internet exchange point (IXP)

It is a neutral meeting place for networks: members connect once to the fabric and can then exchange traffic with every other member over it. In this catalog the concept appears through RouteViews BGP Archive & API, which places collectors at major IXPs in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, South America and North America.

That placement matters because it makes the IXP a common entity type across infrastructure registries - the same object shows up when you are reading a peering directory or choosing a vantage point for routing data. An IXP is physical infrastructure (switches in a colocation facility), an association of member networks, and a routing landmark all at once.

IXPs are the joints of the internet, and datasets that reference them inherit that structure.

• Vantage points bias views. RouteViews collectors sit at major IXPs across six continents, so BGP-derived analyses see the internet from exchange-adjacent positions - coverage tracks collector geography.
• Peering relationships localize at exchanges. Pairwise links recorded at facilities are how interconnection datasets enumerate who trades traffic with whom.
• Entity matching is the hidden cost. Joining a routing dataset to a facility directory requires resolving IXP names and identifiers across sources.
• Infrastructure investment questions need the fabric view. Capacity, membership and route diversity at an exchange explain regional resilience better than country-level counts.

Of the 1,744 cataloged datasets, 66 ship GeoJSON - the format most infrastructure registries use for exchange and facility locations.

1. Check how the source identifies an IXP. Names, IDs and abbreviations vary across registries; a dataset with stable identifiers saves the entity-resolution work.

1. Locate the vantage points behind routing data. RouteViews states collectors sit at major IXPs on six continents - interpret route visibility in that light.

1. Distinguish membership from traffic. A list of member networks says nothing about volumes unless the source measures them.

1. Verify geographic grounding. Exchange locations should carry coordinates or facility references if you plan spatial analysis.

1. Date-stamp the topology. Exchanges add members continuously, so snapshots need explicit capture dates to remain interpretable.

Interconnection concepts beside the IXP: - bgp — The protocol networks use to announce which IP prefixes they can reach; archives of its routing tables and update streams form the raw material for global routing datasets, topology maps and hijack... - peering — The settlement-free interconnection of two networks to exchange traffic directly - recorded as pairwise links at exchanges and facilities, and inferable from BGP neighbor sessions in routing data.