The main actions undertaken during that time include the following:

1- New Paris backbone infrastructure renewal with 3 main phases (RFP selection, POC and deployment):

RFPs: 3 RFPs have been launched based on technical compliance and cost competitiveness with the following results:

•    Dark fibers: the main goal was to rebuild a dual core backbone (Telehouse 2 and Interxion PAR5) with every edge PoP dual attached to the core. Five new dark fibers have been deployed with new providers (IELO-LIAZO and SIPARETCH) and existing ones (INTEROUTE and ZAYO).
•    Optical infrastructure: we reached the threshold where it is more interesting to have an active nx100G solution rather than a passive nx10G. The cost is similar and it simplifies network operations. We analyzed offers from 8 vendors, we short-listed 3 of them and we selected Coriant Groove G30.
•    IP Backbone infrastructure: the current platform based on Juniper EX9200 doesn’t scale to address the increasing demand of 100G customer’s ports on main PoPs. We compared different vendors’ solutions providing high 100G density and a cost-effective solution per 100G port. We received offers from 5 vendors, we shortlisted 2 of them and we selected Brocade SLX platform: SLX-9850 – 8 slots for core sites (TH2 and PAR5) and SLX-9540 to replace small and medium sites (Equinix PA7 and Interxion PAR1). Note that Juniper EX9200 platform remains on some PoPs.

POC: we spent a month checking compliance of new equipment (IP and optical) and validating interoperability with the current infrastructure. A 100G traffic generator has been used during this POC phase (thanks to ANRITSU).

• Coriant G30: 25 tests have been achieved successfully. A spectrum analyzer allowed us to validate some of the tests.
• Brocade SLX tests: more than 30 tests have been achieved successfully. We reproduced the target topology and current configuration to be as close as possible to production network.

Deployment:

• Coriant G30: 4 boxes have been deployed already between PAR5, TH2 and PAR2. Capacity on some backbone links have been increased from 20x10G to 4x100G. Two additional boxes will be deployed during the summer.
• Brocade SLX deployed at PAR5: an SLX-9850-8 slots has been deployed beginning of July at PAR5 PoP. We encountered some issues and we decided to freeze the deployment until we have a clear understanding of the issue.

2 – RPKI ROA/IRR filtering: France-IX route servers are now tagging routes with BGP communities depending on their IRR and RPKI/ROA validation status. Several IRR in addition to the RIPE database and a local instance of the RIPE RPKI validator are used to ensure accurate data.

No action is taken to drop routes on the route servers. This allows members to easily filter routes based on these communities and take whatever action they consider being the best for their network.

Please make sure to have your aut-num object up-to-date in order to enable us to discover your AS-SET automatically.

details in our aut-num object AS51706 are available here : apps.db.ripe.net/search/lookup.html

READ MORE ABOUT FRANCE-IX ROUTE SERVERS

3 – Automation: thanks to several new developments, we are now able to have a fluent workflow for the setup of new customers. Commercial and technical information are now directly filled into our internal Information System (based on NetBox : https://github.com/digitalocean/netbox) and templates of configuration are rendered from information of this CMDB.

4 – New QoS probe: a new QoS probe has been connected to es2.th2 in order to have a probe connected on each equipment (instead of having a probe per PoP).

Key technical numbers for Q2-2017: Customer ports connected in the last 3 months:

• 1G: 7 ports
• 10G: 10 ports
• 100G: 3 ports

Availability:

• Paris: > 99,99%
• Marseille: 100%

Outages:
Paris on June 20, 2017: configuration issue on es2.th2 with 2min30s of outage for members connected to this equipment.

Next actions:

• Backbone renewal: TH2, PA7 and PAR1 PoPs will be deployed once we have a clear understanding of the issue occurred mid of July.