The Asia Pacific Internet Exchange Association (APIX) is a forum where representatives from Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) operating in the Asia Pacific get together to learn and share experiences on technical, operational and business issues of IXPs.
At our most recent meeting, APIX 16 held during APNIC 44 in Taichung, Taiwan, local guest speaker William Lu from Chief Telecom gave a particularly interesting presentation on the history and present state of the Internet industry in host economy.
William mentioned that Taiwan has five Internet Exchanges (IXs), each operated by different companies. He said that traffic at these exchanges is slowly growing and that the Internet industry in Taiwan still has a long way to go to match its neighbouring economies.
Read our TWSeries for an overview of Taiwan’s achievements as an Internet and networking pioneer.
Following William’s talk, I also gave an overview presentation on India’s growing Internet industry.
Around 800 Internet Service Provider licences have been issued by the Department of Telecom, Ministry of Telecommunications, Government of India. India’s first IX was established in 2003 and now there are around six. The Mumbai Internet Exchange is the largest IX in India, and first OIX-1 Certified IX in Asia, which is hosted at the OIX-2 Certified datacentre, Web Werks, in Mumbai.
Benchmarking IXs in the Asia Pacific
APNIC’s Deputy Director, Sanjaya, shared important information with the group about IXP industry benchmarking in Asia, similar to the information presented by EURO-IX BMC at APRICOT 2017.
Sanjaya said that if the group thought it would be helpful, APNIC is ready to assist with conducting an annual survey for IXs in the Asia Pacific.
Those members who were present at the meeting discussed the merit of conducting such an annual survey and suggested that it should include certain parameters, so that all members can share details discreetly and with confidence.
Detecting and preventing massive route leakages
Nasato Goto from JPNAP gave a talk about the massive route leakage that happened on 25 August 2017 and the impact it had on IXs and their customers.
Many APIX members suffered from the leakage of their routes of public VLAN. Fortunately, the leak lasted less than 10 minutes so the impact was minimal.
Attendees discussed how they could detect such events in the future and questioned if there were practices in place to properly prevent them.
Peering Asia: Inaugural event to be held in Japan this November
To meet the growing demand for peering and interconnection opportunities in the Asia Pacific region, APIX has organized a new open peering event, named ‘Peering Asia’.
The inaugural event, Peering Asia 1.0, will be held from 1 to 2 November 2017 in Kyoto, Japan. It will be hosted by local IXs — BBIX, Equinix Japan, JPIX and JPNAP.
Over 100 people have already registered for the event, which is open to anyone interested in expanding their networks.
Registration is open until Friday, 20 October, and costs JPY 20,000 (approximately USD 200).
The next APIX meeting will be held on 24 February 2018 in Kathmandu, Nepal, before APRICOT 2018.
We look forward to seeing you soon at both events!
Ajai Kumar is the Chief Information Officer at Mumbai IX.
The views expressed by the authors of this blog are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of APNIC. Please note a Code of Conduct applies to this blog.