Max. 10 working days
For OnePort™ products NL-ix formally has a maximum delivery time of 10 working days after we have received and accepted the signed orderforms.

Or faster...
Generally we are able to make connections much faster (a few days). But this depends on the amount of other orders that are already in the connection process and the absence of backbone problems (which have priority over new connections).

Expedited delivery
We offer an expedited install option, which further reduces the delivery to 5 max working days, and ensures a first-of-line execution of the order.

Metro capacity take a little longer
Metro products have a delivery time of max. 20 working days, if all underlying infrastructure is already in place and/or in stock. We generally can give a more exact expected delivery time in the order confirmation.

Order Confirmation
When we have received and accepted your orderform we will confirm this and inform you in a order confirmation email about the expected delivery date, the exact location of our switch the port we have reserved for you and the type of patchcable you should use.

Further we will ask you some questions regarding the email addresses you want registered on the NL-ix announce mailing list and published as peering contact.

Order Delivery
When we have configured your connection we will inform you in a Order delivery email about all technical details (port ID, MAC address to use, allowed traffic types, VLAN ID's, IP addresses, My NL-ix account, mailing list, etc.) and you can start configuring your side.

Handholding
At this point the handholding phase starts. During handholding we have a dedicated implementation engineer assigned to your new connection who will assist you, during office hours, in getting the link up and running, test the link, and make it ready for production.

When the patchcable is installed and you have also configured your side, the connection should come up automatically. If it does not come up or you have questions you can contact the NL-ix NOC. Contact details will be supplied in the order delivery email. We advise you to not use the link for production traffic yet until it has been fully tested. During handholding the link is not under 24*7 support yet.

Handover
Once the port is up we ask you to do some tests, and will test the connection from our side as well. Once both the customer and our NOC have established and confirmed the link is okay and stable for some time, we will formally transfer the link out of handholding into production status via a handover email. In that email we will make the 24*7 NOC number available as the link from that point on is under 24*7 support.

Demarcation Point
The demarcation point of an NL-ix connection is the port on the NL-ix switch, or in same cases an NL-ix assigned port on a patchpanel (ODF).

End-to-End, Port-To-Port
The customer is responsible for ordering a patchcable with the datacenter from it's own router or switch hardware all the way do the demarcation point. Some datacenter by default offer half-way patches (toward a patch room), assuming the other party takes care of the other halfway. Please make sure you order an end-to-end patch and not a half-way patch.

Port Details
After we have received your signed order we will provide you with port reservation details and information about the type of patchcable to use in the order confirmation email. You will need to provide this information to the datacenter so they can install and connect the patchcable.

One Layer3 device per VLAN
Like most other Internet Exchanges NL-ix has a one layer3 device per VLAN policy. This means only one router (a layer3 device identified by an ethernet MAC address) is allowed to be visible in each VLAN on your port.

Port Security
In order to prevent violation of this policy (and with that ethernet loops, misuse and errors) we use port protection (MAC counting). This allows only one source MAC address on each VLAN.

One Router
This means you can connect only one router directly to your NL-ix port and not an entire switched network with multiple routers or servers. If the NL-ix switch detects violation of this rule (sees other MAC addresses) it will automatically shutdown the port for five minutes.

Router on a stick (switch)
You are allowed to use layer2 devices (switches, tranceivers, etc.) between your router and NL-ix, as long as they are completely transparant and don't send any packets on the VLAN themselves.

Seperate routers for seperate VLAN's are possible
If you connect to multiple VLAN's on one NL-ix port, you can use an ethernet switch to connect VLAN's to different routers (MAC addresses).

Shared peering VLAN's
For all shared peering VLAN's (IPv4, IPv6, NEXT News and NL-ix Live!) you connect to we will provide you with an IP address. You can find the IP addresses of other NL-ix peering VLAN members on the NL-ix website.

BandMarket VLAN's
For all NL-ix BandMarket dedicated VLAN's, where you buy transit from a carrier, the carrier will provide you with an IP addres for your and his side and a network mask (normally /30 or 255.255.255.252).

Metro Ethernet
For dedicated point-to-point Metro Ethernet VLAN's you can pick your own IP addresses.

Do-it-yourself
No, you will have to contact other NL-ix members yourself directly (generally via email) and negotiate peering with them.

Negotiation
Some parties will require you to sign a peering agreement. Please be aware that some parties will not want to peer with you (for example because they think your network is to small or not interesting or 'equal' enough for them). Some parties might not even respond to your peering request because they see it as unsollicited email and therefor will not feel obliged to reply.

Contact info
After you are connected we will provide you with peering contact email addresses and peering policies of other NL-ix members on the secured My NL-ix part of the website.
Then you will also get access to the NL-ix member announce mailing list where you can announce your willingness to peer with others.

Other ways to get routing
Apart from negotiating bilateral peering there are other solutions to get routing on your port.

Router requirements

BGP4:

You need a router that supports the BGP4 protocol;

Memory:

We advise to configure the router with at least 512 Mb memory;

Mbit/s:

This defines the maximum througput of the router in best or worst case and should fit your requirements. Not all routers are able to route wirespeed (at the full port speed) in all conditions;

Packets/s:

some routes have a packet per second limitation. This means that at a large avarage packet size they can reach a high Mbit/s number, but at a low average packet size they stop at far lower Mbit/s rates.
The average packet size of your traffic can vary, depending on the type of traffic. Gaming, chat sites and other interactive traffic generally result in very small packet sizes just as DDOS attacks do. Bulk files transfers often give large packet sizes.
In general performance is calculated based on RFC 2544 standard based 512 bytes average packet size.
So for example a router specd at 50.000 packets per second means the router supports max. ((512*8*50.000)/(1024*1.024)=) 195 Mbit/s traffic at 512 bytes average packet size;

Forwarding:

Software (central CPU) or hardware (CAM, express) forwarding. In some routers all traffic is handled in central cpu (which forms the preformance bottlneck), whereas other handle forwarding in hardware (generally wirespeed);

Flows:

Maximum number of flows. Some routers can forward traffic in hardware if the number of flows (communicating source/destination IP/port pairs) is not to high, but will either fail or fallback to software routing if there are to many concurrent flows. In some situations, like a DDOS attack, you can then easily run out of flows;

Dot1.q:

Support of dot1.q VLAN trunking is very usefull in order to be able to use multiple services on the same physical port.

Redundancy:

In a non-stop configuration it is wise to use two routers and a router redudancy protocol (e.g. VRRP) inbetween the make the internal default gateway address resilient of both routers. BGP4 will take care of the external redudnancy, as long as you have multiple upstream paths to the rest of the world.

Please check with your supplier for specific numbers.

Become RIPE LIR
You have two options. Option one is you become RIPE local registry (LIR). Then you can register AS numbers and IP address blocks for your own use and for your customers directly with RIPE. But RIPE membership costs a few thousand Euro's initial and per year and requires substantial knowledge about the RIPE database and procedures.

Get your addresses from an existing LIR
Alternatively you can have your carrier register an AS number and an IP block for you. Often carriers charge you some money for that.

At least 256 IP addresses
In order to be able to route globally you need at least a /24 (256 addresses) IP block. You can only register the IP addresses you need immediately or within one year, and you will have to document your request.

Provider Independent
Try to get a "Provider Independent" block of address space from your carrier (instead of a "Provider Aggregatable" block) so you won't have to renumber when you switch to another carrier. Alternatively try to agree with you provider that you are allowed to take the PA block with you when you switch to another carrier.

No
The NL-ix peering VLAN is intended for just that: peering. Inherently providing transit over the peering VLAN is not allowed.

Yes
We offer dedicated point-to-point VLAN's for that purpose. Those dedicated VLAN's can very easily be delivered on the same NL-ix port. A dedicated VLAN isolates your transit traffic from your peering traffic and makes it easier to manage and measure.