Service Providers (SPs) are looking for ways to reduce the costs associated with providing internet services. Chief among the costs is the transit cost, the cost of getting traffic to the networks that make up the internet. Establishing “Peering” is one of the most effective methods of reducing transit costs for Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Peering decreases the cost and reliance on purchased internet transit.
An ISP Peering Coordinator’s job is to establish and effectively manage this interconnection between ISPs. Goals include maximizing efficiency and minimizing the costs of interconnections. To achieve such aim, it requires a BGP routing correlated traffic visibility. Getting insights of how the traffic is entering and leaving an ISP’s network is important for the Peering Coordinator to monitor, build, and optimize their peering relationships with others.
GenieATM receives not only Flow packets but also BGP messages. By associating the BGP information with flow data, GenieATM provides traffic analysis with the knowledge of Origin AS, Peer AS, BGP communities, AS Path Length, etc. in its reports. Providing this BGP-aware intelligent visibility, GenieATM enables decision-making support on optimizing the traffic routing policies hence achieving the most cost-effective peering/ transit relationships. BGP intelligence is embedded in the system pre-defined reports including Internet, Neighbor, Router, and all sub-network pre-defined reports provide detailed analysis in terms of Origin ASN, Peer ASN, AS Path Length, Neighbor, BGP Message, and BGP Next Hop.
A unique Peering Analysis pre-defined report provides Top-N incoming and outgoing traffic statistics between the SP’s network and each other AS. The incoming and outgoing traffic statistics is further broken down by what so-called “To/From” traffic and “Through” traffics. The “To/From” traffic represents the traffic originated from or destined to the ASN; while the “Through” traffic represents the traffic transited through the ASN and originated from or destined to other ASNs. This is an effective tool for peering relationship evaluation and management.
