Presentation given by Emile Aben at the 25th EURO-IX Forum, Bucharest, Romania on 26-28 October 2014.

1. EURO-IX | Bucharest | early 21th century
RIPE Atlas and IXPs
“Stitchin’ it up”
emile.aben@ripe.net

2. EURO-IX - October 2014
Overview
• What happens if you combine:
- IXPs
- RIPE Atlas
- OpenIPMap (crowdsourced infrastructure geolocation)
!
• Use cases:
- Keeping Local Traffic Local
- Predicting latency via an IXP
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3. EURO-IX - October 2014
RIPE Atlas
https://atlas.ripe.net
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4. EURO-IX - October 2014
RIPE Atlas Anchors
• 80 active RIPE Atlas Anchors
!
• 9 at IXPs
• Not at peering-LAN
• Subject to routing as seen by host network
• Assumption: Peered with most/all of members
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5. EURO-IX - October 2014
Probe Mesh
• IPv4 and IPv6 traceroutes
between a set of probes
!
• Country Mesh
- All probes in a country
• “Ad Hoc” Mesh
- Define set of probes yourself
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http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-oyHn0YMV_k/
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s1600/complete%2Bgraphs.JPG

6. EURO-IX - October 2014
Ad Hoc Mesh Example: Ireland
• 132 RIPE Atlas probes in Ireland
- 26 ASNs with an ‘up’ probe
- 136 ASNs visible in routing currently
• Example “Ad Hoc” Mesh:
- Max. 2 Atlas probes per ASN
- If >2: take closest and furthest from point-of-interest
• Here: Dublin,IE
!
• This mesh was used for the remainder of this talk
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7. EURO-IX - October 2014
OpenIPMap
• Geolocating Internet infrastructure IPs by
crowdsourcing
• Prototype with 20k+ infrastructure IPs mapped:
- https://marmot.ripe.net/openipmap/
!
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8. Keeping Local
Traffic Local

9. EURO-IX - October 2014
Keeping Local Traffic Local
• Apply OpenIPMap data on Ireland probe-mesh data
• What happens in Ireland stays in Ireland?
- Mostly!
• 96% in-country paths in IPv4
• 73% in-country paths in IPv6 (No HE tunnelhead in IE)
- Subject to accuracy/completeness of OpenIPMap and
bias of RIPE Atlas probe placement
- Basis for a Keeping-Local-Traffic-Local Index?
!
• Do IXPs help?
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10. EURO-IX - October 2014
Do IXPs help? … Of Course!
• Do intra-national
paths cross an IXP?
• Here: IXP=INEX
• Caveat: based on
traceroute data
!
!
• In this case: IXP
paths (green) stay
local
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Interactive Version (Prototype) 11

12. Predicting Latency
via the IXP

13. EURO-IX - October 2014
What If?
• Mesh measures latencies between Src and Dst
• What if non-IXP path between Src and Dst was
(symmetrically) routed via IXP?
• Can we guess via-IXP path latency?
13
DstSrc
IXP

14. EURO-IX - October 2014
Guessing via-IXP Path Latency
• Use a RIPE Atlas Anchor (⚓️)
• If RTT(Src, Dst) > RTT(Src, ⚓️) + RTT(⚓️, Dst) :
- Route via the IXP is faster
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DstSrc
⚓
IXP
• Caveats:
- Subject to local
routing policies at ⚓️
- ⚓️ adds latency

15. EURO-IX - October 2014
Non-IXP path vs. Via-IXP Path-Guess
• Helps IXP to find
cases where peering
via the IXP could
reduce latency (green)
• No data:
- Path already via IXP
- No latency data
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16. EURO-IX - October 2014
Access vs. Content
• RIPE Atlas has access networks bias
- Big content is harder to get into
!
• Future:
- Automatically find resources in content networks that can
be measured to?
- Have local community define important targets?
• Opportunity for IXP to build community
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17. EURO-IX - October 2014
Final Thoughts
• Examples of how RIPE Atlas can help improve
peering at IXP
• More probes & anchors = More coverage = More
better data
- Specifically looking for:
• ASNs that are not covered yet
• Locations that are not covered yet
!
• Interested to hear your thoughts
- How can RIPE Atlas serve IXPs best?
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18. EURO-IX - October 2014
Feedback
• emile.aben@ripe.net
• https://marmot.ripe.net/openipmap/
• RIPE Atlas
- atlas@ripe.net
- https://atlas.ripe.net
- Twitter: @RIPE_Atlas, #RIPEAtlas
• On RIPE Labs (https://labs.ripe.net)
• http://roadmap.ripe.net
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