[PDB Tech] RIPE NCC IXP Tools Hackathon: Pinder

[Matt Griswold]

Top posting since I just skimmed it (but had already looked at your
slide deck from the RIPE emails) and am not addressing specific
points... yet :)

Nice work - I think it's a good idea and would belong in PeeringDB.
I've brought it up internally for board discussion and we will update
the list after further discussion.

* Matthew Walster <matthew at walster.org> [161101 16:39 +0000]:
> Hey all,
> 
> The weekend before RIPE73, RIPE NCC held an IXP Tools Hackathon, and
>   an idea we came up with was a system to facilitate peering.
> 
> It's not a matchmaking service -- you don't get suggested possible
>   peers, you don't submit any sensitive data -- it just facilitates
>   peering.
> 
> I'm sure you've all received emails from other networks... Perhaps it
>   came from a @gmail.com address, perhaps it just had their IP
>   address at an exchange without telling you which exchange it came
>   from, perhaps this peer is only responsible for a couple of
>   Megabits per second of traffic and the effort required to setup
>   this peer is disproportional to the benefit your network would gain
>   from it.
> 
> That's why Pinder came around -- Tinder for Peering.
> 
> The idea is that if there is a desired peering relationship between
>   two networks, and you're happy to just configure some sessions
>   rather than enter into a commercial agreement, Pinder would be the
>   middle man. You would submit the request via either a basic Web UI
>   or an API, the other network would either be notified or
>   periodically check their outstanding requests, and if they are
>   willing to peer, both sides are told to configure a session. Once
>   both sides indicates sessions are configured and established, the
>   request is then deleted (rather than persisting in a database) so
>   as to prevent any data security issues in the future.
> 
> We knocked up a brief slide deck to explain a little better:
> http://accel.waffle.sexy/pinder.pdf
> 
> Our example code is at: http://github.com/dotwaffle/pinder
> 
> A brief description of the project is at: http://peer.sexy
> 
> I would love it if this could be integrated (probably with entirely
>   new code) into PeeringDB, taking advantage of almost all networks
>   having valid accounts and fairly accurate data on which exchanges
>   they are at.
> 
> Is this something the PeeringDB board would consider? Is this
>   something networks are interested in seeing from PeeringDB?
>   Certainly on the of the other Hackathon teams (the peerme team,
>   partly from Facebook, who I know have just subscribed to this list
>   to hear this discussion) are interested in integrating with it as
>   soon as possible, rather than providing yet another one-sided crazy
>   web form that prospective peers have to fill out.
> 
> Here's some discussion points I thought of:
> 
> 1. Does PeeringDB want to be that facilitator? Does it want to be a
>   third party service?
> 
> 2. If so, how is authentication/authorisation performed?
> 
> 3. Also, if it isn't a function provided by PeeringDB, do we want a
>   new field in the ASN record that has an endpoint for a particular
>   protocol (preferably via https rather than on raw TCP) so people
>   can design their own tools against it and the communication becomes
>   decentralised?
> 
> 4. If it is taken on by PeeringDB, how much metadata wants attaching
>   to the communication? Should it just be "accepted", "rejected",
>   "contact me" as we have suggested, or would a messaging field be
>   appropriate? If that was the case, does that put PeeringDB in an
>   awkward position?
> 
> 5. If the primary consumable was an API, with a basic Web UI on top
>   for those unwilling to build on top of it, how do we make sure the
>   private data stays private?
> 
> 6. Assuming PeeringDB was chosen as the "right place" to store this
> project, is this likely to gain any traction anytime soon? Do we need
> volunteers to help implement it? Is this even something that can be
> considered a separate module that perhaps we want to have Open Source
>   from Day One?
> 
> Anyway, enough waffle from me... I'd be interested in hearing people's
> thoughts.
> 
> Matthew Walster