Foreword

Excerpts from The Internet Peering Playbook: Connecting to the Core of the Internet

This book is Bill's most recent contribution to the Internet Operations community, and in it he continues to build upon the foundation of his Internet Peering white papers.

When I first attended a gathering of peering coordinators, I had the good fortune to be welcomed by Bill into the peering community. He had spotted the newbie and subsequently became a good shepherd for me, introducing me to fellow coordinators and having me stand up in front of them all to introduce myself and my network. Over the years, we met at various peering functions and discussed the multifaceted peering world, and more importantly modeled the cost of peering because settlement-free peering is ...not free! Bill was very generous with his time, introducing me to key partners, sharing his peering white papers, and helping me ease into the peering community.

This book will be an important contribution to the Internet Operations community. In the book Bill presents a pragmatic perspective on Internet Peering. He has assimilated the multitude of (often conflicting) views on interconnection into a framework for understanding how Internet Peering and Transit work in our industry. He has gone beyond documenting the peering terminology and processes—he has gleaned from the community the "art" of peering. Finally, the three play books (Transit, Peering, and IXP) provide a 360-degree view of Internet interconnection and demonstrate many of the concepts presented in the book.

I have no doubt that The Internet Peering Playbook will be your virtual shepherd in the peering community. I highly recommend traveling to a gathering of peering coordinators to have the opportunity to meet Bill in person. Peering is a journey; it’s nice to count on a shepherd.

Sylvie LaPerrière

Program Manager, Network Content Distribution at Google, Montreal, Canada

August 2011