The Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) is an Internet Exchange Point situated in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. AMS-IX is a fast growing, non-profit, neutral and independent Peering point. The beginnings of the AMS-IX can be traced back to the early 1990s. On 29 December 1997 AMS-IX was established as an Association in Amsterdam, operating under Dutch Law.

The AMS-IX is the largest Internet Exchange in the world, when measured by number of members, or by traffic. As of October 26, 2005, AMS-IX had 230 connected members on 398 ports; peak traffic rate was 101Gbps.

= Network =

The AMS-IX is continually evolving, and is currently using a hub-spoke architecture using several photonic switches, as can be seen in the following topology map: [http://www.ams-ix.net/technical/topology.html]. This topology brings the advantage of being able to perform maintenance to the core network without any impact on customer connections, and anticipate on fiber problems by switching to the backup topology thus using another set of fibers. The active switching topology star is determined by means of the VSRP protocol.

Members connect to Foundry Networks BigIron 15000 ethernet switches, which provide many speeds: 10baseT/100baseTX, 1000baseSX, 1000baseLX, and 1000baseLH. AMS-IX also offers 10Bbps connections via Glimmerglass System 300 photonic switches which provide 10000baseLR and 10000baseER connections. The core consists of Foundry Networks MG8 switches, with redundant power supplies, as all switches are equiped.

AMX-IX also offers aggregated links, which were used to provide speeds beyond 1 Gb/s. The bundling of two, 1Gbps ethernet connections could provide speeds of 2Gbps, and so on. While these are still in use, AMS-IX has become the world s first Internet Exchange Point offering 10 gigabit ethernet customer ports.

=External links=