How do we contact YYCIX?

Send email to info@yycix.ca for non-urgent issues, noc@yycix.ca for urgent problem reports, or peering@yycix.ca for peering requests. All inquiries will be held confidential.

What is the process for getting connected?

Send us an email telling us about your network and requesting a port. YYCIX will make sure your network has ASN and IP resources, and describe next-steps.

What speeds are supported?

The preferred choice of connection will depend upon the location. YYCIX can support all ethernet connection types 1G, 10G, 25G, 40G, 100G. The connection is typically duplex single-mode fiber (SMF), ordered from the datacenter to our cabinet. A few datacenters can also support copper.

How much do ports cost?

Connecting at a datacenter is subject to agreement with the facility where the connection occurs. Please contact the facilities about their services and prices.

For a 1G, 10G, or 25G connection, we will invoice a one-time fee of $500 CAD. (Alternatively, a good Cisco-compatible SFP can be provided instead of the $500 CAD fee, but we prefer the payment model).

For a 40G or 100G connection we will invoice a one-time fee of $2500 CAD. We will acquire a compatible QSFP optic for YYCIX side, and perform the install in our switch.

For a 400G (or other QSFP-DD) connection we will invoice a one-time fee of $10,500 CAD, We will acquire one compatible QSFP-DD optic for YYCIX side, and perform the install in our switch.

Every new connection needs the above, whether it is an additional port, or upgrade, or datacenter move.

Upon request YYCIX can issue annual invoices of $1200 CAD for services. Payment of these invoices is optional. Maintainance and capacity upgrades of the YYCIX fabric requires occasionally buying equipment upgrades, and YYCIX also has some annual servicing fees (all these are disclosed every AGM). These invoices provide a means for members to support the success of YYCIX, so please request them and attempt to get them paid.

There are no other fees.

How do we donate to YYCIX?

YYCIX was built upon donations. We are very interested in receiving SFP optics, switches, or money to continue our work. We have listed our contributors on a seperate page along with ways of donating.

Does this operate like an ISP?

Internet Exchanges are not ISPs (Internet Service Providers). No traffic, bandwidth or other services are being sold by YYCIX.

The simple, noble goal is to create a meeting place where Western Canadian networks can directly exchange some of their traffic efficiently on an ethernet switch without additional costs.

Many Internet Service Providers provide their services at the locations where YYCIX has switches. YYCIX does not intend to compete with the internet service providers, but instead complement their services to improve local Internet performance.

What limitations are there on traffic?

The switch ports are configured with a variety of port-security features so that one peer cannot damage another's experience. If port-security is triggered, the port will appear "dead" for a little while.

• Peers may place only a single MAC address on their port. Use of more MAC addresses may trigger port-security features.
• Only ARP, IPv4, and IPv6 traffic are allowed. Other traffic may trigger port-security features.
• If a spanning-tree BDPU packet is received, the port will shut down.
• Only one layer-3 router allowed per port.
• The peering router must speak BGP.
• Peers may speak BGP directly between each other.
• Additionally, two YYCIX-operated BGP route servers are available to share routes in a easy and simple fashion. As at other IX, these route servers operate using a feature called AS transparency -- they do not prepend their own AS to the AS_PATH on the reflected routes, thus creating shorter (better) paths (IETF description). The session to the route servers should be configured to accept this situation, typically with a vendor-specific option such as "no bgp enforce-first-as" (Cisco IOS, Cisco IOS-XE), "bgp enforce-first-as disable" (Cisco IOS-XR), "no bgp-enforce-first-as" (Quagga and family), "enforce neighbor-as no" (OpenBGPD), etc.
• The route servers perform automated filtering, only reannouncing prefixes based upon authority learned from various peer-maintained databases: IRR route/route6/as-set objects, RPKI ROAs, and ARIN WHOIS OriginAS act as authority. Peers must maintain a (free) peeringdb.com record, and those with downstreams must set the "IRR Record" field to the name of their IRR as-set. Their downstreams must also maintain relevant objects. A detailed document explains some of our methodology. We can help peers through the required processes.

Are there any rules?

The internet exchange switch is a fabric shared by all peers. Peers must avoid doing anything which might overload the fabric, mis-direct traffic, or otherwise cause harm to any other peers. If a peer shows a willful disregard for others, they will be disconnected by the operators. The full set of Exchange Participation Rules are published.

We require peers to be registered at http://peeringdb.com, because visibility there will encourage other networks to join as well, bringing more benefit to all. Our route filtering software uses information from that record, so try to keep it accurate.

What BGP communities are available for traffic engineering?

Our route servers perform actions based upon many industry standard BGP communities. A detailed document explains these.

What other services can we expect?

YYCIX also makes available a GPS-based NTP server at ntp.yycix.ca. This can be used as an additional time syncronization source for your network - it has very low latency and high accuracy.

How is maintainance performed?

The YYCIX operators (noc@yycix.ca) perform best effort to limit disruptive downtime or other events by using the BGP session culling methods described in BCP 214. See also a video.