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Peering

Peering priorities, policies, and locations for the research and education sector

Technician checking laptop network server rack

AARNet peers with many web content and service providers for the benefit of our customers

As Australia’s national research and education network, AARNet establishes peering relationships to improve performance and reliability for universities, research institutions and education providers. These relationships may be private agreements between network operators or public arrangements via internet exchanges.

What is peering?

Peering is a commercial relationship between two Internet Service Providers (ISPs) where they agree to provide access to (part of) each other's networks and services. If the two parties determine that the value/cost to each party of this service is similar then they may choose not to have any settlement between the parties.

Peering might take place over dedicated circuits or via a shared peering fabric (typically located at a neutral collocation facility or internet exchange). The method chosen will depend on many factors, such as the volume of traffic and any special service requirements.

Who do we peer with?

We peer locally in Australia with major global content and service providers such as Microsoft, YouTube, Amazon Web Services, Google, Blackboard, Desire2Learn, and Netspot (Moodle), making content from these entities ‘on-net’, which means high-performance and unlimited downloads for AARNet customers.

Learn more about AARNet’s national and international network infrastructure.

Our peering priorities

AARNet only partners with peers who provide value to AARNet customers. This value might be improved performance by reducing latency between the parties or it might be the facilitation of advanced services.

Any peering will take into account the cost to AARNet, e.g. co-location costs, additional routers, interfaces, circuits, etc., and where the benefit is small AARNet may choose not to peer but continue using its transit relationships to source the traffic. 

AARNet favours using bi-lateral peering agreements as these provide AARNet with a direct relationship with the peer. AARNet may consider using an Internet Exchange to facilitate peering as long as bi-lateral peering is permitted and thus multi-lateral peering is not mandatory.

Peering policies

Our National and International Peering policies provide guidance to potential peers.

Peering locations

Sites available via the peering fabric:

NATIONAL INTERNATIONAL 

Adelaide:

  • EdgeIX
  • IX Australia

Sydney:

  • EdgeIX
  • Equinix Sydney
  • IX Australia
  • MegaIX

Seattle:

  • Pacific Wave
  • Seattle Internet Exchange
  • MegaIX

Los Angeles:

  • Any2West
  • Pacific Wave (via Seattle/Los Angeles VLAN)
  • NYIIX – LA/LAAP

Brisbane:

  • EdgeIX
  • IX Australia
  • MegaIX

Melbourne:

  • EdgeIX
  • IX Australia
  • MegaIX
  • Equinix Melbourne

London:

  • LINX LON2

Singapore:

  • SOX
  • SGIX
  • MegaIX

Canberra:

  • IX Australia

Perth:

  • EdgeIX
  • IX Australia
  • MegaIX

Guam

  • GOREX
 

Darwin:

  • EdgeIX

Hobart:

  • EdgeIX
  
AARNet peering locations and exchange facilities.


 

Sites available via Private Cross Connects:

For information about peering sites available via Private (Ethernet) cross connects, please go to our PeeringDB Database entry.

AARNet Autonomous System Number - AS7575

IPv4 prefixes defined by RADB macro AS7575:AS-CUSTOMERS. Approximately 500 prefixes announced.

IPv6 Prefixes 2001:388::/32. Currently announcing 70 prefixes.

AARNet prefers to use MD5 authentication on BGP sessions. View our our PeeringDB database entry.
 

Interested in peering with AARNet?

If you have questions, need more information or would like to request peering, please contact our Network Operations Team.

  1. Contact us about peering with AARNet

Peering Policies

National Peering Policy

National Peering Policy

PDF (529 KB)

View online and download
International Peering Policy

International Peering Policy

PDF (574 KB)

View online and download