EXTREME NETWORKS CASE STUDY: MOSCOW INTERNET EXCHANGE
Moscow Internet Exchange Deploys
New Network Core Powered by
Extreme Networks
Introduction
CUSTOMER:
The volume of data traffic transmitted each second in the Russian segment of the
Moscow Internet Exchange – Computer
Internet has been growing at an incredible pace. In order to provide its customers
Networks Intercommunications Center
with all the necessary resources, the Moscow Internet Exchange (MSK-IX) site has
Number of users: 600+
Number of sites in Moscow: 11
redefined the concept of its network and made a decision to move to the advanced
100Gbps technology.
The interaction between various companies and internet service providers, as well
Number of traffic exchange sites in the
as fast access to the popular online resources is made possible thanks to the traffic
Russian Federation: 9
exchange at specialized sites. This is exactly the service, provided to its customers
DEPLOYED SOLUTIONS:
participants all over Russia. The customers of MSK-IX include international, national
• BlackDiamond X8
and regional communications service providers, hosting service providers, content-
• Summit X670V
providers, and corporate, academic and educational networks.
• Summit X460G2
In 2015 the Moscow Internet Exchange (MSK-IX) celebrates its 20th anniversary.
“It was very important for us not just to
upgrade the equipment, but also to create
a reserve capacity, that would allow us to
intensify the development of our traffic
exchange network in the future, connecting
new sites and increasing the data transfer
speeds,” said Alexander Ilyin, Chief
Technical Officer of MSK-IX. “We found
everything we needed in the products
of Extreme Networks. These products
proved to be fully compatible with other
components of our infrastructure and
allowed us to move towards the fully
redundant topology, offering the potential
of virtually unlimited network expansion in
the future.”
by the networking company MSK-IX, which interconnects more than 600
It started its operations back in 1995, when the leading internet service providers
and scientific organizations – Demos, Relcom, the MSU, the Skobeltsyn Institute of
Nuclear Physics of the MSU, Freenet, RELARN Association and Roprint – signed
an agreement on the local exchange of traffic. This is how the M9-IX project was
established, providing centralized access to the Russian segment of the Internet.
Initially MSK-IX was based on the premises of telephone exchange office #9. Today
MSK-IX is listed among the top-5 internet exchange sites of the world, and includes
four backbone nodes and 7 access nodes just in Moscow only, plus a dozen of
regional sites in major cities, including Saint Petersburg, Kazan, Yekaterinburg,
and other cities with over a million in population. However, the Moscow site
remains the largest traffic exchange site, which ensures the global interaction
of the communication service providers and traffic interexchange between
various regions. MSK-IX is a member of international European Internet Exchange
Association (Euro-IX).
New Demands
Over the period of the past several years MSK-IX has seen a rapid increase in traffic
in various directions. For instance, the aggressive upsurge of multimedia content
is further supported by the even more intensive growth in the number of various
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online projects, whose traffic is increasing day by day. The overall traffic during
FACTS:
peak periods is reaching 1.5Tbps; in addition, simultaneously with the addition of
the new customers, the existing customers of MSK-IX need to upgrade their traffic
“Until the deployment of the new switches
rates – and it is this surge in traffic volume and data rates, which is a key driver for
from Extreme Networks, the network
the general growth.
was operating using the Rapid PVST+
protocol. The transition to the ‘redundant
core’ required our specialists to thoroughly
analyze the patterns of traffic flow and
the load of the backbone lines. Thanks to
its broad configuration and adjustment
opportunities, Extreme Networks allowed
us to perform this transition without any
The limited development potential of the existing infrastructure, the increase
in speeds, and traffic volume demanded us to consider implementing new
approaches. In 2013 MSK-IX completely redefined the concept of infrastructure
development, and started moving towards the deployment of 100Gbps technology
in the beginning of 2014. For the first time this advanced technology was
introduced in the Moscow site of traffic interexchange.
losses or compromises, “said Alexander
Upgrade of Infrastructure
Ilyin, Chief Technical Officer of MSK-IX.
The complexity of the upgrade process for the Moscow traffic interexchange site
CRITICAL ADVANTAGES
OF THE EQUIPMENT
ACCORDING TO THE
CUSTOMER:
deployed and connected to the network ‘on the fly’, which implied assurance in its
was that network downtime was unacceptable. The new equipment had to be
full compatibility and the correctness of configuration settings.
It was because of this requirement that MSK-IX chose Extreme Networks’ switches,
with full confidence that they could meet this goal. These switches provide the
• Broad functionality
required capacity margin in terms of performance and fully support data transfer
• Technical support
based on 100GbE protocol.
• Compatibility with other vendors’
Moving to the ‘Redundant Core’
equipment
• Full support of 100GbE
The balanced value of these solutions turned even higher because the redundancy
features, integrated in the Extreme Networks’ products, opened up new
• Pricing
opportunities for increasing the resiliency of the whole Moscow network.
• Reliability
Although the deployed topology of the network infrastructure implied redundancy
“One of the features of our company’s
equipment is its versatility and
interoperability with the solutions of
the third-party providers”, said Alexey
Grigoriev, Sales Manager, Telecom and
SP at Extreme Networks. “The network
of MSK-IX consists of the huge fleet of
equipment from various vendors, and the
successful cooperation with these vendors
simplified the deployment of Summit BDX8
as a core switch of the network.”
of communications channels, it does not provide the full protection in case of
potential failure of the key components. As part of modernization of the network
equipment, the specialists of MSK-IX installed the two core switches, specifically
to ensure communications between all the network nodes in geographically
distributed data centers, and built the high-performance redundant fiber channel
communication links between these data centers and all the other nodes in the
network using DWDM technology.
The new structure was put into operations gradually. First, the specialists
deployed only one core switch with possibility of failback to the traditional
means of transferring traffic. After the test runs and gradual transition to the
new centralized topology, the second core was put into operation. Only after
all the tests have been passed, MSK-IX has moved to the new infrastructure
with a redundant core, and begun dismantling the old and obsolete
communication channels.
Results
The use of Extreme Networks solutions allowed MSK-IX to optimize its network
infrastructure with the lowest possible time spending, finance expenditures
and labor costs for this project.
As a result, the fully redundant network was created, which remains functional
even in case of complete failure of one of its cores.
The support of 100GbE data transfer technology enabled MSK-IX to start
connecting the new customers with high requirements to the traffic exchange
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data rates. The deployment of the Extreme Networks high-performance
solutions also allowed to reduce electricity consumption and opened up new
opportunities for further expansion and modernization of data transfer network
in the existing sites. At the same time, the new topology of the network
allows for easy connection of the new network segments, making the traffic
interexchange site MSK-IX available for the new participants.
Using the BlackDiamond X8, Summit X670V and X460G2 switches MSK-IX
intends to provide interconnect to the new data centers, both in the capital
and all over the country. This enables easy connections to the new commercial,
governmental and scientific organizations to the traffic interexchange network.
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