Many businesses today use a process called peering to hand off network traffic and avoid paying a third party provider.
If you’re looking for an overview on peering, you’re in the right place. This article provides a complete overview on peering, and covers the following topics:
· What peering is and why it matters
· How the internet is connected
· The role that BGP plays in peering
· The main benefits of peering
· How Zenlayer can speed up your network
What is peering?
Peering is the process by which two networks interconnect to exchange traffic. A peering relationship carries several benefits for its involved networks, such as more efficient routing, reduced transit costs, and improved uptime.
How the internet is connected
The internet contains many different smaller networks, or groups of connected computers. Each has its own Internet Protocol (IP) address that can be grouped into an IP prefix, or aggregation of IP addresses.
A collection of IP prefixes that share a set of clearly defined routing policies is called an autonomous system. To illustrate, think of an autonomous system as a group of routers managed by an entity like a company, government, or school.
Each autonomous system receives an autonomous system number (ASN) from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). As of March 2021, 100,000+ unique ASNs have been allocated. There are now 100,000+ autonomous systems globally that make up the internet.
How BGP fits in
Border gateway protocol (BGP) is the protocol that standardizes exchanges of routing information between autonomous systems. It enables autonomous systems to exchange data over the internet.
BGP receives information from autonomous systems, organizes it into a routing table, and determines the shortest path based on several different factors. Without BGP, the massively distributed nature of the internet makes routing traffic incredibly complex and inefficient.
Why peering is necessary
As important as BGP is to the internet, it isn’t enough to smooth out the various bumps of routing traffic over the web.
Traffic over the public internet has to “hop” across different networks to reach its final destination. So when a business user sends a message to someone across the world, the message will move between various networks until it reaches the recipient’s inbox. The more networks the data moves through, the higher the latency, and the longer it takes to reach its destination.
But when two network entities enter into a peering arrangement, each party agrees to allow traffic move through its network freely without a third party. This is important because not only does it speed up traffic, but it also reduces transit costs for all parties involved and improves uptime through network redundancy.
Three benefits of peering
Here are three ways that businesses benefit from peering.
- Boost traffic speeds
One of the top benefits to peering is faster traffic speeds. The picture above shows how peering speeds up traffic. On the left, you can see the path that traffic would have to travel when there is no peering relationship between networks A and D. For data to move from network A to network D, it needs to pass through networks B and C. This takes a total of three hops: A to B, B to C, then finally C to D.
On the right, where a peering relationship is established between networks A and D, traffic can pass directly from network A to network D without having to go through other networks — reducing the number of hops to just one.
The reverse is also true. Traffic that originates from network D can flow directly into network A instead of having to hop through networks C and B. As you can see, peering is a mutually beneficial relationship that lowers latency and shortens transit time for traffic across both networks.
2. Increase uptime
The figures shown above represent a scenario in which networks B and C are down. On the left, where there is no peering relationship between networks A and D, traffic from network A would have no way of reaching network D. On the right, peering between networks A and D opens up a redundant path (to the now unavailable A > B > C > D path) that lets traffic flow from A directly to D. Similarly, it opens up a redundant path from network D to A instead of the scenic but now disconnected route of D > C > B > A.
As you can imagine, a network that has many peers offers many alternative paths for traffic even if intermediary networks aren’t accessible. This improves the network’s uptime and the reliability of its services.
3. Reduce transit costs
Without peering, one network entity must pay another for bandwidth to carry its traffic towards the destination. This type of agreement is called IP transit.
Peering reduces the amount of transit traffic that a provider needs to buy from other networks, which lowers the cost of data transmission. The more peers that a network entity has, the less it must pay to move traffic across the internet.
Peering is what makes the internet affordable and accessible in many places around the world. If the internet relied on paid IP transit for all traffic, the cost would be outrageous and very few of us would be able to afford to go online at all.
Zenlayer has 5400+ global peers to help boost your network’s performance, latency, and data ingestion, and we’re constantly adding new peers.
Want to learn how our high-speed global network can help streamline business operations and improve user experience? Check out our customer success story or talk to a solution expert.
