The London Internet Exchange (LINX) launched LINX Scotland nearly 10 years ago to help enhance the UK’s internet infrastructure with the aim of keeping traffic local.
2022 was a record year for LINX Scotland, as traffic went from 1.5Gbps on average to just falling shy of 6Gbps during the World Cup. This year so far, there have been regular new peaks of 7, 8, and even over 11Gbps. The exchange also became 100G enabled following member demand for upgrades.
Read our latest technical blog from LINX Senior Network Engineer, Joe Jefford as he explains the recent work carried out in Scotland.
Project Overview
We have recently completed the hardware refresh of the entire LINX Scotland network, upgrading from legacy vendor hardware to our disaggregated solution with Edgecore Networks and IP Infusion.
This refresh brings LINX Scotland in line with our other UK interconnection sites, LON2 in London and LINX Manchester.
Using the tried and tested Edgecore/IP Infusion solution brings many benefits to LINX Scotland. The LAN is now under the full LINX automation and standardising operations across the LANs, which wasn’t possible on the old hardware. The upgrades also increase 100G port availability on the network making room for further growth.
Install and Migration
As always, the plans for this migration started some time ago with audits of the existing network and racks at each data centre to confirm space and power requirements in order to dual-build the new network. This process highlighted some areas we could improve further in Scotland, like new power and structured cabling. A plan was then drawn up for the installs.
The kit install was relatively straight forward, installing and bringing live the new set up alongside the existing equipment. Due the number of members on LINX Scotland peering LAN we decided to do the migrations without an NNI (network to network interface). This saved us on additional maintenance before bringing the refreshed network live and made the migration process slightly simpler.
We had one maintenance session planned ahead of the work to change the optics in the ISL so they were suitable for the new design. We did this ahead of time on the existing network to minimise changes and therefore risk on the member maintenance.
Once the network was built and configured, we tested it as per our usual RFS (Ready for Service) process and the network was ready to go.
Prior to the maintenance itself we pre-run all new member patching from the new edge devices to their PPs ready to be swapped on the night.
Apart from being slightly hampered by an engineer falling ill and having to draft in a last minute replacement, the maintenance went without any issues, with all members being successfully migrated in one maintenance window.
Network Diagram
The new LINX Scotland network is set up as per the below diagram. We now also have the option to install a 100G capable edge in DataVita (DVG) with ease, should demand arise.
We are a London based internet exchange company. For over 20 years, LINX has helped many organisations through our peering services. Contact us now.
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