable solutions for mainstream telecom service providers. With our industry proven open networking switches and IP Infusion’s robust, high function NOS, LINX will be able to deliver the flexibility of an open network architecture with additional value-added services at a lower cost.

“Growing network traffic levels are placing great demands on networks such as LINX to deliver new, innovative services at faster rates,” said Atsushi Ogata, President and CEO of IP Infusion. “The OcNOS and Edgecore switch solution has meant that LINX could more easily design and migrate to their disaggregated LON2 network model ensuring it meets the specific and exacting needs of its membership.”

LINX is one of the world’s largest operators of Internet Exchange Point (IXP) services, connecting over 820 networks in over 75 countries. It operates a dual-LAN infrastructure in London with regional exchanges in Manchester, Cardiff and central Scotland. It also operates an exchange in Northern Virginia, USA.

About Edgecore Networks

Edgecore Networks Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Accton Technology Corporation, the leading network ODM.  Edgecore Networks delivers wired and wireless networking products and solutions through channel partners and system integrators worldwide for the Data Center, Service Provider, Enterprise and SMB customers.  Edgecore Networks is the leader in open networking providing a full line of open WiFi access points, packet transponders, virtual PON OLTs, and 1G, 10G, 25G, 40G, and 100G OCP-ACCEPTEDTM switches that offer choice of commercial and open source NOS and SDN software. For more information, visit www.edge-core.com.

About IP Infusion

IP Infusion, the leader in disaggregated networking solutions, delivers enterprise and carrier-grade software solutions allowing network operators to reduce network costs, increase flexibility, and to deploy new features and services quickly. IP Infusion’s OcNOS, the industry’s first enterprise and carrier-grade network operating system for Open Compute hardware, allows for easier implementation of large-scale IT networks, and offers customers white box solutions to deploy more quickly. VirNOS, a NFV-based software platform, provides a carriers and enterprises with a cost-effective network OS approach to implement and manage their networking services. With the OcNOS and VirNOS network operating systems, both powered by ZebOS, IP Infusion offers network operators, carriers, and enterprises with the physical and virtual software solutions they need to achieve the disaggregated networking model. Over 300 customers worldwide, including major networking equipment manufacturers, use IP Infusion’s respected ZebOS platform to build networks to address the evolving needs of cloud, carrier and mobile networking. IP Infusion is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., and is a wholly owned and independently operated subsidiary of ACCESS CO., LTD. Additional information can be found at http://www.ipinfusion.com.

IP Infusion, ZebOS, VirNOS and OcNOS are trademarks or registered trademarks of IP Infusion. All other trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, or registered service marks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

The London Internet Exchange (LINX) have refreshed its LON2 network architecture using EVPN routing technology, the first IXP in the world to do so.

In this video LINX Chief Technology Officer, Richard Petrie, and LINX Lead Architect, Flemming Heino, explain the process in detail including why LINX decided to implement a disaggregated model, the benefits of EVPN, the challenges faced during the project and what it all means to LINX members. Also covered is why LINX selected Edgecore Networks and IP Infusion as project partners.

OcNOS running on Edgecore Networks switches, powered by Broadcom Tomahawk, enables migration to 100G services for one of the world’s largest Internet exchanges

IP Infusion, a leading provider of disaggregated networking solutions and intelligent network software, today announced that London Internet Exchange (LINX) deployed IP Infusion’s OcNOS™ network operating system in their secondary London interconnect platform (LON2).

LINX, one of the largest operators of Internet Exchange Point (IXP) services connecting over 820 networks in over 75 countries, is the first IXP in the world to adopt a disaggregated model that employs EVPN over VXLAN, leaf-spine topology, full automation and is 100G ready to deliver reduced total cost of ownership and bring greater levels of service quality to their customers.

LINX is confirming that they have deployed the OcNOS network operating software on open network switches from Edgecore Networks – AS7712-32X 100 GbE and AS5812-54X 10 GbE based on Broadcom Tomahawk and Trident II+ silicon respectively – to build the disaggregated model for their LON2 network. The member migrations to LON2 are in progress and are expected to be completed in June.

“As a result of our extensive testing, we are moving forward with the OcNOS network operating system for our disaggregated platform to allow LINX to deliver the latest technologies of OcNOS from IP Infusion and open network switches from Edgecore Networks,” said Richard Petrie, LINX CTO.

OcNOS now supports a highly scalable 100G interconnection fabric for connecting multiple distributed locations. The solution uses control plane learning using EVPN, network segmentation and virtualization using VXLAN, multihoming for redundancy, ACL/QoS policies for fine grained control of member traffic, support for sFlow and management automation.

“The OcNOS and Edgecore switch solution helped LINX to migrate their LON2 network and provided a key validation of the disaggregated model for mission-critical applications,” said Atsushi Ogata, CEO and president of IP Infusion. “This validated solution can be adopted by other internet exchange providers who are looking to upgrade their existing networks as well as for data centre interconnect use cases to adopt acceleration of disaggregated network.”

“Edgecore Networks continues to be a dedicated partner with LINX as they deploy their new open disaggregated networking solution,” said George Tchaparian, CEO, Edgecore Networks. “With Edgecore’s open network switches and IP Infusion’s robust, high function NOS, LINX will now be delivering more services, at lower costs, with the flexibility of an open network architecture at 100G.”

About Edgecore Networks

 Edgecore Networks Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Accton Technology Corporation, the leading network ODM. Edgecore Networks delivers wired and wireless networking products and solutions through channel partners and system integrators worldwide for the Data Center, Service Provider, Enterprise and SMB customers.  Edgecore Networks is the leader in open networking providing a full line of open WiFi access points, packet transponders, virtual PON OLTs, and 1G, 10G, 25G, 40G, and 100G OCP-ACCEPTED^TM switches that offer choice of commercial and open source NOS and SDN software. For more information, visit www.edge-core.com.

About IP Infusion

IP Infusion, the leader in disaggregated networking solutions, delivers enterprise and carrier-grade software solutions allowing network operators to reduce network costs, increase flexibility, and to deploy new features and services quickly. IP Infusion’s OcNOS, the industry’s first enterprise and carrier-grade network operating system for Open Compute hardware, allows for easier implementation of large-scale IT networks, and offers customers white box solutions to deploy more quickly. VirNOS, a NFV-based software platform, provides a carriers and enterprises with a cost-effective network OS approach to implement and manage their networking services. With the OcNOS and VirNOS network operating systems, both powered by ZebOS, IP Infusion offers network operators, carriers, and enterprises with the physical and virtual software solutions they need to achieve the disaggregated networking model. Over 300 customers worldwide, including major networking equipment manufacturers, use IP Infusion’s respected ZebOS platform to build networks to address the evolving needs of cloud, carrier and mobile networking. IP Infusion is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., and is a wholly owned and independently operated subsidiary of ACCESS CO., LTD. Additional information can be found at http://www.ipinfusion.com.

IP Infusion, ZebOS, VirNOS and OcNOS are trademarks or registered trademarks of IP Infusion. All other trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, or registered service marks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

“We hope this will encourage more potential LINX members to see the advantages and join the exchange via a Connexions partner and data centres such as ours.”

When joining LINX, most members connect using a fibre pair or cross connect. One fibre is dedicated to receiving data from network equipment and the other fibre will be dedicated to transmitting data to the network. The new product, Bi-Directional Optical Transceivers (or Bi-Di transceivers for short) allows both the transmitting and receiving of data on a single fibre resulting in the benefit of reduced interconnect cost for the member, whilst doubling the capacity of each cross connect.

TeleData customer and LINX member Boundless were the first to use the new Bi-Di optical link at their IXManchester location, Williams House, and have successfully migrated their peering over.

Chris Bewley, Technical Director from Boundless says:

“The use of Bi-Di transceivers has enabled us to take a new 10G port at IXManchester, giving us future regional peering capacity as we continue to grow our network. Previously, the cost of third-party cross connect fees at Williams House would have been prohibitive to us taking the new port in IXManchester.”

“The order process was straight forward and we are seeing good, stable connectivity to the exchange from our equipment in TeleData.”

LINX’s Bi-Directional Optical Transceiver service is currently only available at IXManchester, however, there is an expectation that this product will be rolled out to all LINX exchanges, including both London LANs, in the future.

For further information please email the LINX Member Relations team.