Technical notes

Engineering writing

Notes on how we run the network and why we made particular choices. Written by the engineers doing the work, published when they are finished rather than to a content calendar.

Status: this series is being written now. Nothing below is a download yet. If a topic is useful to you, email info@aristonetworks.net and we will send it to you when it is out, or answer the question directly in the meantime.
In preparation
Filtering that maintains itself

How we generate customer and peer prefix filters from IRR data, validate origins with RPKI, and rebuild the whole set automatically instead of editing prefix lists by hand.

In preparation
Partial transit as a cost lever

Working out how much of your traffic a peering-only table would carry, and what that does to the blended cost per bit once local preference is doing the work.

In preparation
Engineering the optical layer

Why we hold capacity on a corridor and engineer what runs over it rather than ordering a circuit per customer: channel planning, margin, and what it means for how quickly we can add capacity.

In preparation
Blackholing without collateral damage

How customer-triggered RTBH propagates through our network and out to upstreams and exchanges, where it stops, and when FlowSpec is the better tool.

Have a question that is not covered?

Ask it. If the answer is long enough to be useful to other people, it usually becomes one of these.