Abstract

Abstract: Over the past decade, Internet eXchange Points (IXPs) have been playing a key role in enabling interdomain connectivity by providing a shared fabric where Autonomous Systems (ASes) typically peer. While the relevance of IXPs is undeniable, their contribution to the shaping of the current Internet is not fully understood yet. Using historical IXP membership and traceroute data (2008-2016), we show that the impact of IXPs on path-length is limited. Surprisingly, Internet path-lengths have globally barely decreased over the last decade, regardless of whether they cross IXPs or not. Instead of a “path-shortening”, we observe a diversion of the routes away from the central Tier-1 ASes, supported by IXPs. This diversion has however not fundamentally changed the existence of a hierarchy, but rather replaced the central Tier-1s with a new set of players.

Bio: Ignacio Castro is a postdoctoral research associate at Queen Mary University of London where he holds an EPSRC grant (researcher Co-I for the £2.4M EARL project). He obtained his PhD while researching at the Institute IMDEA Networks (Dr. Sergey Gorinsky), and visiting the International Computer Science Institute at Berkeley (Prof. Scott Shenker). His research combines networked systems and economics with an special focus on interdomain network interconnections and the macroscopic evolution of the Internet (e.g., IEEE /ACM ToN, IEEE JSAC , WWW, ACM CoNEXT). He is also actively involved in conference organization (e.g., ACM IMC treasurer and social chair, ACM SIGCOMM Publicity chair) and obtaining and managing large research grants (e.g., EPSRC , H2020).