Traffic on the internet travels across many different kinds of links. A fast and reliable way to exchange traffic between different networks and servi

Peering automation at Facebook

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2021-05-20 22:00:12

Traffic on the internet travels across many different kinds of links. A fast and reliable way to exchange traffic between different networks and service providers is through peering. Initially, we managed peering via a time-intensive manual process. Reliable peering is essential for Facebook and for everyone’s internet use. But there is no industry standard for how to set up a scalable, automatic peering management system. So we’ve developed a new automated method, which allows for faster self-service peering configuration. We’re sharing a few best practices we have learned in automating our public peering in a hope of wider adoption of our approach in the internet community.

How does this work? Take Facebook, for example. Your friend has just posted a video of an extremely cute cat, and you are about to watch it. Let us follow the path of the cat video before it reaches your device:

You see your friend’s post with a cute cat video, and you click on it and can’t wait to watch it! Before the video reaches your device, Facebook needs to send it to your ISP using the best-performing, shortest route available. There might be many other networks (commonly referred to as transit networks) between Facebook and your ISP. They might be interconnected in suboptimal locations with potential capacity constraints, causing the awesome cat video to reach you slowly. Nobody wants to watch a buffering cat video!

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