The most densely peered networks in the world know that peering is key to having good network performance. In this fifth article in our “reasons to peer” series, we show you how you can improve your connection with major networks at an Internet Exchange.

Many of the major content players, such as Google, Akamai, Facebook, or Amazon, are typically present at almost all major Internet Exchanges. And in addition to a route server peering session, you can establish a direct peering session with them. Many of the big players send more prefixes via a direct session and also give your traffic more priority and traffic engineering focus on direct sessions.

Direct peering sessions with important networks

It makes sense to establish direct peering with those route server peers with whom you exchange the most traffic and/or those that announce the most prefixes. Your traffic path will remain up and unchanged and it will grow in months, even years, even if the route server was reset during this phase.

It is not just the big players who might be the important networks to you. Peering at an Internet Exchange allows you to secure a traffic path to the networks which are important for you with direct sessions.

You can read the previous articles in the Reasons To Peer series below :

• 4. Peering increases throughput to other networks
• 3. Peering lowers latency
• 2. Peering lowers your costs
• 1. Peering Raises Your Revenue