15 November 2013

Speaking at the launch last month, Scottish Government finance secretary John Swinney said that IXScotland is a another step towards his country becoming a “world-leading digital nation by 2020”.

Colocation specialist Pulsant is hosting Scotland’s first dedicated internet exchange point (IXP). At the end of October, it was announced that IXScotland is now fully implemented and was just days away from seeing its first internet traffic.

The IXP was developed by the London Internet Exchange (LINX) and is hosted at Pulsant’s South Gyle data centre in Edinburgh. It is a single node IXP and uses switching gear from Extreme Networks that functions independently of LINX’s networks in London and Manchester.

IXScotland is managed in consultation with a local steering committee of connected member networks that includes Brightsolid Online Technology, Xtraordinary Networks, Fluency, Onyx Internet, and M247. Pulsant says the new IXP will ensure that the region’s ISPs can quickly and securely deliver traffic to one another, resulting in businesses and consumers having access to better connectivity with reduced latency and improved resilience.

According to LINX CEO John Souter, IXScotland is a “real step forward” not just for the internet community in Scotland but for the UK as a whole: “The exchange will allow networks to stop so-called ‘tromboning’ traffic to London and back again, and will help increase resilience by creating a new centre for interconnection in the UK.”

Pulsant owns and operates a 10G core network connecting its 10 nationwide ISO 27001 compliant data centres, of which certain sites are also ILS2-, ILS3- and PCI-certified. The company now plans to work with individual ISPs and organisations that will use IXScotland and its data hosting services to assist in building a larger connected network.