Remember that moment when the internet felt truly Russian? That experience is closely tied to the MSK-IX. It stands as Moscow’s pivotal Internet Exchange Point.
MSK-IX was founded in 1995. Six Russian ISPs aimed to cut IP-traffic latency. They also wanted to lower international backhaul costs. The Russian Institute for Public Networks became the administrator. It defined connection requirements. The first MSK-IX Point of Presence opened at the M9 facility. It was located on Butlerova Street.
In 2001, MSK-IX gained autonomy. A year later, it entered Euro-IX. This is an international association of IXPs. Rostelecom acquired the majority of MSK-IX stock in 2015.
MSK-IX facilitates direct access. This access is to the Russian internet audience. It enables access to content and services. Direct connections are available in ten Russian cities. They are also available in any city through partners. Its multi-level dual-core architecture ensures quality backup.
MSK-IX isn’t just in Moscow. It operates Internet Exchanges in nine cities. These include St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don and Stavropol. Samara, Kazan, Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Vladivostok are also included. It also has an access point in Riga, Latvia.
MSK-IX operates a distributed DNS platform. This provides authoritative name servers. These servers are for the country-code top-level domains. They serve .RU and .РФ for Russia. It also runs alternative DNS root servers. These are for the Russian National Domain Name System. This was done for Roskomnadzor.
MSK-IX uses an Ethernet-based switching platform. It spans 38 Points of Presence across ten cities. Moscow’s Dual Core topology was introduced in 2015. This boosted MSK-IX’s total capacity to 8 Tbps.
Each MSK-IX public peering VLAN offers a dedicated space. It supports private VLANs. MSK-IX and partner ISPs provide inter-city connections. Common interface speeds include 1, 10 and 100G. Route-servers manage routing policy. They enable DDoS blackholing through BGP communities.
MSK-IX also supports telecoms. It aids scaling up content delivery networks. It ensures utmost network accessibility for service platforms. It distributes networks for content delivery to regions. Content providers gain direct access. They find a secure data transfer environment. Content access speed is increased.
The MSK-IX DNS Cloud spans seven federal districts of Russia. It reaches Europe and the Americas. It provides authoritative name servers for Russian domains. These domains include .RU, .РФ, .ДЕТИ, .TATAR and .SU.
With over 549 connected networks, MSK-IX stands tall. Its peak traffic hit 3.37 Tbps in November 2019. It ranks among the world’s largest IXPs. MSK-IX is Russia’s largest IXP. It ranks 17th globally by member count.
MSK-IX actively supports the telecom community. It regularly hosts and organizes events. Its Peering Forum gathers telecom professionals. The focus includes network operations, security and peering.