BALT-IX: Baltnet Neutral Carrier Internet Exchange

BALT-IX's PEER service reduces IP Transit and network costs by aggregating all kinds of ISPs on a Layer 2 switching platform. By connecting networks on the most advanced industry platforms, the service enhances the speed and reliability of all kinds of IP products.

Benefits of Peering with BALT-IX

Enhanced end-user experience

Bandwidth requirements for services like video LIVE and VOD, gaming, cloud, or voice over IP grow continuously, and every millisecond, if not nanosecond, is important; peering provides for the lowest latency path and therefore greatly enhances the end-user Internet experience.

Increased revenues

Deciding for BALT-IX's services means making a safe investment with a reliable partner. Let us show you how to increase your revenues with peering. To take advantage of the BALT-IX PEER service, you need to have access to BALT-IX, and you need to have your own Autonomous System Number (ASN).

Reduced IP transit costs

The more networks you reach with one cross connect, the fewer cross connects you have to pay for. With just one cross connect to the BALT-IX platform you reach most of Lithuanian networks. Reaching a multitude of networks also reduces your IP transit costs.

Short routes to IP networks in the metro region

BALT-IX’s platforms are distributed platforms connecting multiple locations in Vilnius. Prime - Tier 3 Datacenter Liepkalnio st. 160C, Vilnius, others - Juozapavičiaus st. 13 Vilnius, Laisvės av. 60, Vilnius, Radastų st. 2, Kaunas and other locations.

No need to arrange individual peering arrangements

The connection to BALT-IX not only saves costs on cross connects, but it saves you a lot of time: you don’t have to arrange peering agreements for hundreds of networks by contacting them individually. The BALT-IX route servers give you instant access to about 80% of the connected networks.

Control over routing and IP traffic flow

Peering gives you the control over routing and your traffic flow. You can see how much traffic is flowing over your port and where it goes; you don’t have to struggle with overbooked IP transit routes.

Highly reliable connectivity

The standard service level guaranteed in our Service Level Agreements for availability of the BALT-IX PEER service is 99.98%; our platform has maintained 99.98% percent uptime since 2015.

Redundancy

If peering sessions fail, transit services provide backup connectivity to peer networks; if the transit connectivity fails, the peering connectivity is unaffected.

Increased network quality

Direct peering provides you with the lowest latency path to your target networks on an uncongested path; therefore, peering improves the quality of networks.

List of Members

ISP Name	AS Number	Policy	Speed	AS SET
Balnetos komunikacijos Customers	AS15440	Open	40G	AS-ML
Baltnetos komunikacijos DC	AS42549	Open	40G	AS-ML
CGates	AS21412	Open	20G	AS21412
5ci/Skynet	AS21211	Open	10G	AS-PENKI
Litnet	AS2847	Open	10G	AS-LITNET-PEER
Rackray	AS62282	Open	10G	AS-RACKRAY-DC
Init	AS24852	Open	10G	AS-VINITA
Bitė Lietuva	AS13194	Selected	40G	AS-BITE-LT
LRTC	AS15419	Open	20G	AS-TELECENTRAS
FASTLINK	AS43700	Open	10G	AS-FASTLINK-LT
KIS	AS25190	Open	10G	AS25190
CSC Telecom	AS34326	Open	10G	AS-CSC-LT
VPSNET	AS61053	Open	10G	AS61053
NTT	AS33922	Open	10G	AS-NTT-LT
Globalcom	AS42979	Open	1G	AS-GLOBALCOM_LV
Etanetas	AS39067	Open	10G	AS-ETANETAS
Zaibas	AS56847	Open	10G	AS56847
Micronet	AS49602	Open	10G	AS49602
Kvartalas	AS202085	Open	10G	AS202085
Progmera	AS202725	Open	10G	AS202725
Bitosis	AS44246	Open	10G	AS44246
Magnetukas	AS41228	Open	10G	AS41228
Infostruktūra	AS6769	Open	10G	AS-INFOSTRUKTURA
BlueBridge	AS42774	Open	10G	AS42774
Google Inc.	AS15169	Open	10G	AS-GOOGLE
Cloudflare	AS13335	Open	10G	AS-CLOUDFLARE
Hurricane Electric	AS6939	Open	10G	AS-HURRICANE
Parabole	AS20846	Open	10G	AS20846
Balticum	AS39007	Open	10G	AS39007
Hostline	AS198651	Open	10G	AS-HOSTLINE-LT
Tele2	AS1257	Open	20G	AS-TELE2-LT
VeriSign	AS26415	Open	1G	AS-GTLD
Lietuvos Bankas	AS35135	Open	1G	AS35135
Assesco Lietuva	AS42181	Open	1G	AS42181
LRT	AS209989	Open	40G	AS209989
Domreg	AS44358	Open	10G	AS44358
Verslo Tiltas	AS34120	Open	10G	AS34120
KLI	AS43627	Open	10G	AS43627
HostBaltic	AS133398	Open	10G	AS133398
Franmax	AS47929	Open	10G	AS47929
DELFI	AS210126	Open	10G	AS210126
BALTICOM	AS24651	Open	10G	AS-BALTICOM
MELBICOM	AS56630	Open	10G	AS-MELBICOM
IGNITIS	AS24607	Open	10G	AS24607
EKOFON	AS62179	Open	20G	AS62179
INFONET	AS8728	Open	10G	AS-INFONETDC
STV	AS61307	Open	10G	AS61307
FIORD	AS28917	Open	10G	AS-FIORD
DiPocket	AS212606	Selected	2G	AS212606
GCORE	AS199524	Open	10G	AS-GCORE
Subspace	AS32261	Open	10G	AS-SUBSPACE
Lietuvos Gelezinkeliai	AS50610	Open	10G	AS50610
Hostinger	AS47583	Selected	10G	AS-HOSTINGER

BALT-IX Route Servers

The Route Servers (RS) are used to simplify peering between BALT-IX participants and excludes the need to have a multiple BGP session with each other IX member. RS retransmits BGP announcements between the connected participants, thus peering with the RS means establishing peering relations with all other participants connected to that RS.

Once the BGP session is established, IP traffic will be exchanged transparently between pairs of neighbours on the peering LAN: the route-server IP address will never be shown as a next-hop address, nor the route-server ASN will appear in the as-path. Because no data is passing through the RS, therefore RS doesn't influence cross-network delays.

Note: RS doesn't insert its own ASN into the AS_PATH by default some routers might deny such updates, to solve this behaviour you should specify "no bgp enforce-first-as" (IOS/IOS-XE) or "bgp enforce-first-as disable" (IOS-XR).

Route Server Configuration Info

In BALT-IX the service is offered by means of two route-servers on the peering LAN. All the members should configure two peering sessions, in order to take advantage of the redundancy in case of an issue or maintenance. All RS are configured for both IPv4 and IPv6 peering.

Primary RS1-L160C: 77.241.206.1/24 or 2001:1ab8:8486::1/64
Secondary RS2-J13: 77.241.206.254/24 or 2001:1ab8:8486::254/64
ASN: AS8486
AS-SET: AS-BALT-IX and AS-BALT-IX-v6

RS is processing the BGP routes on the following rules:

RS does not accept default route
RS does not accept private AS
RS does not accept Martian’s prefixes (BOGONS VIA HTTP)
RS accepts the route if it has corresponding "route/route6" object that exists in IRR DB. Each member has its own list of prefixes that are considered valid for the BGP announcements, this list is obtained by querying IRR DB using ASN off the member or a given as-set.

Filters are updating automatically every night at 04:00.

Maximum number of announced prefixes

For those members who have a max-prefix limit configured on the peering sessions with the route-servers, these are the recommended minimum thresholds:

150k prefixes for IPv4 peering
75k prefixes for IPv6 peering

BGP Community Attributes

Each of route-server does not modify, process or remove communities received from customers except those communities which are processed by the route-servers themselves.

Communities affecting announces to other peers:

0:8486	Do not announce prefix to all peers
0:X	Do not announce prefix to peer ASX
8486:8486	Announce prefix to all peers
8486:X	Announce prefix to peer ASX only

If peer's AS is 32-bit then BGP extended community attribute should be used:

rt:0:X	Do not announce prefix to peer ASX
rt:8684:X	Announce prefix to peer ASX only

Well-known communities like no-export or no-advertise are also supported. If no communities are set, then received prefixes are advertised to all peers by default.

Following communities are also applied by RS:

[65000 + <R>]:[10000 + 1000 * <X> + <CC>] ~ Where (based on RFC4384):
<R>	is the 5-bit Region Identifier
<X>	is the 1-bit satellite link indication
	X = 1 for satellite links, 0 otherwise
<CC>	is the 10-bit ISO-3166-1 country code [ISO3166]
and <R> takes the values:
Africa (AF)	00001 (1)
Oceania (OC)	00010 (2)
Asia (AS)	00011 (3)
Antarctica (AQ)	00100 (4)
Europe (EU)	00101 (5)
Latin America/Caribbean Islands (LAC)	00110 (6)
North America (NA)	00111 (7)

Examples:

65000:10000	Tier 1 and Tier 2 ISPs
65005:10233	Estonia
65005:10428	Latvia
65005:10440	Lithuania

Note: Communities are set to all prefixes received from BGP peer, based on peer AS country code:
whois -h whois.cymru.com " -v PeerAS"
With some exceptions like Tier1 and Tier2 ISPs, and some others.