VKontakte becomes 400th MSK-IX participant

The social network VKontakte has joined Russia's leading Internet exchange point MSK-IX. Now Russia's top three social networks VKontakte, Odnoklassniki and Moi Mir owned by Mail.Ru Group are accessible via MSK-IX for mobile operators and their users. Peering exchange via Internet eXchange helps Internet companies reduce the content delivery route and keep major network channels. For end users, it means faster download speeds of website content, games and apps, and also fewer chances of problems arising due to disruption in mobile operators' networks. Peering exchange also makes it possible for MSK-IX to exchange traffic with the VKontakte social network whose key data centers are based in St. Petersburg.

"We want to be as close as possible to our end users because this will make content delivery faster and more reliable. Cooperation with MSK-IX helps us efficiently address this issue. We are delighted that the VKontakte social network has also joined MSK-IX," said Vladimir Gabrielyan, Vice President and Technical Director of Mail.Ru Group.

"MSK-IX aims to help Internet companies be prepared for the continuously growing number of content viewers and content volume consumed by Internet audiences. This was the whole point of setting up the MIX service used in this project. MIX was created with the purpose of making peering between Moscow and St. Petersburg so reliable that it appears the exchanging sides are in the same local network. This is why we connected Internet eXchange hubs to communication channels using three different routes. Confidence in reliability of peering exchange is crucial for VKontakte, which has many users in both cities," said Alexander Ilyin, MSK-IX Technical Director.