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IP Colocation Question
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IP Colocation Question

Is it common for colo providers to charge a setup and monthly fee for announcing ip space?

Thanks.

Comments

  • The title of this thread is a little misleading.

    Anyway, charging a monthly fee to announce IP space is not uncommon. Some providers will charge a one-time fee, some will charge you for the BGP Session, some will charge you for a custom BGP Session (aka using your own ASN), and some won't charge at all.

    TL;DR. No, it's not common per se, but it's not uncommon either.

    Thanked by 1Clouvider
  • We don't charge for announcements but do have a small monthly charge for BGP sessions. To echo what DigitalFyre said, there is no 'norm' and varies by colo/ISP.

  • Thanks, I was looking at the cost of buying IP assets for trying to save money long term but found the provider in question still charges 39-58% of the cost of leasing a /24 from them (128/m) so it sort of negates the cost.

  • @pcfreak30 said:
    Thanks, I was looking at the cost of buying IP assets for trying to save money long term but found the provider in question still charges 39-58% of the cost of leasing a /24 from them (128/m) so it sort of negates the cost.

    Find another provider that meets your needs. There is too much competition around to waste time with a provider that doesn't work for you.

  • jcloudsjclouds Member
    edited February 2017

    Its not uncommon, however when I had to have ip space announced with colo provider I just negotiated pricing so that we wouldn't have to pay. Most sales guys aren't going to lose commissions over ip space announcements so they'll typically work with you.

    In fact if the provider is willing to be flexible with things like this it shows good faith, If they don't budge on something this simple imagine when you need them in dire moments? Use it as measuring ground to see if the provider is the right fit for you.

  • BradyHBradyH Member, Host Rep

    most will charge a set up fee but I have not seen one do a monthly fee. We do a set up fee but a lot of the time we wave it if they are doing a rack and so on. would rather get a customer long term than to try and get 50 to 150 bucks 1 time out of them

  • CenTexHosting said: would rather get a customer long term than to try and get 50 to 150 bucks 1 time out of them

    Exactly, which is what the majority of providers will do. We never charged for announcing IP space either to be honest, though we weren't asked to do it a lot.

  • qpsqps Member, Host Rep

    There is some hassle involved in getting someone else's IP space announced. Some IP transit providers still require manual prefix filter updates which requires opening a ticket, sending over the customer's LOA, and sometimes multiple follow ups to get it pushed through. I think it is absolutely reasonable to charge a setup fee to offset those labor costs.

    A provider charging an ongoing monthly fee is just the provider trying to recoup the lost revenue from not renting you their IP space. I suspect that for some providers, this monthly fee is something that could be waived, or is highly negotiable, as it is pure profit.

    Thanked by 1doughmanes
  • DigitalFyre said: will charge you for the BGP Session, some will charge you for a custom BGP Session (aka using your own ASN),

    The fuck is a non-custom BGP session? Private ASN peers are the EXCEPTION, not usual and extremely rare.

    There is ZERO, absolutely ZERO reason to charge monthly for announce and near zero to charge for BGP (some older router generations DO have a peer/session limit in addition to the routes one).

    Setup is fine, but especially in RIPE (where 90% are automated whitelisted or email to ping ISP for update, but no LOA, is only thing needed) this is also questionable, especially if you sign for more than a single colo unit.

    If you get anything lockable, so quarter and up usually, i expect free announce and setup only BGP, with no negotiations. I sign a 12mo+ contract for rack/power/BW and this is a standard config, there is zero reason to expect selling me IPs for a rack colo.

    qps said: suspect that for some providers, this monthly fee is something that could be waived

    Sadly (at least outside US) not really, no, especially on BGP - the ones that charge announce/BGP are also the ones that very rarely negotiate this.

    Thanked by 1doughmanes
  • One of our DC's charge $250 per announcement, another $100 per announcement, another doesn't charge.

    It's just the way it is unfortunately. Some providers still need to do a lot of manual work to do this, especially with their carriers too. Tech time is a valuable commodity.

  • VortexMagnus said: Tech time is a valuable commodity.

    One time. Not recurring.

  • William said: The **** is a non-custom BGP session? Private ASN peers are the EXCEPTION, not usual and extremely rare.

    By custom I was referring to announcing under the user's public ASN. I guess that was my way of explaining it.

    William said: There is ZERO, absolutely ZERO reason to charge monthly for announce and near zero to charge for BGP

    I'm not disagreeing, but I can't speak for other providers than myself.

  • we are very encourage client to bring their own ip space since ipv4 is running low.

  • jh_aurologicjh_aurologic Member, Patron Provider
    edited February 2017

    @William said:

    There is ZERO, absolutely ZERO reason to charge monthly for announce and near zero to charge for BGP (some older router generations DO have a peer/session limit in addition to the routes one).

    There are a few reasons: You need to maintain a larger configuration, maybe extra vlans, extra filters, communities, monitor your downstream sessions and something more which consumes working time which is in fact money you have to invoice your customer for.

    Providing bgp to your customers is normally not done as hobby, it's a product or extra feature. If you have hundreds of free downstream sessions, you will hit your memory limits at some point - this costs you also money. Do you have a large customer base with a lot of free bgp downstream sessions you have to maintain on a real hardware router with it's control plane limitations? ;) - Sure, new generation routers will do this easily, but at some time you will hit the point where it's time to do hardware upgrades and you have to migrate a whole bunch of configuration. Running a software box with bird, quagga or exabgp is not the same as running a large scale infrastructure with all of it's problems.

  • Kabeldamagement said: Providing bgp to your customers is normally not done as hobby, it's a product or extra feature. If you have hundreds of free downstream sessions, you will hit your memory limits at some point - this costs you also money. Do you have a large customer base with a lot of free bgp downstream sessions you have to maintain on a real hardware router with it's control plane limitations? ;) - Sure, new generation routers will do this easily, but at some time you will hit the point where it's time to do hardware upgrades and you have to migrate a whole bunch of configuration. Running a software box with bird, quagga or exabgp is not the same as running a large scale infrastructure with all of it's problems.

    That's one way to look at it. If you're offering a server for $10/mo (hypothetically speaking of course) and offer support for the network & hardware, it may not be feasible from a financial point of view to offer a managed BGP session with VLANs etc... for free. Meanwhile, providers who charge well over $100/mo for servers are less likely to charge for BGP.

    In our case, each customer has their own VLAN and we do it for free. If they want to announce their IP Space with or without using their public ASN, we do it for free. However, we do charge $199/mo and up per server, so we make sure the customer gets their money's worth for the service as the cost is not just for the HW, power, and network.

  • jh_aurologicjh_aurologic Member, Patron Provider

    @DigitalFyre said:
    In our case, each customer has their own VLAN and we do it for free. If they want to announce their IP Space with or without using their public ASN, we do it for free. However, we do charge $199/mo and up per server, so we make sure the customer gets their money's worth for the service as the cost is not just for the HW, power, and network.

    So, you also provide a vlan for each virtual server? Does not make any sense for me ;)

    For colocation, of course it's reasonable and we do the same, as traffic accounting and isolation is much easier.

  • Kabeldamagement said: So, you also provide a vlan for each virtual server?

    Private VLANs are for dedicated server customers only. My apologies for I should have clarified.

  • Kabeldamagement said: There are a few reasons: You need to maintain a larger configuration, maybe extra vlans, extra filters, communities, monitor your downstream sessions and something more which consumes working time which is in fact money you have to invoice your customer for.

    Yes. One time. Again: None of this justifies anything recurring, even monitoring (which is what, send automated email to user? what do you loose when the users BGP does not work?)

    Kabeldamagement said: Running a software box with bird, quagga or exabgp is not the same as running a large scale infrastructure with all of it's problems.

    You would be VERY surprised what some large transit users/providers run - hint: Not hardware. Linux. Next Gen/Highend current gen (40/100G) switching (L2/basic L3) is also largely again based on Linux with ASICs mixed in, not custom anymore.

    Our stack of ex-AWS switches here run Linux at 2.6.x w/ SPARC/ARM CPU and ASIC interfacing for network PHY (Broadcom)... is that now software or hardware if you interface BGP to it?

    The larger BGP offering providers also do this on a software backend which is perfectly fine, nobody expects you to do VPS facing BGP sessions on a MX960, which is inefficient af also.

    A modern Juniper or Cisco router has (L3, L2 is a bit different) also no+ advantage in normal (non DDoS) usage to a Dual E5 with a bunch of 40G Intel NICs.

    += Latency in ASIC switching is lower to x86/PCIe, however on L3 this is probably not relevant by virtue of needing CPU cycles anyway

    DigitalFyre said: In our case, each customer has their own VLAN and we do it for free

    Kabeldamagement said: So, you also provide a vlan for each virtual server? Does not make any sense for me ;)

    I'm not sure why this is even topic here, it's like you do this things manually?

    Sure, i provide VPS VLANs if they are not to be in my L2 segment, the limitation are just the IPs needed for it, plus on KVM you have interesting other ways to intervene on node level on the bridge, making VLANs often redundant. Then there is the very efficient (what else) 1:1 NAT as well.

    Do people think i sit here and configure VLANs in our racks to end-users or our systems? I obviously use a management interface for it, like anyone else of larger scale or lazy/values time.

  • William said: There is ZERO, absolutely ZERO reason to charge monthly for announce and near zero to charge for BGP (some older router generations DO have a peer/session limit in addition to the routes one).

    Sure there is, profit. In a unicorn laden, Utopian world, nothing would cost more than the materials and labor that go into it. If you find a portal to that world, let me know . . . I could cut out a LOT of cost.

    I'm not advocating for the practice, but until we turn into some sort of conglomerate socialist society, we'll be paying others to do things we cannot.

  • WilliamWilliam Member
    edited February 2017

    Microlinux said: Sure there is, profit. In a unicorn laden, Utopian world, nothing would cost more than the materials and labor that go into it. If you find a portal to that world, let me know . . . I could cut out a LOT of cost.

    I don't charge for BGP. I make profit left and right. I like money and even for me that would be too low to do.

    Now, if we go that way - QuadIX/VD is extremely cheap and does free BGP. That works.

  • @William said:
    I don't charge for BGP. I make profit left and right.

    I am happy to hear that (and I am not surprised, quite frankly), but your financial status has nothing to do with someone else's financial status.

    I like money and even for me that would be too low to do.
    Now, if we go that way - QuadIX/VD is extremely cheap and does free BGP. That works.

    Again, I'm not saying its good practice, I think it's kind of silly to charge for BGP as well - but's not like my head is going to explode trying to imagine why someone would charge for it. Hell, McDonald's charges me for extra barbecue sauce, I mean what does that cost them, maybe a penny?

  • Well, yea, i'm not saying they can't charge for it - it's a free world after all, just that the industry practice for locked colocation - not dedicated server and not VPS, and the industry in this area is not Hetzner/Leaseweb/OVH - is free BGP or setup only, same on carriers (if i get 10G cogent at 3000EUR and they want 50EUR for a BGP session per month i'll consider even buying HE, not by money - by principle. It's an included service to be expected. Running your own network on your own rack might be more rare now, but still to be expected by ISPs.)

    The trend of VPS offering BGP (and dedicated), often free/setup only, is very nice - some years ago this kind of things required deep contacts, now you can order an ASN/get free v6 space/signup at Vultr and be online in no time with your own anycast.

    The trend of charging for BGP because you cannot or are not willing to cover your other offers 100% (aka mix calculation) is... worrying however.

    I just don't buy these, also as it economically for me/us makes no sense - 50$ BGP on a 100$ colo is... useless. 200$ setup on the other hand would with 12mo ROI boil down to only 17$, then free.

    At the very least ISPs should waive the fees for longer contracts, if i sign 3 years for a rack anyway and prepay 6mo+ you can pls give me BGP for free, i don't think that is unreasonable at all.

    OBVIOUSLY all of this implies you, from start, look at ISPs running their own network - if you get a rack from someone singlehomed to HE with no own ASN you cannot really expect BGP (however, HE would do that still on their request. Cogent will charge you for it.).

  • jh_aurologicjh_aurologic Member, Patron Provider
    edited February 2017

    @William said:

    You would be VERY surprised what some large transit users/providers run - hint: Not hardware. Linux. Next Gen/Highend current gen (40/100G) switching (L2/basic L3) is also largely again based on Linux with ASICs mixed in, not custom anymore.

    Not really surprising. Junos for example is based on FreeBSD, Force10 OS (FTOS) on NetBSD and Brocade VDX Switches run on a Linux Distribution. Some others have also a underlaying BSD / Linux control plane stack.

    There is a difference between having a software router with not ASICs and it's normal Linux Kernel (apart from special user-space solutions like netmap-fwd) which does the routing not in line-rate. What will happen? Even your Dual 10-Core E5 will die while routing smaller packets at a rate of 1-2mpps in kernel space. This does not change by putting in larger NICs with 40G Ports. Sure, it's possible to do routing in user-space, but there is no real public solution which will not cost any money and works out of the box, without investing a heavy bunch of time ;)

    Of course, there is Brocade vRouter 5600 - but check out the costs, for the same you can get a Juniper MX80 with a line-rate forwarding capacity of 80Gbit/s.

    Also: What about the costs for operating a second router which does software based routing for your lowend bgp users? :P

  • William said: QuadIX/VD is extremely cheap and does free BGP. That works.

    Will they take your IPs in another middle of the night move like at BurstNET?

  • trewqtrewq Administrator, Patron Provider

    @doughmanes said:

    William said: QuadIX/VD is extremely cheap and does free BGP. That works.

    Will they take your IPs in another middle of the night move like at BurstNET?

    Pretty sure they are in their own "facility" now.

    Thanked by 1doughmanes
  • Kabeldamagement said: What will happen? Even your Dual 10-Core E5 will die while routing smaller packets at a rate of 1-2mpps in kernel space.

    I did not mention this system would use Linux, my Linux comment is for switches based on ASIC interfacing like Quanta does (which is Broadcom + Linux + kernel driver direct). This would most likely run BSD but i have some other options, with 10G NICs actually more as the 40G drivers are not that far out yet.

    You can guess what F5 hardware is built of (hint: dang, a Xeon CPU!)...

    Kabeldamagement said: Also: What about the costs for operating a second router which does software based routing for your lowend bgp users? :P

    Not relevant i guess, 1U+100W cost me about 20EUR in my primary location. Any larger DC can find a U for a software router and the power usage is negligible (as is the required hardware, keep in mind - this does BGP, not necessarily routing, there are ways around that as i had in operation on a 6500 as router/gateway and BGP to an entirely different system to announce the actual prefix).

    doughmanes said: Will they take your IPs in another middle of the night move like at BurstNET?

    If they move my HW i hope they move my IPs too ;)

  • jh_aurologicjh_aurologic Member, Patron Provider

    @William said:

    Kabeldamagement said: What will happen? Even your Dual 10-Core E5 will die while routing smaller packets at a rate of 1-2mpps in kernel space.

    I did not mention this system would use Linux, my Linux comment is for switches based on ASIC interfacing like Quanta does (which is Broadcom + Linux + kernel driver direct). This would most likely run BSD but i have some other options, with 10G NICs actually more as the 40G drivers are not that far out yet.

    You can guess what F5 hardware is built of (hint: dang, a Xeon CPU!)...

    Sure and now? They could simply use some tricks like netmap, pf_ring, snabbswitch, usw. which bypasses the kernel completely... Thats also what Solarflare's Onload does. Nothing special so far, but it seems you thought, that I'm completely against software based routing, right? ;) - No thats not the case, but I got my thoughts against kernel based routing which is not done in userspace and brings horrible performance under real load. Try to ship small packets at 1-2mpps rate with it, your box will enjoy a really high irq related cpu usage.

    Kabeldamagement said: Also: What about the costs for operating a second router which does software based routing for your lowend bgp users? :P

    Not relevant i guess, 1U+100W cost me about 20EUR in my primary location. Any larger DC can find a U for a software router and the power usage is negligible (as is the required hardware, keep in mind - this does BGP, not necessarily routing, there are ways around that as i had in operation on a 6500 as router/gateway and BGP to an entirely different system to announce the actual prefix).

    But there are still operational costs, it's not for free and any real company who has nothing to give away, will invoice this to the end users which mostly pay almost nothing for their VPS.

    Whats your primary location?

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