We have successfully completed EVPN rollout at our locations where we run the DE-CIX Apollon platform (all locations except India). DE-CIX is the first Internet Exchange operator using EVPN and its associated Proxy ARP/NDP function. This solution removes unnecessary network “noise” which can cause issues on customer routers.
Network upgrade during ongoing operations
Work on the migration started in early November with the upgrade at the Phoenix (Arizona) and Frankfurt sites and was completed last night with the migration of the last private closed user groups operating on the platform. To ensure seamless implementation, the DE-CIX team mapped the entire peering LAN of all DE-CIX Internet Exchanges virtually in software, and used this virtualized environment for testing purposes. This enabled the testing for any impacts of the reconfiguration, without interfering with ongoing operations. The migrations took place within nightly maintenance windows during otherwise normal operation.
During the same timeframe we also upgraded GlobePEER route service. This included upgrading to the current major release of the open-source routing software BIRD and completely redesigning the configuration to increase scalability.
More robust and safer peering LANs
This upgrade will make our peering LANs even more robust and safer for our customers. Thank you to the team for making this happen!
The customer feedback tells us that CPU usage on their routers connected to DE-CIX has dropped by as much as 25% due to the elimination of ARP/NDP noise – an impressive increase in efficiency.