This part of the dance requires you to use both sides of your brain to tactfully approach your target peers at various fora.  Most common places to meet your target peers are Internet Operations Group meetings (NANOG, RIPE, APRICOT,etc.) and Peering Forums (Global Peering Forum or Member IX meetings).

The North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) meets 3 times a year for 2-3 days and occasionally has American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) and/or adjacent Global Peering Forum (GPF). Both NANOG and the GPF specifically host events for peering people to meet each other, share notes and hopefully establish peering.

Find the attendee lists for the fora you will attend and highlight the target peer attendees at the conference.

Top 10 Suggestions for obtaining peering. Dr Peering suggests that you

1. 1)start with ‘cool’ ISPs and Content Providers, those that are most likely to be willing to speak with you about peering.
   

2. 2)use a local peering person that seems to know everyone to introduce you around.  After about 5 or so introductions and peering conversations, you will pick up tips, suggestions, and make other introductions, and be part of the peering community at that event. 
   

3. 3)make contact, exchange cards, make sure you are speaking with the right person, and leave with an idea of who is most likely going to peer with you and where.
   

4. 4)don’t dismiss potential peers if you don’t meet their peering policies today - some are lenient. If they require 3 locations and you are in two but plan to be in a third in the next 6 months, rules are often bent.
   

5. 5)send a person with the right combination of technical, business, and social skills.
   

6. 6)send the same people to subsequent events so they are seen as a regulars and get some face time.
   

7. 7)not send a tactless salesperson or a jerk. Technical savvy is good. Tact is critical for success. Peers want to meet other peers, and often don’t want to spend their time being sold.
   

8. 8)participate in the socials, the peering personal introduction sessions, give a talk, etc.  Face time is valuable.
   

9. 9)understand the peering lexicon and the players in the peering ecosystem. Don’t signal your naivety to the Peering community by approaching Sprint for peering.
   

10. 10) take advantage of the face-to-face time - it is by far the most effective way to get into the peering game.
    

Identify the cross section of IXPs that will meet the appropriate geographical diversity to meet their peering requirements.

Take a step to your left and use the analytical side of your brain to sort through your traffic statistics, and/or apply some intuition. Where is your traffic going to and coming from? You will probably see a distribution like this:

Take a step to your right and use your creative mind to craft some network plans that maximize peering, minimize costs, and make the most sense from a projected traffic engineering and planning perspective.

Find colocation centers that meet your operations needs and Internet Exchange (IX) Points where peering makes the most sense for your traffic pattern and growth trajectory.  Here you will be matching up your target peer lists with target peer interconnection points.

Here are some indexes of IXes:

PCH List of IXes https://prefix.pch.net/applications/ixpdir/

The Open Directory Project list of IXes: http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Routers_and_Routing/Internet_Exchanges/

http://www.colosource.com/ix.asp

ep.net

Euro-IX for a comprehensive list of European IX info

and/or use reverse DNS lookup at IXes.

Referrals available: consultants@DrPeering.net

Identify those potential peers that send/receive a large enough amount of traffic to help justify building into an Internet Exchange to peer that traffic away for free. Identify their peering requirements, and cross out those that have a restrictive peering policy.

It is common for some of the larger traffic sources and sinks to be the less likely to peer (Sprint, Verizon, etc.). That is OK - the question is, “Is there enough traffic in the long tail of the graph that will peer?” Or, “will there be enough traffic as your traffic volume grows over the next couple of years?”

Highlight selective peers and determine if you can or will meet their requirements. Highlight open peers as your low-hanging fruit.

You should finish this step with a “Top 100 Peering Targets” list that includes at least the target AS#, Company Name, Peering Policy URL, Peering Inclination and Policy, and the Amount of Traffic you could both peer.

Determine the cost of peering at these locations. Examine their population and associated peering inclinations and guesstimate how much traffic you could peer for free there.  Add 15% to this number; a rule of thumb is that once peering is set up, chances are good that the peered interconnect will be preferred and result in more traffic.

Compare your estimated aggregate ‘free’ peering traffic volume against the cost of peering at that site, to determine if it financially makes sense today, or with your traffic growth trajectory, if it makes sense in the duration of the contracts needed to make peering happen.

This financial criteria is just one criteria; also consider the performance, security, control, and marketing benefits. And if you are building into the region anyway, the selection of a colocation provider and IX there may be a key criteria as well.

Finally, remember that traffic tends to grow over time, so plan for the trajectory of traffic to increase as you explore your peering plans and costs.

Bryan Garrett (BellSouth) made a presentation at a Global Peering Forum years ago describing the process of getting BellSouth peering, and it included quarterly updates documenting the money saved compared to the cost of peering. Keep internal folks engaged.

Externally, once you are recognized as a peering person in the Peering Community, you will find it easier and easier to make connections and build (and maintain) your network of peers.  Yahoo! has over 6000 peering sessions, and many of the larger content companies peer towards 75% of their traffic away.

Good luck!  and...Comments/Questions welcome to ask@DrPeering.net

Find your top 100 target peers in the Peering Database (aka peeringdb) shown below, and add your peering contact information while you are there.