Internet Peering
Redundant Internet peering between POP and Internet provider need to be implemented with BGP failover - that offer failover in both directions - incoming and outgoing using the same IP addressing.
Digital Reality - NYC
Equinix AMS
Global Switch SYD
Inmarsat is having their MMP and equipment inside Hudson 60 in New York at Digital Ocean former Telecity. This is one of the most expensive hosting locations so rack and Internet peering is expensive.
Other Internet providers in Hudson 60 can provide Inmarsat peering for lower price like Epsilon or similar.
In Amsterdam is Inmarsat located in the old Telecity now Equinix – hosting space is very expensive – but can be in any of the Equinix locations on the AMS ring. Possible get hosting at provider having Equinix peering to get cheaper Inetrnet access – Get price on fiber cable between providers especially with high bandwidth requirements.
Global switch are now owned by Chinese owners – This is the main location for Inmarsat in Australia.
Again here is rackspace as well as Internet access expensive – for smaller access requirement fine but with high bandwidth requirement is it cheaper getting a fiber peering from other provider that already are on the location.
Find peering partner
A possibility to get hosting and Internet access is to use the same company as Inmarsat, but these companies have typically been sold many times and is today owned by the biggest hosting providers in the world and the associated prices are very high – especially for small setup like a satellite operator POP.
Finding alternatives that have the needed peering in place for establishing a redundant GRE tunnel use:
Like locating peering partners with Global Switch in Sydney: https://www.peeringdb.com/fac/196
Contact these providers to get offers and make sure to make negotiation with them as they all start high.
Providers that don’t peer can normally easily facilitate if they are in the same buildings.
Network IP addresses versus Customer IP’s
Configuring Internet access can IP addresses be aquired through Internet peering partners – this is typically optimal when having relative little number of IP addresses to be used – when running many services that need static IP’s or real routable IP’s then is it often cheaper to get a RIPE, ARIN license or similar – but with that come administration. For equipment IP addresses do we recommend seperate IP addresses that isn’t in the same range as the IP addresses used by customers.
Seperate Power to each equipment / Internet
The redundant Internet setup need to be running on completly seperated power sources to ensure that possible power outage are limited to a single spart of the equipment.
IP / Pool Management
IP addresses and ranges can be loaded easily into the IPAM management interface, assigning dedicated names to groups, assigning IP ranges to certain customers, to certain traffic, to certain satellite terminals etc.
IPAM server will allow IP information to be added and displayed in a way that make it easy to manage.
IPAM handler can as well capture IP details that get delivered from remote satellite networks like Iridium Certus under activation.
Highly Secure Environments – ISO27001 and SOC I + II
All hosting environments are full filling the highest standards for security on the market – having ISO 27001 grade environments that also full fill SOC I + II stanbdard.
All installed equipment are periodically tested and scanned for security levels and are today delivering data for spy satellites that demand very high degree of security.
All our staff are periodically getting security certified through Comptia, and all POP connected manintenance are having strict procedures.
BGP failover on Internet connectivity
Configuring a redundant link to the Internet improve connectivity and reduce outages – this is essential when providing satellite services and is a requirement from Inmarsat. Here is how to use Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to facilitate redundancy.
With the proliferation of VPNs, high profile customers and a multitude of other crucial Internet applications, access to the Internet has become mission critical for many organizations, and Internet connection redundancy is vital to ensuring the availability of these applications. Assisting in the justification for Internet connection redundancy is the decreasing cost of corporate Internet access.
BGP is one of the key tools for achieving Internet connection redundancy. When you connect your location to two different Internet service providers, it is called multihoming. When you multihome your network to two different ISPs, BGP runs on your Internet router(s) and provides redundancy and network optimization by selecting which ISP offers the best path to a resource. We are using BGP both incoming and outgoing to ensure always connected setup.
How to make BGP work in POP
BGP is a path-vector routing protocol. Just as Routing Information Protocol (RIP) selects the best route based on hop count, BGP selects the best path based on the shortest Autonomous System (AS) path. BGP routing domains are identified by an autonomous system number (ASN). ASNs are regulated by the same entity that regulates IP addresses, the ARIN as sample American Registry for Internet Numbers.
Once you understand the basics of BGP and its terminology, the configuration required to multihome your network to the Internet is fairly straightforward. Let’s assume that you already have your primary Internet connection up and running. The general steps for implementing BPG multihoming are:
Obtain your ASN from ARIN if you want to handle own IP’s.
Identify your network block of IP addresses. If you own these, then you have the right to advertise them on the Internet through BGP. If you are borrowing these from your provider, then you must ask your provider for permission before advertising them through another provider.
If you have a single provider, you are typically using a static route to connect to that provider. That provider is not sending you any BGP routes. Assuming that is true, you will have to request that your provider send you BGP routes. (Your provider will need to know your ASN and your remote router’s neighbor address. The neighbor is the IP address that your BGP process uses to communicate with.) Once you have the provider’s BGP routes in your routing table and you are advertising your network to your provider through BGP, you can remove your static route and have your provider remove their static route.
Next, assuming that you are multihoming on a single router, bring up your secondary provider. They can set it up so that they send you BGP routes. Again, they will need to know your ASN and your neighbor address.
Within the BGP table (database) on your router, you will see the routes from each of your providers. The best route in BGP is the route with the shortest AS path. (If the AS paths are identical, there is a tiebreaking procedure, but this is normally not the case.) The route that has the shortest AS path will be placed in your router’s routing table.
If you lose the connection to one of your Internet service providers, BGP’s keep alive packets will time out, and that BGP neighbor (from that ISP) will become down. Those routes will be removed from the BGP table, and thus, from your router’s routing table. Then, with only one set of routes in your BGP table, that provider’s routes (the secondary/redundant provider) are marked as “best” and placed in your routing table.
Normally, there will be some paths from one provider that are shorter than the other ISP, and vice versa. So your traffic will be distributed to the provider with the best AS path for whatever networks are advertised. However, if you are sending more traffic to a certain network (through one provider) than your link to that provider can handle, the extra traffic will not be distributed onto your second link. Using BGP metrics, you can attempt to do different forms of load distribution, but there is no real form of BGP load balancing.