Resources

For many organisations, the Internet has become the default corporate backbone — the single layer that connects employees, cloud platforms, SaaS applications, customers and business partners. It is the fabric that ties the entire digital environment together and enables data to move between all these systems.

Because so much critical activity depends on it, the way organisations connect to and use the Internet has become a fundamental part of their digital resilience.
Read more

We recognise that the underlay is often overlooked and nearly forgotten in network discussions, but we believe that connecting to NL-ix provides significant advantages for organizations subject to EU regulatory frameworks such as NIS2, DORA and CER in order to improve the physical infrastructure up and beyond the corporate network. After all:  The physical infrastructure, or the underlay, remains the critical foundation that determines network performance, reliability, and security and keeps everything running smoothly.

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At NL-ix, we manage the critical hardware of the Internet backbone, including routers, switches, and fiber-optic cables. This infrastructure enables direct traffic routing between networks, minimising the need for lengthy detours (latency).

Organisations connected to NL-ix avoid insecure parts of the public Internet: traffic is exchanged within the safe, controlled, and monitored NL-ix network, isolated from general public traffic, reducing the risk of interception or unauthorised access. Connnected networks can ensure that sensitive traffic stays within trusted routes, even while utilising the global Internet infrastructure.

Experience has learned that up till 95% of your corporate Internet traffic safely remains within the NL-ix network, avoiding the public Internet.

More on Sovereign Internet

The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) is raising the bar for operational resilience across Europe.

Discover why geographical diversity, network connectivity and datacenter location all play a key role in building a resilient infrastructure.

Modern infrastructure often looks seamless on the surface. But behind the scenes, it’s a patchwork: telcos, clouds, interconnection providers... All with their own paths and policies.

The result? A creeping loss of visibility. Data travels in ways you didn’t expect, through jurisdictions you didn’t choose, subject to laws you didn’t agree to.

With regulations like 𝗡𝗜𝗦𝟮 and 𝗗𝗢𝗥𝗔 now in force, data sovereignty is no longer optional. You’re expected to know:
👉 Where your data flows;
👉 Who handles it;
👉 Whether it's protected under the right rules.

And “we didn’t know” isn’t a valid excuse anymore.

💡 At NL-ix, we believe sovereignty starts with infrastructure design. It's not about owning everything, it’s about knowing what you use, and who’s in the chain.

Read the full article to learn why visibility, trust, and control are now essential business requirements

The cloud is currently an important place. But beware, because if your computing power is up in the sky you need a pretty solid connection to it.

The move to the cloud is here to stay. You as an enterprise or organisation have discovered the benefits of Infrastructure available as a Service. But with all that computing power up in the cloud you do need to be sure you are able to access that power when you need it.

You need end-to-end control over the road leading to that mission critical infrastructure in the cloud of choice. You want a stable, predictable, low latency connection that is always on, so you can harness the power of the cloud when and how you need it.

The NL-ix network delivers that control, stability and low latency connections. Build as a part of the Internet Core Infrastructure it is designed to be extremely resilient and as fast as possible. As a pan-European network connecting all major European datacenters it has already build the door-to-door direct connection between the datacenter you are in and all major datacenters of the cloud of your choice and a wide range of locations, saving you the costs of additional transport. Because the cloud is actually just another datacenter.

Discover more about our Cloud Connect Portfolio

For many growing networks, IP Transit is the simplest way to reach the Internet—but it isn't always the most efficient. As traffic volumes increase, combining Transit with Peering can improve routing, reduce latency and optimise costs without adding unnecessary complexity.

Learn when a hybrid approach becomes the smarter choice and how it can support your network's continued growth.

As networks grow, choosing the right Internet connectivity strategy becomes increasingly important. For mid-sized ISPs, enterprises and service providers, balancing performance, resilience and cost requires more than simply adding bandwidth. Explore the key considerations when designing scalable Internet connectivity and

Discover how the right combination of Transit and interconnection services can support long-term growth.

For networks outside Europe, delivering fast and reliable access to European content often means investing in expensive transport to multiple Internet Exchanges. NL-ix's distributed platform offers a different approach: connect at the edge of Europe through a single port and gain access to a vast European peering ecosystem.

Discover how to simplify international connectivity while improving performance and reducing infrastructure costs.

A distributed Internet Exchange extends the benefits of peering far beyond a single metropolitan hub. Instead of centralising traffic in one location, networks can interconnect across a pan-European platform, reducing latency, improving resilience and simplifying expansion into new markets.

Discover how a distributed architecture can help you build a faster, more scalable and geographically resilient network.

Not all Internet Exchanges are built the same. While traditional local exchanges concentrate interconnection in a single metropolitan area, a distributed Internet Exchange extends connectivity across multiple locations, offering greater flexibility, resilience and reach.

Discover the key differences between both models and learn which approach best fits your network architecture and growth strategy.

NL-ix combines Peering, Transit, layer 2 Transport services and Cloud Connections over one port... enabling you to save money on patch cables and ports and simplifying manageability.

By combining services over 1 port we enable you to save on the monthly cost of patch cables and ports in use. Multiple services over 1 port also means a single invoice and easer manageability. We also give you more and easier insight into the usage of your port(s) through our My NL-ix portal. Through this customer portal you can easily view the usage per service on your ports.

Using NL-ix means lowering your costs, simplified administration and improved insight.

For members that exchange significant traffic volumes, a private interconnect allows to exchange traffic over a shared VLAN. You can use an existing port or set aside a new port for this service.

More on Transport

Datacenter Interconnect is a private VLAN between two or more NL-ix enabled datacenters.

It is possible to connect in between any of the 100 datacenters NL-ix is present in. As NL-ix operates a full-meshed network topology, your traffic will not be hair-pinned to other datacenters, therefore reducing latency and the amount of SPOFs.

Read more

Many organisations need to keep public Internet traffic and private business-critical traffic strictly separated without adding unnecessary network complexity. Elastic Interconnect provides a flexible Layer 2 foundation with physical traffic separation, enabling secure private connectivity alongside high-performance Internet services over a single platform.

Discover how this architecture supports scalable, secure and future-ready network designs.

NL‑ix introduces the SCION Exchange, a new way for organisations to exchange data securely and reliably. Available from all NL‑ix locations across Europe, the SCION Exchange allows networks to communicate over trusted and controlled connections — offering a safer alternative to the traditional Internet.
More on SCION

Peering is about more than establishing a BGP session.

Discover eight common mistakes that can limit the performance, resilience and effectiveness of your peering strategy—and learn how to avoid them.

When the order has been delivered, you will receive an ‘order delivery’ email. This email - send to you from provisioning@nl-ix.net - contains all details you need to setup your connection. The delivery date is also the start date of invoicing.

Next steps

• You can update your MAC address of your router via the My NL-ix portal, via Ports > Manage MAC Address.
• Setup the connection using the information given in de 'order delivery email' and test the connection.
• Update your PeeringDB page.

Technical Requirements

All members’ use of NL-ix infrastructure shall conform to the relevant standards as laid out in STD0001 and associated Internet standardisation documents.

Each participant’s network must have an ASN (Autonomous System Number) assigned by an appropriate LIR or RIR (Regional Internet Registry), being either ARIN, RIPE-NCC, APNIC or LACNIC. During the application process this assignment will be checked.

Physical

Ethernet ports into NL-ix are offered in following configurations:

1GE – 1000Base-LX

10GE – 10GBASE-LR

Nx10GE – Link Aggregated

100GE – 100GBASE-LR4

Nx100GE – Link Aggregated

NL-ix supports standard single-mode (10km 1310nm) optics by default. For an additional charge, customer may request specialised optics, including extended reach optics in any common 100 Ghz DWDM or CWDM bands.

Options

By default, NL-ix Peering will be offered at line rate.

1G/Nx10/Nx100G

MTU

For the peering LAN an MTU of 1500 bytes is used.

VLAN-tagging

Peering VLAN ports (VLAN 7) must always be tagged.

We use industry standard IEEE 802.1q VLAN trunking, please see your vendor manual for information on how to tag your frames.

MAC address filtering

The Peering service can be used with one MAC address. This MAC address will be configured in the ACL belonging to the customer port. It's not allowed to have multiple MAC addresses configured on the port. Traffic originating from other source MAC addresses is discarded.

Frame types

The following ethernet frame types are accepted:

 0x0800 – IPv4

 0x0806 – ARP

 0x86dd – IPv6

All others are discarded.

Not allowed traffic

The following traffic is explicitly not allowed on the NL-ix Peering VLAN 7:

All broadcast and Non-IP protocols must be disabled facing the IX fabric, or filtered in some way when disabling is not an option. These include, but are not limited to forwarded DHCP, MOP, Ethernet Keepalives, LLDP, CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol), VTP (VLAN Trunk Protocol), DTP (Dynamic Trunking Protocol), EIGRP (and other IGRP’s), BOOTP, PIM, UDLD

BUM traffic

Only ARP and multicast IPv6 Neighbor Discovery packets are allowed.

NetBIOS and IPv6 Router Advertisements

1. IP/ICMP Redirects, IP Directed Broadcast and Proxy Protocols including Proxy ARP and IPv6 Proxy Neighbor must be disabled on IX facing interfaces.
2. Layer-2 protocol traffic: spanning-tree must be disabled on IX facing interfaces.
3. All Interior Gateway Protocols (IGPs, such as OSPF, IS-IS, RIP, etc) must be disabled on IX facing interfaces.

Interconnecting internationally to other networks via a Transit provider with a full or partial Routing BGP-table is a very effective Routing option. It can be used in combination with Peering either to improve and stabilise critical routes or to cut costs. Using multiple Transit providers over different ports guarantees redundancy. Open Peering is a tried and tested service offering full European coverage with the best routes available. It gives direct access to any network that peers on the Route Servers of all the major European exchanges, supplemented with bilateral peering sessions and the PNI’s of the Open Peering initiative.

Make sure that:

• You are only advertising routes you are allowed to advertise with prefix lists or similar;
• You are filtering bogon-routes in and outbound;
• You configure redundant sessions, both to Nikhef and Telecity 2.
• You have created RIPE Route-Objects and your AS-SET is correct and up-to-date.

NL-ix only permits 1 MAC address per port so any intermediate switches should be made silent.

During turn up, customer’s routing equipment is put into quarantine status to check for common configuration mistakes and to prove that it is suitably configured to participate in the peering fabric. Once verified, customer is placed out of quarantine, moved into production VLAN, and the MAC address of customer’s Routing equipment will be noted and configured. The configured MAC address will stay locked and enforced using L2 ACL. No frames with different source MAC addresses are allowed to enter the peering fabric.

The implementation of MAC filtering is important to protect the NL-ix Peering infrastructure against loops. Customers who intend to swap Routers or otherwise change their MAC address should coordinate this change in advance by configuring the new MAC in the My NL-ix portal. In the event of an after-hours emergency necessitating our help on a MAC change, please call our NOC

NL-ix operates multiple Route Servers. Even though Peering with only one Route Server is sufficient for exchanging routes, it is preferred to peer with all Route Servers available in your setup.  Setting up redundant Route Server peers allows to carry out occasional maintenances without impacting your routing and guards against failures.

Preferably always setup 2 IPv4 sessions as well as 2 IPv6 sessions. This way the Route Servers help to get the majority of possible sessions and significantly leverage the burden of keeping track of newly arriving members.

Route Server

NL-ix AS34307:

RS1 - 193.239.116.255 - 2001:7f8:13::a503:4307:1
RS2 - 193.239.117.0 - 2001:7f8:13::a503:4307:2

NL-ix2 AS42604:

RS1 - 185.1.122.127 - 2001:7f8:cd::a504:2604:1
RS2 - 185.1.122.128 - 2001:7f8:cd::a504:2604:2

The Route Server Configurator provides full control over the route server by making it easy to select networks you want to exchange traffic with based on latency times, geographical location and black & white lists.

Learn about the Route Server Configurator

Traffic over the NL-ix Route Server can be managed via BGP communities or the Route Server Configurator (filter.nl-ix.net). Please note that you should make a choice for either the communities or the GUI of the Route Server Configurator. Using both may result in unexpected behaviour. The GUI will not show any communities that are set manually.

More on BGP Communities

For customers that have a host or block under a DDoS, the affected host/block can be advertised with a blackhole community. This will cause all traffic to that host/block to be blackholed at the core of our network. Once the attack has stopped, the community can be removed again in order to start receiving traffic again. NL-ix supports to announce a prefix length up to /32 for IPv4 and up to /128 for IPv6

Blackhole RFC7999 - 65535:666
Blackhole Joint Transit - 24785:666
Blackhole OpenPeering AS20562 - 20562:666

Example

Below is an example for a Cisco router for OpenPeering:

ip route 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.255 Null0
router bgp 6500
network 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.255 route-map blackhole
route-map blackhole permit 10
set community 20562:666

Bogon and martian filtering

A bogon prefix is a route that should never appear in the Internet routing table. A packet routed over the public Internet (not including over VPNs or other tunnels) should never have an address in a bogon range. These are commonly found as the source addresses of DDoS attacks.

Bogon filtering filters bogus (fake) IP addresses of a computer network. Bogons can be filtered by using router access-control lists (ACLs), or by BGP blackholing. Full bogons filtering is recommended but not enabled by default. You can start bogon filtering here

BGP filtering

NL-ix advices customers using Peering to follow the BGP Filter Guides

NL-ix secures "our part” of the Internet by protecting the peers connected to our Route Servers by actively clean-filtering all routing information using RPKI: a security framework that verifies the right to use an IP address or ASN. By default NL-ix declines routes where RPKI-validation fails.

Signing your prefixes in the routing database of RIPE is the best way to start with RPKI as the RIPE database provides essential information to keep individual networks and the overall Internet running.

Please make sure that you cover all prefixes you use, matching the ASN which they originate from.  Also have all active ASNs and AS-SETs listed in your main AS-SET and remove unused ones. Please send an email to sales@nl-ix.net if you require changes your AS-SET.

You can check on the status of your AS in the routing databases.

Joint Transit offers the best IP Transit option. We have created a unique blend from geographic Tier 1 and Tier 2 Transit specialists that guarantee the best routes to specific regions. Users can connect from around datacenters in most important European metropolitan markets in 7 countries, receiving more than 600.000 IPv4 prefixes.

Configuration Example

Below is an example on how to configure your Joint Transit service. This config snippet can also be used to configure your Open Peering product.

Cisco router - BGP

router bgp 65000
bgp router-id 1.1.1.1
bgp log-neighbor-changes
bgp graceful-restart
bgp maxas-limit 50
!
address-family ipv4
bgp dampening
redistribute static
exit-address-family
!
address-family ipv4 vrf internet
bgp dampening
redistribute static
neighbor 213.207.12.x1 remote-as 24785
neighbor 213.207.12.x1 description eBGP with Transit Nikhef
neighbor 213.207.12.x1 version 4
neighbor 213.207.12.x1 activate
neighbor 213.207.12.x1 remove-private-as
neighbor 213.207.12.x1 soft-reconfiguration inbound
neighbor 213.207.12.x1 route-map BGP-NLix-1-Ingress in
neighbor 213.207.12.x1 route-map BGP-NLix-1-Engress out
neighbor 213.207.12.x1 maximum-prefix 750000
neighbor 213.207.12.x2 remote-as 24785
neighbor 213.207.12.x2 description description eBGP with Transit Telecity2
neighbor 213.207.12.x2 version 4
neighbor 213.207.12.x2 activate
neighbor 213.207.12.x2 remove-private-as
neighbor 213.207.12.x2 soft-reconfiguration inbound
neighbor 213.207.12.x2 route-map BGP-NLix-2-Ingress in
neighbor 213.207.12.x2 route-map BGP-NLix-2-Engress out
neighbor 213.207.12.x2 maximum-prefix 750000
maximum-paths eibgp 4
exit-address-family
!

Please note that that Transit is always redundant. You can configure a session to both Nikhef and Telecity 2.

Cisco router - Prex Lists

ip prefix-list BGP-Engress-Out-Filter seq 1 permit 203.0.113.0/24 le 32
!
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 2 deny 0.0.0.0/0
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 4 deny 10.0.0.0/8 le 32
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 6 deny 172.16.0.0/12 le 32
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 8 deny 192.168.0.0/16 le 32
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 10 deny 224.0.0.0/4 le 32
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 12 deny 240.0.0.0/4 le 32
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 14 deny 127.0.0.0/8 le 32
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 16 deny 169.254.0.0/16 le 32
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 18 deny 192.0.2.0/24 le 32
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 20 deny 198.51.100.0/24 le 32
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 22 deny 203.0.113.0/24 le 32
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 24 deny 192.42.172.0/24 le 32
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 26 deny 198.18.0.0/15 le 32
ip prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-Full-Routing-Table seq 99 permit 0.0.0.0/0 le 24
!
route-map BGP-NLix-1-Engress permit 10 match ip address prefix-list BGP-Engress-Out-
Filter
!
route-map BGP-NLix-2-Engress permit 10 match ip address prefix-list BGP-Engress-Out-
Filter set as-path prepend 206730
!
route-map BGP-NLix-1-Ingress permit 10 match ip address prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-
Permit-Default-Route
set local-preference 100
!
route-map BGP-NLix-2-Ingress permit 10 match ip address prefix-list BGP-Ingress-In-
Permit-Default-Route

Please make sure to filter both inbound and outbound as shown above. This way you cannot inadvertently announce and receive prefixes you do not want. We recommend you filter bogon-prefixes from Team Cymru www.team-cymru.org.

NL-ix offers BGP communities to all customers using Joint Transit for AS24785 as a standard service feature. This gives control over how your prefixes are announced to your upstreams or provides information to act on.

More information on BGP Communities for Joint Transit

In order to setup a working ExpressRoute, different resources need to be created in the Azure domain.

It is important that the ExpressRoute resource is created with the correct parameters. The resources Connection and (ExpressRoute) Gateway, are merely 'linking' resources and fall inside the customer domain.

An ExpressRoute can be created via the Azure Portal or via the command line (cloud shell). In both cases, there are three properties that need to be set correctly. In the Azure Portal, these properties are found under the step Configuration:

• the Port Type needs to be set on Provider.
• the Provider needs to be set to NL-IX - available for Europe West or Europe North
• When choosing a provider, the next step is to pick the Peering Location:
  • For the region Europe West, this is Amsterdam2
  • For the region Europe North, this is Dublin2

NOTE: In case a different region-location combination is selected, it could be that the chosen location is used as a ramp-up; Microsoft in that case charges extra for sending the traffic over the Microsoft network to the correct region. For example, if the selected region is Europe North, but the Peering location is set to Amsterdam (which is a ramp-up for Europe West), the connection will be extended towards Europe North over the Microsoft network. This is an expensive option which is not recommended.

In order to get a Google Partner Interconnect working, several cloud resources are required within the Google domain, most importantly a Cloud Router connected to a VPC network.

With these resources in place, a create so-called VLAN Attachments can be created in the "Network Connectivity" → "Interconnect" menu. When doing this, the following things need to be taken into account:

• Create a "Partner Interconnect connection" and state that you already have a service provider. You don't need to state that it is NL-ix.
• Create a redundant pair of VLAN attachments (Technically, it is possible to create a single VLAN, please however make sure it is a redundant pair of VLAN).
• Give the VLAN attachment a name
• Set the MTU to 1500 - default, and also recommended by NL-ix
• The customer does not set a Bandwidth, NL-ix does this!

After the creation of the VLAN attachment, a 'pairing-key' generated that needs to be shared with NL-ix in order to identify the ordered InterConnects.

VLL - Virtual Leased Line

Virtual Leased Line offers dedicated low-latency high-bandwidth capacity on Ethernet.

The Virtual Leased Line:

• Allows unlimited MAC addresses, Q-in-Q, MAC-in-MAC, MPLS and jumbo frames.
• Delivers a private circuit where traffic cannot be seen by other customers nor by NL-ix
• Can be delivered on any distance. NL-ix hides the distance between endpoints and repeats the signal along the way if needed.

Virtual Leased Lines (VLL) can be delivered over tagged as well as untagged ports. When your VLL is delivered on a port with multiple services, it will be delivered tagged. When you want to configure your own VLAN’s through a tagged VLL, make sure your equipment supports QinQ.

VPLS - Virtual Private LAN Service

The Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) is an Ethernet-based point-to-multipoint Layer 2 Virtual Private Network (VPN) that enables to connect geographically dispersed Ethernet Local Area Network (LAN) sites to each other across an MPLS backbone. For customers who implement VPLS, all sites appear to be in the same Ethernet LAN even though traffic travels outside of your own network networks of Service Providers.

• Connects multiple ports on one VLAN allowing communication between all ports on the VLAN.
• Allows one MAC address per port, which is enforced using port security.
• Supports standard seize Ethernet packets with 9000 bytes Ethernet packet payload. Therefore trunking, Q-in-Q, jumbo frames are not supported.
• Can be delivered on any distance. NL-ix hides the distance between endpoints and repeats the signal along the way if needed.

MAC address filtering for VPLS

The VPLS service can be used with one MAC address. This MAC address will be configured in the ACL belonging to the customer port. It is not allowed to have multiple MAC addresses configured on the port. Traffic originating from other source MAC addresses is discarded.

After the order confirmation has been send, the NL-ix provisioning team gets to work to deliver your order. When the order has been delivered, for normal products usually within 10 working days after the order confirmation, the provisioning team will send an ‘order delivery’ email. This email contains all details you need to setup your connection. The delivery date is aso the start date of invoicing.

Once your order is placed, NL-ix will forward you a CFA/LOA for you to order a cross-connect into the IX node present in your selected facility. You are responsible for arranging and paying for the cross-connect to reach the IX fabric.

If after connecting the port to port cross-connect cabling the lights above the port do not turn green, please try to switch the send and receive connector of your port to port cross-connect cabling. If the lights still doesn’t turn green please investigate the following possibilities:

• Is Rx/Tx connected correctly - check if swapping Rx and Tx will solve the issue?
• Is the port on the other side enabled and connected?
• Is auto-negotiation configured on the other side?
• Are there switches or transceivers in-between which are not configured yet?
• Did you use the GBIC or SFP with the same port type as specified at port details?
• Is the cable okay? Please have the datacenter check the cable and connectors.
• Is the port speed configured as ordered?
• Does the optic match the speed of the interface?

If the port still does not come up, please contact us, and we will check the port configuration on our side.

When you have the cross-connect in place and you have received the 'order delivery' e-mail, your NL-ix connection is physically ready to be used.

Please note that once the port is up, you need to configure the port at your end. You will find all required information such as port setting, VLAN-ID and/or IP Config in the 'order delivery' email you have receive upon delivery.

We have layer-2 access-lists enabled on all of our interfaces for Peering, Transit and VLAN-connections. Only one MAC address is allowed per VLAN/service per port, so any intermediate switches should be made silent.

To prevent problems on our and your infrastructure all ports have port security / access lists and storm control enabled.

Customers who intend to swap Routers or otherwise change their MAC address should coordinate this change in advance by configuring the new MAC in the My NL-ix portal. You can add or change the allowed MAC-address of your router via the My NL-ix portal, via Ports > Manage MAC Address which will automatically also add/change it to the access-list.

In the event of an after-hours emergency necessitating our help on a MAC change, please call our NOC

Please set the gigabit port configuration to ’auto negotiate’, otherwise the connection might not come up at all or stay down after a reset. For fast ethernet ports, enable ’auto negotiate’ and disable all auto-crossover features.

The connection delivery mail states if you must tag your interface or not, this differs per NL-ix service.We use industry standard IEEE 802.1q VLAN trunking, please see your vendor manual for information on how to tag your frames.

For DedicatedNodes, performance isn't measured in milliseconds, but in microseconds.

Founder Danny Nieuwenhuis explains how the company built a specialized infrastructure platform for blockchain and trading applications, where latency, routing, peering, and physical proximity to key networks directly impact performance.

As DedicatedNodes continued to push latency lower, NL-ix helped explore routes, interconnections, fiber paths, and peering opportunities to optimize every microsecond.

Read the full story

For Cloudbear, building reliable and sovereign cloud environments has always been the goal. But scaling up also meant finding the right partners.

That’s where NL-ix came in. What started with two 10G connections quickly grew into 80–90G peaks, and a partnership based not just on bandwidth, but on trust, technical exchange, and shared problem-solving.

🔎 In this interview, Cloudbear’s founder Wouter van Os sheds light on their growth journey, the passion for a sovereign European cloud, and why partnering with NL-ix is about so much more than just buying bandwidth. It’s about the personal connection — and finding the best technical solutions together.

Read the full story

To keep performance sharp across 43+ locations, ZET.NET relies on smart routing, automation, and strong partnerships. One of the most important? NL-ix. “NL-ix consistently delivers some of the best customer service. They’re reliable, fast, and easy to work with—and that’s exactly what we need as we continue to grow.” - Alexandru Tolgyi, Co-founder & CTO

In this behind-the-scenes interview, ZET.NET reveals:

👉 Why they’re adding a new data center every 3 months
👉 How local routing through NL-ix cuts latency across Europe
👉 The AI-powered platform that keeps their network self-healing
👉 And why a 15-minute SLA is their competitive edge

Want to know more? Read the full interview

After numerous interviews with NL-ix's long-standing customers, we now turn our focus to a new client. We traveled to Dedemsvaart to meet Stan, CEO of RoyaleHosting B.V.. Stan began his company at the young age of 12. Now, seven years later, we explore his journey.

Discover how RoyaleHosting B.V. evolved from game hosting to providing enterprise-grade services with robust DDoS protection

On the landmark occasion of 20 years of partnership with Solvinity we had a delightful conversation with Patrick, Lead engineer network infrastructure and Marc Guardiola, CTO.

In the engaging conversation, they shared their perspectives on evolving market dynamics and the pivotal role NL-ix plays in enabling their adaptation to these changes.

The My NL-ix Portal gives customers a central place to manage their NL-ix services throughout the entire service lifecycle. Track the status of new orders, manage router MAC addresses, access service information and perform common operational tasks—all through a secure self-service portal designed to simplify day-to-day network management.

The NL-ix Looking Glass allows you to inspect routing information and verify network reachability from multiple locations across the NL-ix platform. Use it to troubleshoot routing issues, validate BGP paths and gain insight into how traffic is routed through the network.

The Route Server Configurator gives you full control over your peering sessions through an intuitive web interface. Easily select which networks you want to exchange traffic with based on latency, geographic location or custom black and white lists, without the complexity of manual BGP configuration. It's a simple way to optimise routing while maintaining complete control over your traffic.

Check the demo: Route Server Configurator

Or read more information here

ICON (Interconnect CONsole) gives you complete visibility into your Internet traffic through an intuitive self-service dashboard. Monitor live and historical traffic flows, latency, bandwidth utilisation and routing paths, enabling you to quickly identify issues, optimise performance and gain end-to-end insight into how your traffic traverses the Internet.

Discover more

Our popular BGP Course is designed for network engineers and IT professionals who want to deepen their understanding of Border Gateway Protocol and put it into real-world practice.

Join us for an exclusive one-day deep dive into the fascinating world of BGP with none other than the esteemed expert, Iljitsch van Beijnum. In one day (09.30 - 16.00) course participants will learn the internals of the BGP protocol the NL-ix Headquarters in Rotterdam.

Read more

In today's digital age, the Internet has become an integral part of our personal and business lives. We rely on it for various tasks and accessing data. However, have you ever stopped to wonder how the vast amount of information we send and receive actually moves across the Internet?

In this article, we'll explore the inner workings of the Internet, shedding light on the processes that occur behind the scenes and uncovering some lesser-known facts.

BGP is the protocol that enables networks around the world to exchange routing information and keep the Internet connected.

Discover how it works, why it matters, and why BGP remains one of the Internet's most critical building blocks.

Millions of businesses rely on the Internet every day—but few know what happens behind the scenes.

Discover the hidden infrastructure that keeps digital services running and why Internet Exchanges play a critical role in today's connected world.

The main advantages of having a Public ASN are:

• No Need to Change Your IP Range
• Multi-Homing Capability
• Direct Peering at Internet Exchanges

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