Amsterdam Internet Exchange

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Name	Amsterdam Internet Exchange
Abbreviation	AMS-IX
Founded	1997 (unofficially 1994)
Location	Amsterdam, Netherlands
Homepage	www.ams-ix.net
Networks	Euro-IX
Members	265 ^[1]
Ports	444 ^[1]
Daily traffic
- Max in	264.040 Gb/s ^[2]
- Max out	263.239 Gb/s ^[2]
- Average in	178.227 Gb/s ^[2]
- Average out	177.975 Gb/s ^[2]

The Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) is an Internet Exchange Point situated in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. AMS-IX is a fast growing, non-profit, neutral and independent peering point. The beginnings of the AMS-IX can be traced back to the early 1990s. On December 29, 1997 AMS-IX was established as an association in Amsterdam, operating under Dutch law.

The AMS-IX is the largest Internet Exchange in the world, when measured by number of members, or by traffic. As of March 20, 2007 AMS-IX connected 265 members on 444 ports ^[1] and the peak traffic rate was 264.040 Gbit/s.^[2]

1 Network
2 Locations
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Network

The AMS-IX is continually evolving, and is currently using a hub-spoke architecture using several optical switches, as can be seen in their topology map. This topology brings the advantage of being able to perform maintenance to the core network without any impact on customer connections, and anticipate on fiber problems by (automatically) switching to the backup topology thus using another set of fibers. The active switching topology star is determined by means of the VSRP protocol.

Members connect to Foundry Networks BigIron 15000 ethernet switches, which provide many speeds: 10baseT/100baseTX, 1000baseSX, 1000baseLX, and 1000baseLH. AMS-IX also offers 10 Gbit/s connections via Glimmerglass System 300 photonic switches which provide resilience between the two VSRP domains by following the active VSRP switch. The 10Gbit/s connections are connected via the photonic switches to aggregating Foundry RX16 and MG8 switches, called stub-switches. AMS-IX provides 10000baseLR and 10000baseER connections. The core consists of Foundry Networks RX16 switches, with redundant power supplies, as all switches are equipped.

AMX-IX also offers aggregated links, which are used to provide speeds beyond 1 Gb/s. The bundling of two 1 Gbit/s ethernet connections can provide speeds of 2 Gbit/s, and so on. While these are still in use, AMS-IX has become the world's first IXP offering 10 Gigabit Ethernet customer ports and has connected multiple customers with aggregated 10Gbit/s connections effectively providing 20 and 30 Gbit/s connections.