In computer networking, peering is a voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the customers of each network. The pure definition of peering is settlement-free or "sender keeps all," meaning that neither party pays the other for the exchanged traffic; instead, each derives revenue from its own customers.
Peering requires physical interconnection of the networks, an exchange of routing information through the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing protocol and is often accompanied by peering agreements of varying formality, from "handshake" to thick contracts.
Marketing and commercial pressures have led to the word “peering” being also used routinely when there is some settlement involved, even though that does not correspond to the original technical meaning of the word. The phrase "settlement-free peering" is in turn used to unambiguously describe the pure cost-free peering situation.
Read more about Peering: How Peering Works, Motivations For Peering, Physical Interconnections For Peering, Peering Agreement, History of Peering, Depeering, Peering and BGP, Law and Policy
Famous quotes containing the word peering:
“That’s where Time magazine lives ... way out there on the puzzled, masturbating edge, peering through the keyhole and selling what they see to the big wide world of chamber of commerce voyeurs who support the public prints.”
—Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)
“The best thing about Sassy Seats is that grandmothers cannot figure out how they work and are in constant fear of the child’s falling. This often makes them forget to comment on other aspects of the child’s development, like why he is not yet talking or is still wearing diapers. Some grandmothers will spend an entire meal peering beneath the table and saying, “Is that thing steady?” rather than, “Have you had a doctor look at that left hand?””
—Anna Quindlen (20th century)
“Science! true daughter of old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee—or how deem thee wise
Who woulds’t not leave him in his wandering,”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)