MSK-IX / Internet Exchange / About the Internet eXchange service
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About the Internet eXchange service

Why connect to an IX?

MSK-IX provides multi-purpose Internet eXchange services, designed to solve a wide range of tasks for owners of Internet networks:

  • Public and private peering for content delivery, improving the availability of online services, reducing the cost of transit and establishing alternative network routes

  • Low-latency access to root DNS-servers and to authoritative DNS-servers for RU, РФ and a number of other TLDs

  • Virtual cross-connects and virtual private networks (802.1 VLAN) between MSK-IX PoPs

  • Transmission of digital TV signals between broadcasters and cable TV/OTT service providers

The networks connected to MSK-IX are called participants. Peering agreements between MSK-IX participants are reached on bilateral basis. MSK-IX does not interfere with the participants’ peering policies.

The participants use BGP protocol to exchange routing information. Peering sessions can be established bilaterally and/or on multilateral basis using MSK-IX Route Servers, an intermediate broker system provided by MSK-IX to facilitate simplified interconnection between multiple networks.

Additional Features

  • MY.IX.RU Customer Portal. The MSK-IX Customer Portal provides real-time information on MSK-IX services, traffic and participants.

  • Route Server. An intermediate broker system operated by MSK-IX to facilitate simplified interconnection among multiple participants.

  • Looking glass. An online tool for viewing BGP routes on MSK-IX Route Servers. Used for troubleshooting and evaluation of peering opportunities.

MSK-IX participants can establish direct peering with authoritative DNS-servers for RU, РФ, SU, TATAR, COM and NET domain zones, and with F.root, I.root, J.root and K.root servers.

MSK-IX provides full native support for the IPv6 protocol. All the MSK-IX services including web-sites and mail servers are available via IPv6.

Public services and utilities supported by MSK-IX:

  • DNS resolver . The MSK-IX DNS resolver accelerates loading of web pages by using anycast and caching technologies.

  • NTP Server . A Stratum 1 network time server for synchronizing the internal clocks of computers and other connected equipment.

  • Whois Server . A local public mirror of RIPE DB for fast setup of route filters.

  • AS112 server . A node of AS112 anycast cloud providing a sink for reverse DNS queries for private IP-addresses in order to reduce the load on the IN-ADDR.ARPA authoritative servers.

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