Dirk Kutscher

DE-CIX and EWE TEL opened the new Nordwest-IX Internet exchange point in Oldenburg, Germany on 2024-08-15.

DE-CIX, the largest Internet Exchange in Europe and the second-largest in the world, has eight locations in Germany now: Oldenburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig, Munich, Ruhr region. They have recently begun to decentralize their IXPs in Germany by opening new IXPs in addition to their main location in Frankfurt.

Can IXPs help with Internet Decentralization?

In the IRTF Research Group on the Decentralization of the Internet (DINRG), we are investigating root causes for and potential counter-measures against Internet Centralization. There are two aspects for centralization/decentralization and IXPs:

1. Internet peering happens mostly at public IXPs, locally centralized exchange points in an otherwise logically decentralized network of Autonomous Systems. Big application service providers ("hyperscalers") are also engaging in so-called "Direct Peering" (or "Private Peering") where they connect their network directly to, typically, Internet Service Providers that provide Internet access and can benefit from a direct connection to dominant content/service providers. Often, it is the hyperscaler who benefits most in terms of cost saving. Decentralizing IXPs can provide incentives for such networks to connect at IXPs instead of doing direct peering, which is often seen as beneficial as it increases connectivity options and it reduces cost and latency.
2. IP connectivity alone is not a sufficient condition for low latency and decentralization though, as most hyperscaler applications rely on some form of CDN overlay network. Even with potential local IP forwarding, CDN proxies may be hosted at central locations. To counter that, it is important to create co-location and local edge service hosting opportunities at or closed to IXPs, which can be a business opportunity for the connected ISPs, such we EWE TEL for Nordwest-IX.

The Internet is evolving, and new technologies might change the role of overlays in the future. For example, technologies such as Media-over-QUIC (MoQ) might lead to massive caching and replication overlay structures that will or will not be shared across applications and hyperscalers. IXPs and co-location data centers can be natural places for operating MoQ relays.