Peering policy

Peering is the traffic exchange agreement between ISPs. The large ISPs, having their own physical network ("backbone"), agree with others ISPs to have external flows of information transit on their infrastructure, in exchange of having access to the other networks. The peering principle is at the origin of networks interconnection, and thus at the origin of the Internet concept.

The peering principle on a GIX scale, and thus on the EuroGIX scale, is very simple. During a HTTP query for example, the IP address of the required site is convoyed by the applicant’s ISP to the GIX. If one of the peering partners has a connection towards this IP, it deals with the information transit on its network. The exchanges being in the 2 directions (one "lends" its network and one "borrows" the others’), everyone finds his share.

The peering logic adopted by EuroGIX is described more in detail in this file. It is not a question of exclusive peering (i.e. there is no direct connection between 2 members), but only of open peering: everything passes through the EuroGIX switch.

The peering matrix (i.e. the table gathering all of the exchange agreements between the members) is only available by private access.