I've had some discussions with the board as well as with Jay and Jeremy on these topics. The board consensus was to bring this (in general) to the membership for more input.

As to the specifics, while I know others agree with at least parts of this, I'm only speaking for myself here. I'll let everyone articulate their own positions. (This disclaimer should not be read as me signaling the existance of disagreement either. I just don't want to put words in other people's mouths.)

Our current policy on remote switches is here: https://micemn.net/technical.html#remotes It has the proposal presented to the membership for discussion, then the board makes a final decision.

Is this decision ministerial or discretionary? That is, if the remote switch proposal checks all the boxes in our policy, is MICE "required" (supposed to) always grant it, or is the board supposed to apply some discretion?

If the decision is ministerial, then why bother bringing this to the board (or for that matter, the members) all? Couldn't we save a bunch of time and hassle and simply have management (in some form, whether that's me, Jay, and/or Jeremy) approve it?

If the decision is discretionary, are there particular criteria that the board should consider (above and beyond the listed criteria)?

One criteria used in a discussion I had (and I can't recall which of us said it first) is "MICE's strategic interests". What would that phrase mean to you; what are some strategic interests of MICE?

For a bit of an absurd example for the thought experiment, imagine that someone was proposing a MICE remote switch, but we knew their goal was to attract a bunch of members and then convert that into a competing exchange. Is that something we would have to agree to simply because they met all the objective criteria?

When we were new and little, MICE certainly had an interest in making every decision in a way that would maximize additional peering. However, at this point, the calculus may be (I'd argue is) different. We are moving a lot of traffic and are important to our members / in our region. We have to be careful that our decisions do not destabilize the exchange--in multiple ways: technical, financial, or political.

Either way, should we expand the list of objective criteria in the policy? Some examples:

• We have previously discussed dedicated vs non-dedicated switches. As time goes along, I am more convinced than ever that MICE remote switches should be required to be dedicated. Non-dedicated switches present extra complications for configuration and troubleshooting. (Jeremy has some additional insight on this that he will share.) I think we should make it a requirement that the switch be dedicated. (Perhaps the board could still grant an exception in exceptional cases.)
  
• Should we require that a remote switch have X number of participants committed? And if so, what is X? In my view, it hardly makes sense to have a remote switch one or two participants. They could just as well backhaul to MICE directly.

The criteria for allowing new remote switches vs disconnecting existing remotes need not be the same. If we set a minimum of e.g. 5 participants, we don't necessarily need to disconnect existing remotes that don't meet that. And I think the consensus is that we would not, barring them creating some significant problem.

How do we feel about far-away remote switches? (This is a live issue in the context of the proposed Kansas City remote.)

Some concerns:

• At Wiktel, I peer with MN VoIP's far away extensions in Minneapolis. For example, I peer at SeattleIX (SIX) in Minneapolis. This has caused me some issues. For example, latency-sensitive gaming traffic was tromboning Wiktel-Minneapolis-Seattle-Chicago-Seattle-Minneapolis-Wiktel rather than Wiktel-Chicago-Wiktel.
• Is it safe to have a broadcast domain that stretches across multiple states (or half a continent, in the SIX case)?
• If we take this to its logical extreme... Imagine we had a MICE extension in every datacenter in the U.S. I think that is pretty obviously untenable for a bunch of reasons. Something close to that is actually within the realm of possibility, with some of these virtual extension things that people are doing. (Reid would be able to cite who.) Granted, nobody is proposing that today, but where should we draw the line?
• Far-away extensions may reduce the incentive for CDNs to install locally.
  

Some counterpoints:

• Nobody is forcing networks to use the far-away remotes.
• If people choose to use them, they take their routing into their own hands. They need to understand the tromboning risk and set their own routing policy.
• Counter-counterpoint: Do they? Especially smaller / less experienced networks? Have we adequately warned them?
• Counter-counterpoint: The existence of these far-away peers doesn't affect just them. It also affects the other networks with which they peer. Everyone on the exchange needs to be aware of the existence of far-away participants and handle their routing policy accordingly. If there are enough far-away peers, this might tip networks into an opt-in route server policy, or even to only do bilaterals. This will disadvantage small participants.
  
• Networks can backhaul into far-away exchanges directly.
• Counter-counterpoint: But a remote switch makes this cheaper / more feasible / more common, which is literally the point of creating such a remote switch.
  
• For a local eyeball network in Des Moines, neither MICE nor Kansas City are far-away from me. Even MICE via Kansas City is not likely to be problematic. This might be the only economically feasible way they could peer with Minneapolis content.
  

--
Richard

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