Status

The the improved availability of Internet bandwidth in Grahamstown and the shift from dial-up & leased-line customers to ADSL customers, has meant that traffic volumes through the exchange have decreased in recent years.

At present, the main users of GINX are Rhodes University, South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, and Albany Schools Network. Each of these is independently eligible for connection to the forthcoming SANReN point-of-presence in the Grahamstown and will thus peer through SANReN's PoP.

At the same time GINX's infrastructure is ageing, has reached the point where it no longer supports modern standards, and needs to be replaced. Together these two developments means that there is no longer economic sense in maintaining an independent Internet exchange point.

As such, notice is hereby given that Rhodes University will cease all support and maintenance of GINX, and will recover its equipment (thus effectively dissolving the exchange) once SANReN establishes its PoP in Grahamstown. This is expected to occur during the first half of 2012.

In the interim, Rhodes University will continue to support the existing equipment and peers provided that this does not incur any further expenditure. Although past and existing peers are welcome to make changes to their peering, no new peers will be accepted by the exchange.

South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity is now peering at GINX as AS 65007.

South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity announced their intention to peer.

Rhodes University has split their network into two independent parts, each with their own routing policy. As a result they're announcing routes under a second AS, 65008. AS 65001 carries Rhodes' main campus network, whilst AS 65008 carries commodity traffic for some third parties (schools, visitors to the University, etc).

GINX's switching fabric was upgraded to support GigE connections. It's now a Dell PowerConnect 6224.

Rhodes University is currently operating a second, independent network on behalf of the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity as AS 65007. This is part of a network migration strategy and it is intended that SAIAB peer in their own right in due course

IT Solutions is now peering at GINX as AS 65006.

IT Solutions announced their intention to peer.

GeeNet has merged with Oracle Consulting to become Oracle Information Technology Services. Peering details remain unchanged.

GINX's interconnect switch was replaced this morning with one that's capable of supporting 100Mbps links (rather than the 10Mbps previously). This will benefit those peers who are capable of peering at speeds greater than 10Mbps.

The Grahamstown Foundation is now peering at GINX.

As of roughly 1pm today Imaginet is fully connected to GINX and exchanging traffic with the existing peering partners.

After what seems like a phenomenally long wait, GINX now supports its first two peers. Albany Schools and Rhodes University started exchanging packets via GINX's switching infrastructure during the course of yesterday afternoon. Statistics on these links are available from this morning.

A mailing list, ginx-l@ginx.org.za, was set up to handle communication between members of the GINX advisory committee. Imaginet Internet Services announced their intention to peer.

Our router finally arrived from Business Connexion today. Once we've sorted out the IOS feature set on it, we'll be able to start configuring it. Cabling into GINX's rack space at Rhodes will commence tomorrow.

GeeNet announced their intention to peer.

We have a Cisco 2621XM router on order, courtesy of the Centre of Excellence. This will form the route server for GINX. A Cisco Catalyst 1900 switch is also available to provide cross-connect connectivity. Although this is a 10Mbps switch, its switching fabric should be more than sufficient for the initial stages of the project.

Once the router is delivered, the plan is to set up connectivity between Rhodes and those sites that already have connectivity to Struben building (Grahamstown Foundation and Albany Schools). After this is completed successfully, we'll get the other participants on board.

Telkom made some changes to Rhodes's border router, freeing up the upper half of their class C network. This network (192.42.99.128/25) will be used for cross-connects, providing globally routable addresses with valid reverse DNS.

Registered the ginx.org.za domain, which will host this web site and be used in DNS entries for the project. Thanks to Rhodes for footing the bill and Albany Schools for providing a secondary.

A couple of people have asked how they should be pronouncing "GINX". The G in GINX is hard (as in the gecko we've chosen as a logo). This is to diferentiate it from the soft G/J sound that appears in JINX, the Johannesburg Internet Exchange.

GINX is currently little more than an idea. A few people have already expressed interest in taking the idea further, and it is hoped that this will happen in the not-to-distant future.

The initial plan is to implement peering between those networks that already have connectivity to Struben Building and then, once that is done and any bugs in the design are worked out, to bring new participants on board.

Comments and feedback (particularly on the proposed peering policy) are welcomed, and should be directed to info at ginx.org.za.