Quality Statement

SmartHub IX offers high quality interconnection services on a technologically advanced and highly resilient platform supported by a professional organization. 

Carrier Grade Service levels for enhanced customer experience while using SmartHub IX

SmartHub IX customers receive Carrier Grade Service levels to meet the high-quality expectations of the customers powered by strict monitoring.

Each access routers that customers connect measures the performance of the connection over the SmartHub-IX Infrastructure. 

Service Demarcation

SmartHub-IX ensures the correct functioning of its distributed switching infrastructure that supports delivering, operating and interconnecting member ports on our switches, including service from these member ports up to and including the local SmartHub-IX patch panel.

The customer is responsible for the necessary cabling between the member's router and the SmartHub IX switch patch panel through the arrangements made with SmartHub-IX co-location or, in case of a remote layer-2 connection, arrangements made with a partner/carrier.

The customer is always responsible for arranging their own BGP peering with other SmartHub-IX members and for the correct functioning of their own infrastructure, i.e. router equipment.

Service Delivary and Service Quality

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The initial provisioning of a customer connection (i.e. port on the SmartHub-IX switching platform) will take a maximum of five (5) working days (Mon-Friday 9.00-18.00 Abu dhabi time) after acceptance of the customer’s order and after return of the signed SmartHub IX Connection Agreement by the candidate customer, or on the envisaged date of the connection, as indicated by the customer in the port order form.

In case a new customer wants to become a member of the SmartHub-IX Association the member acceptance process may take up to 3 working days.

For changes in the configuration without contractual implication we have scheduled a provisioning time of 3 working days.

For configuration changes with a contractual implication, e.g., additional connections or port upgrades, we schedule a provisioning time of a maximum of 5 working days after receipt of the signed revised Connection Agreement.

The aim of the SmartHub IX Network Operations Centre is to have a network availability of at least 99.99%. SmartHub considers both service interruption as well as deterioration of service as service failure.

Excluded from this definition are service failures due to:

Scheduled maintenance

Violations of SmartHub IX regulations by members which is causing dis-functioning of the exchange.

Force majeure

Service deterioration is defined as not performing according to the set performance parameters outlined below.

SmartHub IX Technical Requirements

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The following sections draft the technical requirements for connecting a member to SmartHub IX. The term 'SmartHub IX ' is used in this document to mean either the network or the IX administration, depending on the context. The term 'member' in this document refers to the member or participant connecting their device to SmartHub IX.

The member shall at all times conform to the relevant standards as laid out in STD0001: Internet Official Protocol Standards (currently RFC 5000) and associated Internet STD documents.

It is recommended that GigE and higher speed interfaces be configured as auto negotiating.

SmartHub IX can only provide fibre-optic Ethernet interfaces with bandwidths of either 100Gbps, 10Gbps or 1Gbps. No copper-based interfaces are currently available.

The fibre-optic Ethernet ports can either be 10GE-LR or GE-LX.

Frames forwarded to Etisalat ports shall have one of the following ether types:

  • a) 0x0800 - IPv4
  • b) 0x0806 - ARP
  • c) 0x86dd - IPv6

* Frames forwarded to a member interface on SmartHub IX shall all have the same source MAC address.

* Frames forwarded to SmartHub IX ports shall not be addressed to a multicast or broadcast MAC destination address, except for:

  • a) broadcast ARP packets
  • b)multicast IPv6 Neighbour Discovery (ND) packets

Traffic for link-local protocols shall not be forwarded to SmartHub IX ports except for the following:

  • ARP, except for proxy ARP

IPv6 ND 5.5. These prohibited link-local protocols include, but are not limited to, the following list:

5.5.1. IRDP 5.5.2. ICMP redirects 5.5.3. IEEE802 Spanning Tree 5.5.4. Vendor proprietary discovery protocols (e.g. CDP) 5.5.5. Interior routing protocol broad/multicasts (e.g. OSPF, IS-IS, IGRP, EIGRP) 5.5.6. BOOTP/DHCP 5.5.7. PIM-SM 5.5.8. PIM-DM 5.5.9. DVMRP ARP traffic shall not exceed 20 packets per second, per port/VLAN. The standard Ethernet MTU size is 1554. To cover speeds between 1Gbps and 10Gbps, multiples of 1GigE can be configured for link aggregation. To cover speeds between 10Gbps and 100Gbps, multiples of 10GigE can be configured for link aggregation.

For public peering, members must use IP addresses and netmasks assigned to them by SmartHub IX for peering.

  • IPv6 addresses (link and global scope) shall be explicitly configured and not auto-configured.
  • IPv6 site-local addresses shall not be used.
  • IP packets addressed to SmartHub IX directed broadcast address will not be automatically forwarded to SmartHub IX ports.
    The standard IP MTU size is 1500.

This is an Internet Exchange Point and, therefore, no transit is allowed, i.e. members should not pass traffic to SmartHub IX that is destined to networks that are not part of the members of SmartHub IX.

All members must not abuse peering relationships by doing any of the following non-exhaustive list:

  • pointing defaults
  • resetting next hop

selling, bartering, trading or giving either routes or next hop to third parties (SmartHub IX non-members)
leaking routes to third parties (SmartHub IX non-members)
It is recommended that peers maintain consistent route announcements across all peering sessions.
The exchange of routes via SmartHub IX shall only be via BGP-4.
AS numbers used in BGP-4 sessions across SmartHub IX shall not be from ranges reserved for private use. The only exception to this is when a BGP speaker is collecting routing information for analysis and not for immediate routing decisions. In this case, the BGP speaker may use a private AS number but shall not advertise any routes.
SmartHub IX members are encouraged to aggregate their routes.
IP address space assigned to SmartHub IX shall not be advertised to other networks without explicit permission of SmartHub IX.
All routes advertised across SmartHub IX shall point to the router advertising it, unless agreement has been made in advance and in writing by SmartHub IX and the two members involved.
Members must enforce strict filtering policies to prevent route leaks.
All routes to be advertised in a peering session across SmartHub IX shall be registered in the RIPE or other public routing registry.
Members may use more than one ASN for their SmartHub IX peering, provided that each ASN presented shares the same NOC and peering contact details.

7.1. Traffic on member interfaces connected to SmartHub IX shall only be forwarded to a SmartHub IX member when permission has been given by the receiving member either:

  • 7.1.1. by advertising a route across SmartHub IX, or
  • 7.1.2. explicitly in writing.

7.2. Traffic shall not be routinely exchanged between two member interfaces connected to SmartHub IX and owned by the same SmartHub IX member.

7.3. Members should actively cooperate to resolve security incidents, denial of service attacks and other operational problems. Road Map to get connected to SH-IX To get connected to SH-IX, the prospective partner is required to have its own autonomous system number (ASN) and few technical requirements as mentioned below:

  • Requires layer 2 transport connection to UAE (Etisalat is house to almost all leading International and Regional cables such as SMW-3, SMW-4, IMEWE, TGN,UAE – Iran, FOG, Das-Halul and terrestrial cables connecting UAE to Oman, Saudi Arabia) Select port as per your requirements/ needs:
    • 1 Gigabit Ethernet (1GE), 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE) or 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100GE) Signing SH-IX agreement Request an offer and all necessary paperwork by email to smarthub-ix@eand.com or get in touch with us by phone.

SmartHub IX FAQ’s

For more information, please read our frequently asked questions.