On 26 Mar 2014, at 22:15, Neil J. McRae <[email protected]> wrote: >> This may have been the situation until a decade or so ago, but connections >> to IXPs using a switch are extremely common these days. > Will - Actually 20 years ago (!) Demon's router was connected via a switch > and sat in Finchley (I still have the box!) so yes this is very common and > has been for a long time - but it doesn't make it a good design and in my > view is a big no no.
Actually I think the things which made it a problem years ago (l2 hygiene, loops, etc) are less of a problem, since we have adequate protection. These days, as a proportion of traffic flow router controlplanes are far more vulnerable to things going wrong. Hell, LINX (and everyone else) *sell* a partner product which encourages people to connect over third party l2 infrastructure. Our challenges lie elsewhere, mostly within the fabric itself as opposed to the customer interface.
