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Benefits
Benefits
Reasons to connect
AMS-IX is a not-for-profit, neutral and independent organisation, meaning that it has no bias as to who connects, provided parties meet the association membership and technical criteria. The exchange its' operational decisions are not directly influenced by any financial gains. By making use of AMS-IX, connected parties improve performance and redundancy while saving on bandwidth costs at the same time. Being an Internet Exchange since 1994 has provided AMS-IX with a wealth of industry related knowledge and an unparalleled reputation within the Internet world.
With currently over 350 Internet related companies connected to AMS-IX, it provides European peering possibilities beyond measure. With one connection all these parties can be reached. The AMS-IX route server makes sure that from day one almost 200 parties can be reached with only one peering session. The current aggregated traffic volume of all AMS-IX connections amounts to over 185 TeraByte a month (Jan 2010) yielding a average peak load over 900 Gbps!
AMS-IX provides the following benefits to its members:
Reduction of upstream connectivity costs
One of the major costs involved in any Internet related business today is that of upstream connectivity or transit. Our infrastructure allows to interconnect and exchange IP traffic, better known as peering, directly with all other AMS-IX members. This reduces the need to send traffic through a commercial transit provider. With many major European & Global IP networks and other Internet players being members of AMS-IX, a connection allows for easy and relatively cheap connectivity to these parties through BGP peering.
Uniquely diverse peering community
The variety and diversity of AMS-IX members is one of its true benefits. Amongst others due to the Dutch traits of openness and cultural neutrality we have always had networks from all over Europe find each other at AMS-IX were they would not meet each other on less neutral grounds. Also we have traditionally always welcomed newcomers to peering such as mobile and content providers, broadcasters, VoIP and web2.0 parties, which has developed into a unique peering communtity in Amsterdam.
Market place for transport services and layer 2 connectivity - improved buying power
Further because there are so many carriers available buying power will increase considerably for the remaining need for transit or network transport services, which can be negotiated with the more than 70 parties at the AMS-IX locations.
When you are connecting to AMS-IX and are in need of transport services from a carrier or layer2 connectivity to connect remotely we are able to help you get in touch with these carriers and providers for proposals. Please send a mail to: sales at ams-ix dot net, specifying your requirements (from where, which type of service, capacity, commit levels etc) and we'll make sure you get interesting offers directly from the many carriers available.
Improved performance and redundancy
By meeting over 300 peers at the exchange the chances are high you will find multiple new peers that you weren't interconnected with before, meaning that network performance will increase. Further internet exchanges are about redundancy, by adding multiple routes to peers at several exchanges you increase the redundancy in your network, not just relying on one point of interconnect or your transit provider.
High quality services with defined Service Level
AMS-IX is a distributed exchange present at multiple independent co-locations in Amsterdam. Each location is equipped with sveral Photonic and redundant sets of Ethernet Switches. Over 50 of these switches, are interconnected by high bandwidth, interswitch links aggegated up to 24 10GE's over fiber, creating a resilient and robust exchange. Furthermore resilient power, cooling, fire supressant systems and like are part of the building management systems of the professional datacenters that are used.
The design of the AMS-IX platform is unique in its set-up, with its resilience and level of redundancy, such that we are able to set a defined service level with carrier grade quality.
Constant development - business continuity
Due to the high service levels that we set ourselves and the sheer volume of the traffic and number of connected ports we are always using technology that is cutting edge and partner with our suppliers to develop new and innovative ways to serve our members needs. The AMS-IX team is professionally involved to extend and improve services the connected networks. AMS-IX first introduced services like IPv6, multicast, closed user groups and Private Interconnections. We were the ones to introduce photonic switching in operational network platform in 2004, now widely used in the industry. We actively contribute to the technology fora such as IEEE and IETF were standards are set, the upcoming 40/100GE being an example.
From a business point of view we constantly strive to enlarge the number of potential peers and the potential peering benefits for our members by extending our services. We have a 4 years planning cycle that ensures that we can meet the needs of the industry regarding the forecasted capacity, have attractive price levels and enough capital to invest in the platform at the same time.
Case Studies
Read how some of our members use their AMS-IX Connections