What Are Internet Exchanges? Why Do They Matter Today?

The internet is among the marvels of the modern world, and it enables important use cases for enterprises and consumers alike. Despite how ingrained it’s become in our society, the general public still has very little understanding of what “the internet” actually is and how it works.

For the uninitiated, it’s easy to think of the internet as a monolithic global entity. We all use it for different purposes, and we access it via different devices, but it still feels like we’re connecting to the same thing. It’s a nice idea, and it says a lot about how much smaller the world has become in the digital era. But in a technical sense, it’s not exactly true.

What we call “the internet” is actually a series of interconnected networks, each operated by different internet providers. It’s able to function as if it were a single worldwide network thanks to globally distributed internet exchanges points (IXPs). These IXPs were essential to the growth of the early internet, and they remain essential across a variety of modern applications.

How IXPs helped grow the early internet

Internet exchanges allow traffic to flow quickly between different networks on a global scale. This is why someone in the U.S. and someone in France can both access the internet and have a similar experience, despite the fact that their traffic originates with different ISPs.

Without IXPs, the internet as we know it today would look very different. The emergence of neutral IXPs in the late 1990s—like those found inside the earliest Equinix IBX® colocation data centers—paved the way for the internet to become the omnipresent digital platform we know today.

Because these exchanges were separate from their constituent ISPs, there was no preferential treatment shown to traffic from certain ISPs. All traffic was exchanged the same way, regardless of where it originated or where it was going. This idea was even the inspiration for the name of our company: We took the name “Equinix” in honor of the equal, neutral, internet exchanges that formed inside our colocation data centers.

Over the years, the volume of data passing through IXPs has grown exponentially, but this core principle of neutrality has remained. In fact, as new data-hungry applications continue to emerge, one could argue that IXPs are more important than ever before.

Internet exchanges enable digital experiences on a global scale

IXPs play an important role in the always-on digital experiences that many of us have come to take for granted:

• When you press play on a music streaming app, your request may be routed through an IXP to reach the content delivery network (CDN) server that’s located closest to you. This is part of the reason streamers are able to minimize latency and ensure an excellent user experience without delays, even during periods of peak demand such as after a major album release.
• When you shop online, an IXP provides the connectivity between your ISP or mobile network and the retailer’s corporate network. This is why you’re able to access personalized recommendations, browse products and complete a purchase in a seamless, streamlined manner.
• Even cat videos—which some consider to be the most important reason to access the internet—may rely on IXPs to go from content creator to social media platform to content viewer.

To put it simply, any use case that involves an end user accessing content or interacting with a digital application will rely on IXPs in some way. In fact, an internet exchange probably helped you read this very blog post.

As user expectations for always-on experiences continue to grow, we can safely assume that the importance of IXPs will continue to grow as well. Already, we see enterprises using IXPs to connect with their ecosystem partners in a variety of ways.

How do internet exchanges enable ecosystem partnerships?

Our digital world is built upon the power of ecosystems, where partners and service providers collaborate to achieve more than they ever could alone. IXPs are the foundation on which ecosystem partners exchange much of their traffic. When two organizations exchange data using an internet-based connection, it’s known as peering. Let’s take a look at the main varieties of peering.

What is IP transit?

IP transit is a paid service that allows organizations to exchange internet traffic via an upstream provider. It is technically not a form of peering, but it does serve a similar purpose. It’s also much more common than peering, because it’s much quicker and more convenient. It doesn’t require resources, planning or technical knowledge to get started, and it doesn’t require being physically present at the internet exchange. An organization’s traffic still moves through the IXP, but they don’t directly control when and where that happens.

The number of organizations doing IP transit at any given moment is very high, but the volume of traffic is very low. That’s because IP transit is not the most efficient, reliable or cost-effective way to exchange traffic over the internet. It’s good enough for partners that exchange small amounts of data on an ad hoc basis, but as partnerships mature, they typically progress to a public peering relationship.

What is public peering?

Public peering happens when a partnership accesses an internet exchange via an intermediary. It requires more time and resources to get started, but it pays off in the form of better reliability and performance. Public peering typically moves much higher volumes of traffic than IP transit. However, the very largest public peering partnerships—those that consistently exchange extremely large volumes of data—are likely to progress to private peering.

What is private peering?

Private peering is the most direct, low-latency connection possible between two organizations over the internet. It requires the partners to be colocated at the internet exchange, with a physical point-to-point cable, known as a cross connect, linking them.

The number of private peering partnerships is very low, because it requires a lot of resources to get the partners physically colocated and execute a formal agreement. The amount of traffic moved via private peering is very high, because partners simply wouldn’t bother unless they needed to exchange very large volumes of data.

Access internet exchanges and other network infrastructure at Equinix

Organizations need different networking options to tap into the full power of their ecosystem partnerships. This could include the internet-based methods summarized above, as well as private interconnection solutions that bypass the internet altogether and provide important performance and privacy benefits for certain use cases.

Organizations need to deploy their digital infrastructure with a partner that provides networking variety, and this is where Equinix can help. From inside an Equinix data center, you can access the different kinds of connectivity you need:

• Equinix Internet Access enables reliable IP transit across 50+ global markets, with at least two upstream ISPs in each market.
• Equinix Internet Exchange® is one of the world’s largest IXPs by number of participants and market footprint. Many third-party IXPs are also hosted inside Equinix data centers, providing choice and flexibility.
• Equinix Cross Connects provide a fast and convenient approach to private peering, with all the performance and reliability it entails.

Only Equinix offers customers access to a global colocation portfolio, an ecosystem of thousands of potential peering partners, and a variety of networking solutions to connect with those partners.

Networking variety is especially important at a time when enterprises are asking more of their networks than ever before. They’re connecting with more partners and deploying across more cloud and hybrid environments to support distributed workloads such as AI. Learn how leading enterprises are tackling this challenge: Read the global survey report Connectivity as the competitive edge in hybrid multicloud.