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Peering Connections

Peering Policy

ESnet maintains a selective peering policy and reviews peering requests at its discretion to ensure alignment with the mission of ESnet and the U.S. Department of Energy. 

Peering Requirements

ESnet's technical requirements for peering generally are as follows:

  • Peer must have a publicly assigned Autonomous System Number (ASN) from a Regional Internet Registry (RIR).
  • All prefixes announced must be publicly routable and properly registered with the corresponding RIR.
  • Prefixes will be exchanged over BGP.
  • Peer must maintain an AS-SET and keep up to date entries in the Internet Routing Registry (IRR) system for all prefixes announced.
    • Prefixes not registered in the IRR system will not be accepted.
    • Prefixes that are RPKI invalid will not be accepted.
  • Peer must maintain an up to date PeeringDB entry, including a 24x7 NOC Contact, AS-SET, and prefix limits.
  • Unless specifically agreed upon beforehand, peers are expected to peer in all locations where mutually present and announce a consistent set of prefixes at all locations.
  • Peer must adhere to MANRS industry standards for route security, including BCP38 filtering of its customer cone.
  • All BGP peering sessions must be IPv6 or dual-stack.  IPv4-only peering sessions will no longer be permitted.
  • Maximum prefix length accepted for prefixes is /24 for IPv4 and /48 for IPv6.
  • Neither party will establish a static route, a route of last resort, or otherwise send traffic to the other party for a prefix not announced via BGP.
  • For direct (PNI) connections, 100G ports are required at a minimum.
  • Peers are expected to upgrade connectivity if utilization exceeds 50%.
  • Peers are expected to send notifications for maintenance and outages.

Peering Information

BGP Communities

ESnet currently provides the following BGP communities for use by connected sites receiving full route feeds. Other ESnet AS293 communities not defined below may be present, but are strictly present for debugging purposes and may be changed.

  • 293:51  ESnet connected sites
  • 293:52  Research and Education Networks
  • 293:53  Commercial Networks