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IXCardiffLINX Launches Latest Regional Exchangeat Cardiff’s Millennium StadiumLINX’s mission has always been to work for the good of theInternet and to ‘keep traffic local’ and its extensive backbonenetwork, spanning many different London data centres, meansthat LINX members have always had a choice as to where theyconnect. However, it was realised that the success in the capitalwas perhaps inhibiting the establishment of peering points in therest of the UK so with the active support of its members, a UKregional peering strategy was put in place to address this. Thisstrategy led to the establishment of IXManchester and IXScotlandwith consulations for other areas being held around the country.One such location was Cardiff in South Wales. LINX believedthat the city satisfied two of the three criteria of its regionalpeering strategy by having the support of Cardiff City Counciland the Welsh Government plus a strong local community ofinterest. The one criteria not satisfied was the availability of acarrier neutral data centre. A creative solution was found byworking with LINX member BT and their Stadium House datacentre facility. They have provided what is essentially a carrierneutral service for IXCardiff which in practice means thatmembers will be able to rent rackspace directly from LINXwithin BT Stadium House. This rackspace will be colocatedclosely with the LINX equipment.An Internet exchange in the heart of Cardiff is a huge steptowards creating a world class digital infrastructure for Wales.It reduces the dependancy of industry on London and othermajor digital conurbations, giving them the benefit of lower localoverheads. It also provides faster more reliable digital services, afertile environment for SMEs, which in turn contributes to theregional digital economy stimulating local growth.Peering Grant SchemeTo help build the digital community in Wales Cardiff Council hassecured funding for a Peering Grant scheme for businesses toconnect at IXCardiff. This is known as the SuperConnected Citiesprogramme and will help SMEs to peer with other organisationsto improve speeds within the city, provide resilience nationally andhelp attract further investment by reducing barriers to entry. Itwill also reduce costs to end-users (as a result of creating greatercompetition in the local ISP market) and create an infrastructurethat will support rapid expansion.Going Live Q4 2014The new exchange, which will be formally launched on 15October, will accept port orders and connections fromNovember. The full range of services and the exchange’s technicalspecification can be found below.IXCardiff Technical Spec & Services• Extreme X460 switch• Management router• Route collector and route server for multilateral peering• Monitoring server plus phone and email support• IPv4 and IPv6 Peering LANs• 100Mb, 1G, 10G peering ports• ConneXions partnership scheme• Rack space rentalIXCardiff Launch EventIt’s still not too late to attend the IXCardiff launch event buttime is running out fast. The event is taking place at Cardiff’sMillennium Stadium on Wednesday 15 October 2014 anda number of keynote speakers outlining the benefits andsignificance of the new exchange is planned.If you are interested in attending and helping make regionalpeering a success in Wales then please register now. Places arestrictly limited with only three people per company alloweddue to the venue’s restricted capacity.Registration will close promptly at midday on Monday 13October 2014. To sign up, and to learn more about the eventagenda, please follow the link below:www.linx.net/events/regional/Wales/M2/Cardiff.html10 HotLINX Issue 39 | Inside Stories