The Malaysia Internet Exchange (MyIX) is expanding its membership and partnership base to also include enterprises in line with the continued evolution of the internet landscape.
Having been established in 2006 as an initiative under the Malaysian Communications Multimedia Commission (MCMC), membership was previously restricted to internet service providers (ISP) before being broadened to also include content distribution networks (CDNs) over the years.
Its chairman Chiew Kok Hin explained that, in line with MyIX’s prime objective of keeping “local traffic local”, the association is now opening the exchange for enterprises to directly peer (exchange traffic) with each other and other members which currently number 114.
“As the country’s only non-profit national internet exchange body operated by industry, MyIX is committed to becoming more inclusive in addition to promoting greater development and depth,” said Chiew, who had been re-elected as MyIX chairman at its recent AGM held in Kuala Lumpur.
An internet exchange is essentially the physical infrastructure through which ISPs and CDNs exchange internet traffic among their networks for greater routing efficiencies, thereby reducing costs.
“Although we have significantly improved the presence of local traffic in MyIX, there is still substantial local traffic from the enterprise segment that goes via international path before re-routed back to Malaysia,” explained Chiew.
“Hence, the reason of opening up our internet exchange to enterprises stem from our intention to keep traffic local while enhancing MyIX’s ‘network effect’,” he said, adding that the platform would then increase efficiencies with more users joining it.
MyIX defines enterprises as corporations which are customers of ISPs, such as government agencies, financial institutions, universities are also small, medium enterprises (SMEs).
“These organisations can then secure their own autonomous system numbers (ASN) and arrange to peer directly at MyIX’s various nodes,” said Chiew.
These nodes are essentially access switches located at various alternative sites; thereby enabling members and peering partners to connect to ISPs, other members and content hosted by MyIX. MyIX currently has a total of seven nodes located throughout Malaysia.