NWAX offers Peering and Private VLAN connections between members. The purpose of this page is to help you decide which service(s) make sense for you. The profiles page provides several illustrations.

Both Peering and Private VLAN service require at least one port in order to connect to the switch but you may not have both connection types on the same port: a port used for Peering cannot be used for Private VLANs although you can have multiple Private VLANs on the same Private VLAN port.

Peering uses a single “public” VLAN for all the peers so that all the peering members many connect to one another. Peering members must possess their own Autonomous System (AS) number issued by the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) and peer using Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Peering is a voluntary bi-lateral arrangement so there is no guarantee that other members will peer with you although most of our peering members seem happy to peer with most other peers on the exchange. You may also have a transit relationship (buy or sell Internet transit) with another peering member. See the NWAX member list for members with the “gray dot” to see who is available to peer with now on the exchange. The NWAX Service Options page provides an outline and table with the costs for each option. Peering with a Fast Ethernet (FE) port is $100 per month for the port and $195 per month for Peering ($295 per month total for FE, $395 per month for Gigabit and $195 per month for 10 mbps peering).

A Private VLAN, on the other hand allows you to have a “private” connection to any other member who similarly has a private VLAN connection to you. See the NWAX member list for members with the “orange dot” to see which networks currently use Private VLAN connections on the exchange. Note also that transit providers (ISPs), indicated with a purple dot would use a Private VLAN (and require a Private VLAN port) to provide Internet service (transit) to a Private VLAN customer. Each Private VLAN is charged separately. Therefore if you need two 10 MBPS Private VLANs to two business partners on the exchange, the charge would be $100 per month for a FE port and $50 per month for each VLAN ($100 total), although there is only one charge for the VLAN rather than a charge for each end. The total monthly cost of this, assuming your partners do not pay for the VLANs (which is an option) is $200 per month.

Private VLANs are generally the least expensive service to connect to just one or two partners at 10 MBPS (our minimum service), but if you need to connect to multiple NWAX peers, then Peering may be least expensive. Note that buying transit from an NWAX peer is the cheapest and simplest way to gain benefits from peering because you benefit as a customer from your ISP’s peering relationships. Suppose you want transit using a 10 MBPS Private VLAN from your ISP and a private VLAN to another partner for offsite storage and backup. You could get the same two VLANs outlined above; one to the ISP and one to the storage network and automatically benefit from your ISP’s peering relationships for the same $200 per month. (Costs for hosting, local data center cross connects and other charges and service provider charges for transit or other services additional. All charges summarized here are strictly those for using the exchange.)

Private VLANs are also simpler from a technical perspective. While peering requires a router running BGP and an autonomous system, a private VLAN connection does not require BGP, an autonomous system or your own IP address space. It does require, however a switch or router capable of supporting tagged VLANs (IEEE Standard 802.1q).

The following summarizes the above decision logic:

	Peering	Private VLAN
Peer with NWAX Members	Yes	No
Connect to NWAX Peer	Yes	Yes, if peer also uses private VLAN port
Connect to Non Peer	No	Yes
“Private,” metered VLAN	No	Yes
Do not have AS or own IP address allocation	No	Yes