MSK-IX presents new opportunities to its partners

MSK-IX announced a major upgrade to its technical platform and new opportunities for its partners at the webinar MSK-IX for Networks and Clouds, on December 1.

The webinar opened with welcome remarks from MSK-IX Director General Yelena Voronina. She explained why the MSK-IX Peering Forum, held every year in December as an offline event, had to be postponed.

“It was our plan from the start to see you all in person at the annual Peering Forum but, unfortunately, we had to postpone it until March 2022 due to the pandemic. Hopefully, the situation will improve and we will be able to invite our friends and partners to meet in person. During the webinar today, we will present our 2021 results, share the latest news and reveal the opportunities we are offering to the telecom market,” Yelena Voronina said.

She passed the floor to the keynote speaker, MSK-IX Technical Director Alexander Ilyin. He announced that in November, the company reported a new traffic record of over 5 Tbps. This peak load did not affect network stability or the quality of services.

MSK-IX currently comprises four primary platforms. The company’s main services and infrastructure operate on the IX platform (Internet eXchange). The Medialogistika television signal distribution platform is responsible for consolidating, processing and delivering television channels to operators and internet services. Instanet provides fast and secure access to cloud platforms, DDoS-attack protection services and IP transit. An authorized DNS server supports root domains and domains with stricter DNS fail safety requirements.

MSK-IX also provides backup storage facilities for domain registries (Data Escrow) and data centers for server equipment with unique connectivity.

In August 2021, MSK-IX and the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ successfully launched the backup domain registration system for .RU and .РФ (EBERO or Emergency Back-end Registry Operators). EBERO guarantees uninterrupted operation of the addressing system for the Russian country-code domains.

The webinar itself was organized specifically to present the upgraded Route Server. MSK-IX was the first among major traffic exchange networks in the world to implement the new version of BIRD 2.0 for Route Server, and also made available flexible BFD protocol settings for members. The new tool was upgraded and improved.

“What we have now is a flexible tool to meet the needs of the majority of connected networks. It is not surprising that 95 percent of our members use it,” Technical Director Alexander Ilyin said.

Head of the Network Engineers’ Group at MSK-IX Mikhail Grishin clarified that the transition to BIRD 2.0 will boost the development of the platform and make it possible to adopt new technologies and expand its functionality. In particular, they are already working on implementing the BGP Monitoring Protocol (BMP) to monitor routing data in real-time.

Alexander Ilyin also presented an upgraded tool for protection against DDoS attacks based on Blackhole. The tool cleans up traffic using MSK-IX resources and completely blocks websites under attack, freeing up space for other traffic.

The Medialogistika television signal distribution platform is the fastest-growing project at MSK-IX. The television channels delivered from broadcasters to operators generate total traffic of over 50 Gbps. Since monitoring system updates, signal parameters can be monitored in real time throughout its entire route.

The Instanet platform has undergone improvements in the past year as well. It now boasts higher transparency and better channel backup capacity in different directions.

Head of the DNS project at MSK-IX, Pavel Khramtsov, reported on the changes concerning the DNS platform. The platform was integrated with client accounts. Now clients can order DNS hosting and manage the service via their accounts.

“The DNS solution from MSK-IX is a high-performing cluster with broad monitoring and management capabilities,” Pavel Khramtsov noted.

Webinar speakers specifically focused on the development of MSK-IX user accounts. MSK-IX Information Technology Director Vasily Funtikov noted that originally, user accounts were meant for managing IX services but have been significantly expanded as other services have emerged.

“Our clients can use their accounts to book and manage our services as well as to monitor their quality in real time,” Vasily Funtikov said.

At the end of the webinar, special guest, Salam Yamout, Director of Open Connect Partner Engagement EMEA for Netflix, spoke about the specifics of content delivery from Netflix.

Open Connect is a specialized CDN that is meant to improve efficiency and reduce costs for Netflix partners around the world. Russian providers can also join the company’s content delivery network by installing the OCA (Open Connect Appliances) software and hardware (provided by Netflix at no cost) or by connecting to Netflix’s peering network at the nearest point of presence.

Netflix optimizes its traffic delivery by using BGP that can identify the shortest route to an autonomous system.

Salam Yamout reminded viewers that Netflix joined the MSK-IX platform in June this year.

The full recording of the webinar is available here on the MSK-IX YouTube channel.