Dear MIXP and others,
We are very pleased to let you know that the MIXP has two route servers now available.
What is a “route server” and why would you want it?
Without a route server, as the MIXP was until now, you need to maintain separate BGP sessions to each of your peers' routers. With a route server you can replace all, or some, of these sessions with one session towards each route server.
Once you connect to the route servers you will start exchanging routes with other peers immediately. The route servers are an excellent way to get started on the exchange. And to gain more prefixes and exchange more traffic quickly and easily.
Note that the route servers do not pass on any traffic themselves. The route servers do not partake in the forwarding path, so they do not forward any traffic. They simply exchange routing information, so your router learns about routes to your peers from the route-server and can then forward traffic directly to the peer.
If you already have direct peering sessions, the route servers are still useful as a backup. If for any reason your direct session becomes inactive, chances are good you can still receive your peers announcements from the route servers, and thus can still exchange traffic.
We are hopeful that the majority of members will peer with the route servers very soon.
If you are not yet, you should set up your sessions as follows:
route-server1.mixp.org: ASN: 37324 IPv4: 196.223.0.201 IPv6: 2001:43f8:270:d0d0::201
route-server2.mixp.org: ASN: 37324 IPv4: 196.223.0.202 IPv6: 2001:43f8:270:d0d0::202
When you are ready, please contact noc@mixp.org to confirm your session is up, your own details, or for any other queries.