SWITCH Peering Policy

The following paragraphs define the administrative and technical conditions under which SWITCH can peer with other networks. SWITCH does not require a formal peering agreement but is willing to sign one should the peering partner wish so.

General Guidelines

The peering with another Internet service provider (in the following the 'ISP') shall be in the interest of both organizations SWITCH and the ISP. For SWITCH measures of interest are:

  • Size of ISP's network and thus expected amount and symmetry of traffic between SWITCH and the ISP
  • Other direct benefits for the Swiss academic community

SWITCH does normally not peer with small organizations that are customers of organizations that already peer with SWITCH.

Peering Points

SWITCH is present at CIXP (CERN Internet eXchange Point) in Geneva, Equinix (former TIX) and SwissIX in Zurich, AMS-IX in Amsterdam. Peerings are preferably set up at these locations. As an exception peering is also possible at other SWITCH PoPs (located at the Swiss Universities) under the condition, that the ISP takes over the responsibility for the communication link to the SWITCH PoP.

Routing Configuration

  • The peering allows exchange of traffic between defined sets of IP networks. For SWITCH, this set contains the networks of SWITCH's customers, including multihomed customers. The networks of SWITCH's customers are described in the RIPE database. (AS macro AS-SWITCH). ISP's set of IP networks must be defined in the same way (RIPE database or Merit Routing Assets database).
  • BGP-4 is used to exchange routing information between the peers.
  • The peering does not include the right to transit traffic from ISP to third ISP's networks through SWITCH. The peers must not use static routes to point to each other's network, except where necessary for setting up the BGP connection.
  • SWITCH accepts aggregated routes only. According to registry allocation sizes, overly specific routes may be filtered out.

Network Operation

  • To troubleshoot routing problems the ISP must either provide a traceroute gateway and preferably a looking glass or must allow SWITCH network operation staff Telnet (read-only) access to its peering router. In case of a direct peering ISP shall additionally allow SNMP read-only access to its peering router.
  • SWITCH applies ingress filters towards its customers, which prevent the injection of packets with spoofed source addresses. It is expected that ISP take similar precautions to protect its own and their peers networks.
    SWITCH reserves the right to implement packet filters on its border routers to protect SWITCH customers from malicious traffic, misconfiguration, and abuse of network capacity.
  • ISP's technical staff for network operation and for handling security incidents and network abuse shall be reachable by phone or e-mail at least during office hours. Appropriate contact information will be made available among the parties.
  • The peers mutually agree to the publication of traffic statistics concerning the peering connection on their WWW servers.
  • The peers agree to adapt the capacity of the connection(s) over time so that the offered load can be handled at virtually no packet loss.
SWITCHlan Peering Team