Tesh Durvasula, CEO of Africa Data Centres.

Africa Data Centres, a business of Cassava Technologies, now offers remote peering or peering at an internet exchange without having to be physically present, through its partnership with INX-ZA.

INX-ZA is a division of the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) of South Africa and operates a fully neutral, community-run internet exchange point in South Africa.

Through this partnership, it brings free peering from any of Africa Data Centres' facilities to INX-ZA's Johannesburg Internet Exchange (JINX), the oldest IXP in the country, as well as its Cape Town Internet Exchange (CINX).

The alliance means customers can use any network service provider’s infrastructure to reach the IXPs, so they do not need to invest in any extra equipment.

The partners said remote peering makes multi-region peering more accessible, efficient, and simple to manage “because Africa Data Centres has more Internet Exchanges at its facilities than any other colocation provider on the continent.”

Tesh Durvasula, CEO of Africa Data Centres, added: "Bringing remote peering to the table is just one more way Africa Data Centres is helping customers reap the benefits of peering at INX-ZA without having to build and manage their infrastructure in Europe.”

He explained that instead of setting up a point of presence to access internet exchanges, customers can now connect directly to them using existing infrastructure. "Having this ability not only reduces capital expenditure and complexity. Deployments can be achieved in a matter of minutes rather than months."

"By using a remote peering provider or organisations in every industry can add scalable bandwidth capacity on flexible terms to access a wide range of IXs. The company in question will still need its own autonomous systems number in order to peer with other members but will maintain full control over peering and routing policies."

According to Durvasula the introduction of remote peering lays the groundwork for more businesses to peer at IXs around the world. "It is a faster and more cost-effective way to access a wide range of IXPs, reducing the number of suppliers and general network costs. Connectivity can be managed simply, without the expense of purchasing physical port or having to deploy equipment at each exchange point."

Africa Data Centres said customers will continue to deal with INX-ZA on a technical and community level, and it will act as the conduit which enables this.

Durvasula said customers will be able to apply to INX-ZA for ports in the way they have always done, and Africa Data Centres will cover the costs of ports and cross-connects, although the customer will maintain the technical relationship with INX-ZA directly.

"This next step makes sense to us and takes our relationship with INX-ZA to a new level while saving our customers time and money. It's a win-win situation.”