Tanzia_Hewer

Check out those big smiles! Maybe it’s because they were in SUVA. Last year in October, Chris and Dave attended a UN meeting at the United Nations’ office as part of a task force that is heading up a new IXP in the Pacific.

The Pacific IXP project is a new initiative that will form a multi-country IXP in the South Pacific region – built to Fiji, Samoa and New Zealand. In future, nine other countries can connect and will have better access to content within the region.

So far a task force has been formed, comprising UN ESCAP, Paul Brooks, Elly from APNIC, NZIX (Chris and Dave), representatives from the Samoan Government and SAM-IX and representatives from the Fijian Government and Telecommunications authority. They are hoping to create an organisation that owns the hardware and operates independently, but is run by a committee. Initial surveys with the countries that we’re targeting are on-going. So far, the responses are positive and it shows that there is interest from local ISPs in those countries to connect to the Pacific IXP.

NZIX is assisting in this project in a number of ways. Our Committee can offer valuable expertise in running IXPs and assistance in managing existing relationships with many content and cloud providers. There is also potential to provide pseudo-wires or similar to build the network.

For more information, you can watch an update that Chris provided at NZNOG here, and also Dave’s lightning talk from APRICOT, which you can watch here.

Stay connected with us on social media and keep an eye out for our future newsletters for updates on this great project.

Late last year we gave members the opportunity to pre-order ports at our new PoP in Auckland – Datacom Orbit Drive, followed by a happy announcement that services were up and running in late January. Datacom joins the network as part of a planned series of upgrades to our Auckland ring (project AKL_EX22) as traffic continues to grow and the demand for capacity grows along with it! Contractors delivered 1 x 96F MTP structured cabling to both telco rooms 1 and 2 with new dark fibre paths entering the data centre form separate entries and telco rooms, increasing diversity. With a current average daily peak of 370Gbps, AKL-IX is our largest IX and is set to get even bigger.

The new MDR <> Datacentre220 path was installed December 2022 and has been pushing traffic since. Our path between these sites is a diverse 2x100G path for a total of 400G of point-to-point capacity!

The goal of the AKL_EX22 project is to deliver a 400G redundant and diverse ring network with a path forward to the 400G Switch + 800G/1.2T ring into the future. Our DWDM 400G Muxponder has arrived, but unfortunately we’ve been hit with massive delays on the east and west dark fibre paths, that are being supplied by Vodafone. We had hoped they would arrive in December!

The East path has been partially delivered to us at the end of March 2023 and work is underway to get cross connects done, testing the line with ODTR then installing our DWDM hardware to bring the link up. The west path delivery is expected to take longer with works required in the middle of the highway and on top of this we are being asked by our DC provider, Spark, to relocate racks at MDR! An IAA engineer may be shipped over to NZ to get these big changes done.

Another fantastic NZNOG took place in Rotorua late last month! As proud Gold Sponsors, we had a stand again this year, and used the opportunity to catch up with as many members as possible. We also ran bingo, which was a bit of fun, and we’d like to thank NZNOG for their support of the game, and thank our wonderful Committee members, Dave Mill and Matthew Enger for organising it.

In the conference itself NZIX Committee member, Simon Allard in his capacity as Head of Technology Architecture at 2degrees, gave a fascinating talk about the impacts and learnings from Cyclone Gabyfor both the Vocus and 2degrees networks. Rene, from FlexOptix, gave both a terrifying but heart-warming talk on the Keep Ukraine Connected project, and our own Matt K gave a bit of an update on ‘all things tech’ on NZIX’s 3 exchanges.

There were many “angry Australian” visitors from across the ditch. One of whom gave a fantastic network update and informative lighting talk – thank you, Matt K! If you missed Matt’s presentations, you can catch up on YouTube. You may also have met Jemma at our booth, who joins us as a welcome addition to the NZIX team, taking care of our accounts, working closely with Tanzia, our Executive Officer.

We had some great merch items up for grabs this year from carabiners (they also serve as a bottle opener – you’re welcome!) to Pacman themed mouse mats, beer glasses and sour grape lollies. We hope you all managed to find something to tempt you.

As part of our network expansion plans in Auckland, our new Point of Presence (PoP), Datacom Orbit Drive, is now at the stage of taking pre-orders and is expected to go-live late in January 2023.

Members can now pre-order 10G/40G/100G ports at this new location via the Member Portal. Once the site is fully operational, we will email members who have placed pre-orders to let them know we are up and running.

If you have any queries regarding the new PoP, please get in touch with us at peering@ix.nz

In preparation for the end of the year, we would like to inform members of our embargo period: Friday, 23 December 2022 – Sunday, 8 January 2023 (inclusive). During this period, we will not be provisioning any new services or changing existing services. Rest assured, support staff will be on call if any urgent issues or network emergencies arise. If you have any orders or change requests, please submit them by Friday, 9 December 2022. 

We’re thrilled that Simon will be continuing his service to NZIX by serving on the Committee for another four-year term. Simon joined NZIX in 2018 as he works for a large telco that heavily relies on peering. He says, “peering in New Zealand is a big part of the New Zealand Internet, and it’s important that it’s well managed with strong governance.”  

Currently working as the Head of Technology Architecture for 2Degrees, Simon began working in the Internet industry when he was 17. For Simon, it was new and exciting, and he knew that it was going to become a big part of our lives. His first job was on an Internet helpdesk at iHug when the Internet cost was $10 per Mbyte – YIKES! He quickly moved into Programming and Networking, where he remained for ten years. Since then, he’s worked at Maxnet/Vodafone and then settled in at Orcon. Orcon became Callplus, which then became Vocus, and Vocus is now becoming 2Degrees.  

All work aside, Simon is happily married to his wife, Kylie, and has three young children (Lockie 9, Isabel 6 and Nico 2). In his spare time, Simon volunteers for the New Zealand Coastguard and has been part of it for 10+ years. He is now a skipper of a Quick Rescue Vessel (QRV) and says, “bringing people home to their loved ones in some challenging situations is very fulfilling!”.   

We’re excited to introduce our new Committee Member, Jocelyn Bateman! Jocelyn will be serving on the Committee for the next four years, and we are very happy that she has come onboard. Joining NZIX in 2020 as part of the AWS Edge PoP build in Auckland, she subsequently decided that she would like to become a Committee Member and work more with NZ carriers/peers and would also like to help attract more content into NZ. 

With a background in network engineering and educational qualifications in Engineering, Business and CCIE, Jocelyn has worked for several Australian carriers. Her career began when she worked in the Telstra International Cable Station/Exchange in Sydney – the only cable on the east coast back then! The team configured Frame Relay between AU-US. The Internet came about within her first year of working, and she tells us that it’s been too interesting not to stay connected (pun intended!).  

Currently working in the Global Interconnection Strategy Team, she is responsible for the strategy for the connectivity between AWS and the rest of the Internet for Oceania. The role is technical, commercial, legal, and project-based and includes a lot of negotiation. She says she is lucky to have an amazing team and that she really enjoys working for AWS. 

All work talk aside, Jocelyn grew up on a dairy farm in NSW before moving to Sydney to study and work. One of her favourite things to do is mowing the lawn, as she likes most outdoor work. She also enjoys spending time with her family and walking her dog.  

Another great AGM done and dusted! Thank you to all who came and the Committee and staff who helped make the meeting happen. We sent out a post-event survey that returned some overwhelmingly positive feedback. Thank you to those who completed the survey; your feedback is valuable and always welcome. For those who were unable to attend, if you would like to see the AGM slides, they are available for download.  

Held at The Longroom in Ponsonby, Auckland, the meeting kicked off with the usual meeting open and a report from the Chair. Chris gave us a great overview of each IX, the Committee, and its plans in general. Dave followed on and gave us the Treasure’s Report, we won’t rehash the details here, but he gave us a nice summary of FY21/22 and an excellent breakdown of expenditure (past and future). You can access the financial report anytime on our website if you’re interested. Tom delivered the Secretary’s Report, and for those who know Tom you would know that he resides in the US and managed to make it over to deliver the Report IN PERSON! It was great to catch up with him again over a beverage rather than a laptop screen. He reported that we have seen a growth rate of 88.5% since 2018 and 2.08% since 2021, and continued to talk about our policies, the Incorporated Societies Act 2022 and our Service Agreement with IAA. Followed by another international traveller, Aaron Chidiac, delivered the Technical Report, giving us a detailed overview of network traffic and future plans.  

The evening quickly moved into the Committee Election, and it was announced that we had four nominees: Greg Wills (NOW NZ LTD), Jocelyn Bateman (Amazon), Liam Farr (ISP Limited) and Simon Allard (2degrees). The votes were very close, with Jocelyn Bateman being newly elected and Simon Allard being re-elected. We’re so happy to have Simon returning and Jocelyn joining us! Thank you to all who submitted nominations and nominees who were not elected this time; we appreciate the community support and wish you all the best.  

The meeting closed soon after, with Chris delivering other business and closing the meeting. There were a few questions during the open discussion on the IX, and the evening ended with some much needed in-person socialising! 
 

Vocus has been in contact and has requested that we move racks! This will take place as soon as the new rack is delivered and our MTP structured cabling + dual-power is ready for use. At this site, we initially deployed hardware in the shared community rack, but as we grew and the site evolved, we moved our 100G hardware to a dedicated half rack which has continued to be our main presence since. However, there are still a few customers in the shared rack hanging off a legacy 48x 10G port device.  

A simple three-step process is underway to migrate everything: 

Step one 
Migrate any core links out of the shared rack to go via our existing MTP structured cabling from the OFDF directly to our current dedicated rack. For us, this work was completed on Monday, 29 August 2022 (https://status.ix.nz/incidents/2hdzwm79xqr1) and went well as expected with no issues.  

Step two 
Complete an audit of each existing customer in the shared rack and determine if we can migrate them to go via the existing structured cabling system. This is currently underway by the DC, and once verified, individual members will be notified of an estimated 10min outage of their 10G port as we migrate it to our dedicated rack into our 100G switch. Once completed, this will allow us to vacate the shared rack and decommission legacy hardware – WOOHOO!  

Step three 
This step is pending rack readiness which is expected to be around mid-October, and involves migrating all customers to the new rack in one fell swoop! All affected members will receive an outage notice two weeks prior to the commencement of work including details of what to expect as works are completed. Spare hardware is ready for this so that it will be a simple config clone, shut down the existing device, re-patch the MPO connector ends of the structured cabling at the OFDF to our new MTP cables toward the new rack, and just like magic, it will all come back up! 

It’s a simple process, but you must expect the unexpected. Rest assured, this is being planned meticulously to account for the unforeseen, and we will have techs onsite to resolve any immediate issues in addition to a large outage window to give the slack needed to do it right the first time!