From 1998-2008, Mr. Norton’s title was Co-Founder and Chief Technical Liaison for Equinix. In this role, Mr. Norton focused on large-scale interconnection and peering research, and in particular scaling Internet operations using optical networking. He published and presented his research white papers in a variety of international operations and research forums. 

From October 1987 to September 1998, Mr. Norton served in a variety of staff and managerial roles at Merit Network, Inc., including directing national and international network research and operations activities, and chairing the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) Internet industry forum.  Mr. Norton received a B.A. in computer Science and an M.B.A. from the Michigan Business School, and has been an active member of the Internet Engineering Task Force for the past 15 years.

William B. Norton – Speaking and Publishing

Bio

Mr. Norton was most recently Co-Founder and Chief Technical Liaison for Equinix, Inc. where he directed business development activities from the beginning in October 1998 until May 2008. Mr. Norton brought to Equinix its first customer, many of the largest and most well known customers.

As strategic lead, he spearheaded the initiatives to bring in the Tier 1 ISP community, the cable companies, and the large scale content provider communities for peering at Equinix data centers.  As an internationally recognized expert and researcher in Data Center and Network Interconnection and Peering, he has been an invited speaker at over 150 conferences around the world. Mr. Norton is today one of the most sought after Internet pioneers in the industry.

Prior to Equinix, Mr, Norton was elected to the NANOG Steering Group, the oversight organization for the North American Internet. Mr. Norton also created the first business plan for NANOG, and organization he would chair from 1995-1998.

Introduction

These papers and speaking engagements have helped position Equinix as leaders in the marketplace.

Papers by this Author

1.Interconnection Strategies for ISPs documents two dominant methods ISPs use to interconnect their networks. Over 200 ISPs helped create this white paper to identify when Internet Exchange Points make sense and the Direct Circuit interconnect method makes sense. Financial Models included in the paper quantify the tradeoffs between these two methods. All relevant data points are footnoted as to source.

2.Internet Service Providers and Peering answers the questions: “What is Peering and Transit? What are the motivations for Peering? What is the ISP Peering Coordinators Process for obtaining  peering? What are criteria for IX selection?”

3.A Business Case for Peering builds upon the previous white papers but focuses on the questions important to the Chief Financial Officer: “When does Peering make sense from a financial standpoint? When do all the costs of Peering get completely offset by the cost savings?”

4.The Art of Peering: The Peering Playbook builds on the previous white papers by asking the Peering Coordinators to share the “Tricks of the Trade”, methods of getting peering where otherwise they might not be able to get peering. These 19 tactics range from the straight forward to the obscure, from the clever to the borderline unethical. Nonetheless, Peering Coordinators might be interested in field-proven effective ways of obtaining peering in this highly controversial white paper.

5.The Peering Simulation Game finishes up my half day Peering Tutorial by engaging the audience in the role of the Peering Coordinator. Each ISP in turn rolls the dice, expands their network, collects revenue for each square of customer traffic, and pays transit fees to their upstream ISP. They quickly learn that if they peer with each other, the costs of traffic exchange are much less, but they need to negotiate how to cover the costs of the interconnect. ISP Peering coordinators have commented on how close the peering simulation game is to reality in terms of the dialog that takes place.

6.Do ATM-based Internet Exchange Points Make Sense Anymore? Applies the “Business Case for Peering” financial models to ATM and Ethernet-based IXes using current market prices for transit, transport, and IX Peering Costs.

7.Evolution of the U.S. Peering Ecosystem builds the case that peering after the telecom collapse caused several evolutionary changes in the U.S. Peering Ecosystem. Cable companies and Content companies peering is having a huge disruptive affect.

8.The Art of Peering: The IX Playbook discusses a dozen strategies IX Operators have used to build a peering population, attack a dominant IX, and defend their own peering populations.

9.A Business Case for Peering in 2004 updates the original white paper using 2004 market prices and included equipment costs in the mix.

10.Asia Pacific Peering Ecosystems shares the peering coordinator lessons from the field, those things that were found to be different, unexpected, unusual when deploying network gear for peering in various countries in Asia.

11.The Folly of Peering Ratios highlights the arguments for using traffic ratios as a peering discriminator and debunks most of them. These are the arguments often presented to content companies to refuse peering.

12.Peering at 10G – the Great Debate – Public vs. Private discusses the tradeoffs between peering using a large (10Gbps) public peering port and private peering using dedicated fiber between peers. All costs are included in the analysis and the paper demonstrates the cost of public peering approaches a couple dollars per Mbps when fully utilized.

13.Video Internet – the Next Wave of Massive Disruption to the U.S. Peering Ecosystem highlights an emerging wave of video traffic and the ramifications. Based on hundreds of conversations at operations forums around the world, this paper documents the dominant models for Internet Video traffic distribution along with costs of each.

Working in the Field

Mr. Norton has been collecting data for his research from around the world, and has shared his results where he travelled.  To find these papers and uses of the papers, do an internet search for “WB Norton” and “Peering” or the title of the white paper above.  I have had success looking for “William B. Norton” and “Peering” also.

Here are some of the speaking engagements and reports he has worked on over the years.

“Project NetSCARF”, Connexions – The Interoperability Report, July 1996, Vol. 10, No. 7

“Network Discovery Algoritms for the NSFNET”, Connexions – The Interoperability Report, Vol 8, No. 4 April 1994

Referee: Fourth IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management – May 1-5, 1995

“Discovery Algorithms for the NSFNET”, INET’94 Invited Paper, Prague, Czech Republic

“Network Management Architecture for the Routing Arbiter” InterOp 1994

Public Speaking

1.NANOG 4, May 22-23, 1995 chaired the meeting, “Distributed Rovers Architecture”, NANOG Feb 1995, Ann Arbor, http://www.academ.com/nanog/may1995/

2.TCP/IP Expo Aug 1995 San Jose

3.COMDEX April 1995 Atlanta

4.InterOp May 1995 Las Vegas

5.INET ’94, Aug 1994, Prague, Czech Republic

6.EduCom – demo

7.National Network Conference, May 1992, Washington DC, Demonstration of Internet Rover to U.S. Representative Richard Boucher at Inte’92.

8.InterOp 1992 Demo Distributed Rovers

9.InterOp 1993 Atlanta – Chair BOF

10.NANOG 5, Sept 11-12, 1995 Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, chaired the meeting, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-9509/.index.html

11.NANOG 6, Feb 15-16, 1996, San Diego Supercomputing Center, chaired the meeting, http://www.academ.com/nanog/feb1996/

12.NANOG 7, May 30-31, Washington, DC, chaired the meeting, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-9605/.index.html

13.NANOG 8 October 24-25, 1996, Ann Arbor, MI, chaired the meeting, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-9610/update.html

14.NANOG – Feb 9-11, 1997, San Francisco, CA, chaired the meeting, gave “RA Update” talk with Bill Manning, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-9702/update.html

15.IETF April 7-11, 1997 Memphis TN

16.ISMA 2 – May 1-4, 1997, participated in discussion forum, San Diego, CA

17.RIPE – May 18-24, 1997 Ireland

18.NANOG 10 – June 5-6, 1997, Chaired the Meeting, Tampa FL, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-9706/agenda.html

19.PacBell NAP Seminar – July 14-18, 1997

20.IETF – Munich, Germany August 9-17, 1997

21.NANOG 11, October 27-28, 1997, Chaired the meeting, Phoenix, AZ, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-9710/update.html

22.IETF December 6-13, 1997 Washington, DC

23.NANOG 12, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Feb 8-10, 1998 http://www.nanog.org/mtg-9710/agen1097.html

24.APRICOT – Feb 11-22, 1998 – Manila, Philippines, “Chair several panels”

25.IETF 41 – Los Angeles March 28-April 3, 1998

26.NANOG 13, chaired the meeting, Dearborn. Michigan June 7-9, 1998, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-9806/update.html

27.IETF 42, Chicago IL, August 24-28, 1998

28.ISPCon, “Peering and Settlement”, San Jose, CA September 16-20, 1998

29.NANOG 14 – Atlanta (First one that I did not chair) Nov 8-10, 1998, gave talk on panel on Commercial Grade Internet Facilies, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-9811/agen1198.html

30.Internet Regatta – St. Vincent and the Grenadines Nov 28-Dec 6th , 1998

31.IETF 43 – December 7-11, 1998, Orlando, FL

32.RIPE – Amsterdam – Jan 23-29, 1999

33.NANOG 15, Jan 30-Feb 4, Denver CO

34.APRICOT “Chair QOS vs. Bandwidth, UUNet vs. Qwest panel”, March 1-5, 1999 Singapore

35.IETF – Minneapolis March 13-19, 1999

36.ISPCon “Interconnection Strategies for ISPs” April 26-29, 1999, Baltimore, MD

37.NANOG 16, Eugene Oregon, October 23-25, 1999, presented “Interconnection Strategies for ISPs”, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-9905/agen9905.html

38.IETF – July 9-18, 1999 Oslo, Norway

39.NANOG – August 26-28, 1999 Detroit Michigan

40.Internet Engineering Steering Forum (IESF) – “Interconnection Strategies for ISPs”, Seattle, WA

41.RIPE – “Interconnection Strategies for ISPs” at EIX Work Group, September 17-25, 1999, Amsterdam

42.NANOG 17, chaired Peering BOF, chaired Panel on Current and Next Generation Content Distribution Techniques,  –and “Peering BOF”  Montreal http://www.nanog.org/mtg-9910/agen9910.html

43.ISPCon, “Interconnection Strategies and Peering” October 25-30, San Jose, CA

44.IETF – November 8-12, 1999, Washington DC

45.ISPF – November 15-19, 1999, New Orleans

46.NANOG 18, Feb 5-8, San Jose, Exchange Point Update panel speaker, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0002/index.html

47.IWS2000 Feb 15-18, 2000 “Interconnection Strategies and Peering”, Tskuba, Japan

48.RIPE 35, Feb 19-25, 2000 Amsterdam

49.APRICOT “Internet Service Providers and Peering” Feb 27-March 4, 2000, Seoul, Korea

50.IIR, “Internet Service Providers and Peering”, “Peering Simulation Game” March 12-17, 2000 London

51.ITU – “Internet Service Providers and Peering”, “Peering Simulation Game”, April 7-15, 2000, Rio De Janeiro

52.Network + InterOp, “IP Address Management and Peering Relationships: How to Drain the Swamp” May 9-12, 2000 Las Vegas NV

53.RIPE 36 – May 15-20, 2000 Budapest, Hungary

54.ISPCon – May 22-26, 2000 “Internet Service Providers and Peering”, “Interconnection Strategies for ISPs”, Orlando

55.NANOG 19 – June 11-13, 2000 Albuquerque, NM

56.Inet2000/Developing Nations Workshop – July 8-21, 2000, “Chair of Internet Routing Track”, “Interconnection Strategies and Peering”, “Internet Service Providers and Peering”,.”Peering Simulation Game”, Yokohama, Japan

57.IETF 48 – July 29-August 4th, 2000, Pittsburgh, PA

58.Tier 1 Operations Meeting – August 6-7, 2000, Washington DC

59.RIPE 32, September 10-15, 2000, Amsterdam

60.Networld + InterOp September 23-29, 2000 Atlanta Georgia

61.ARIN – October 1-4, 2000 Reston, Virginia

62.NANOG 20, October 21-24, 2000 Washington DC

63.FCC – “Internet Service Providers and Peering”, “Peering Simulation Game”, October 25, 2000

64.Next Generation Networks, “Scaling the Core of the Internet”, October 31-November 3, 2000 Washington DC

65.ISPCon, “Interconnection Strategies for ISPs”
, “Internet Service Providers and Peering”, “A Business Case for Peering”, Nov 8-10, 2000 San Jose, CA

66.IETF – December 9-15, 2000, San Diego, CA

67.RIPE 38, “The Art of Peering”, EIX Jan 20-27, 2001 Amsterdam

68.Global Business Solutions, Jan 29-31, 2001 Miami, FL

69.ISPCon, Feb 3-8, 2001 Toronto, Canada

70.Gigabit Peering Forum II, “A Business Case for Peering”, Feb 13, 2001 San Jose, CA, https://ecc.equinix.com/peering/agendas.htm#sj2004

71.NANOG, “Internet Data Center Needs”, Feb 18-20, Atlanta, GA

72.CLEC Expo, “Interconnection Strategies” and “Internet Service Providers and Peering”, Feb 21-23, 2001 NYC

73.APRICOT, “Peering Simulation Game”, Feb 24- March 3, 2001 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

74.INTAP, “Internet Data Centers”, March 4-7, 2001, Tokyo, Japan

75.ISPCon, Internet Service Providers and Peering”, “A Business Case for Peering”, “Peering Simulation Game”, April 3-6, 2001, Baltimore, MD

76.Cisco UNDP Networking Program, “Internet Service Providers and Peering”, “Peering Simulation Game”, April 12, 2001 Santa Clara

77.RIPE 39, April 27-May 5, 2001, Bologna, Italy

78.IIR – Interconnect Billing, “Internet Service Providers and Peering”, “A Business Case for Peering”, “Peering Simulation Game”, May 8-11, 2001

79.LINX Member Meeting, “Peering Contact Info”, May 14, 2001, Paris, France

80.NANOG, May 19-22, 2001, Albuquerque, NM

81.Gigabit Peering Forum, “Chair”, July 16-17, 2001, Dallas, TX, https://ecc.equinix.com/peering/agendas.htm#sj2004

82.Internet Data Center Conference, July 23-25, 2001, San Francisco

83.Web Hosting Expo, “All About Bandwidth”, August 18-23, 2001 Washington DC, 2001

84.IIR – Interconnect Accounting and Billing, “Peering Simulation Game”, September 28-Oct 2, 2001, Antwerp, Belgium

85.RIPE 40, October 3-6, 2001 Prague, Czech Republic

86.ISP Forum – “Peering Workshop – Interconnection Strategies for ISPs”, “Internet Service Providers and Peering”, “A Business Case for Peering”, “Peerign Simulation Game”, Nice, France, October 12-18, 2001

87.NANOG, October 21-23, 2001, Oakland, CA

88.Cisco Workshop, “Peering Simulation Game”, Nov 8, 2001, Santa Clara, CA

89.Gigabit Peering Forum, “Chair, “Internet Service Providers and Peering”, “Peering Simulation Game”, San Jose, December 3, 2001, https://ecc.equinix.com/peering/agendas.htm#sj2004

90.IIR – Interconnect Accounting, “The Difference Between Internet and Telephony Accounting”, December 7-12, Amsterdam

91.LINX Member Meeting, “Peering Simulation Game”, December 14, 2001, London

92.NANOG 24, Feb 10-12, 2002, Miami, FL

93.APRICOT, “Chair”, March 2-10, 2002, Bangkok, Thailand

94.IIR – Interconnect Accounting, “Internet Service Providers and Peering”, April 22-26, 2002

95.RIPE 42, April 28-May 4, 2002, Amsterdam

96.Gigabit Peering Forum V, “Chair”, “The Art fo Peering”, April 7-9, 2002, Chicago, IL https://ecc.equinix.com/peering/agendas.htm#sj2004

97.ISPCon, “Internet Service Providers and Peering”, “A Business Case for Peering”, May 20-23, 2002, Baltimore

98.NANOG 25, “Peering BOF”, June 9-12, 2002, Toronto, Canada

99.XchangePoint Seminar, “The Art of Peering”, June 19-23, 2002, London

100.CableLabs Forum, “Do ATM-based Internet Exchange Points Make Sense Anymore?”, August 26-27, 2002

101.Content Peering Forum, “A Business Case for Content Provider Peering”, September 17-18, 2002, Redwood Shores, CA

102.NANOG, “Peering BOF VI”, Feb 9-11, 2003, Phoenix, AZ

103.Gigabit Peering Forum, “Chair”, “Do ATM-based Internet Exchange Points make sense anymore?”, Feb 13, Los Angeles, https://ecc.equinix.com/peering/agendas.htm#sj2004

104.APRICOT, “Peering Simulation Game”, Feb 22-March 2, 2003, Taipei, Taiwan

105.RIPE, – “The Art of Peering”, March 12-March 16, 2003, Barcelona, Spain

106.NANOG 28, April 1-3, 2003, Salt Lake City, Utah

107. Equinix Sydney Peering Forum, June 16-20, 2003, Sydney, Australia

108. Agilent Invited Speaker, August 5, 2003

109. Gigabit Peering Forum VII, Ashburn, VA Sept 8-10, 2003, https://ecc.equinix.com/peering/agendas.htm#sj2004

110. NANOG 29, October 20-22, 2003 Chicago, IL

111. Keynote Speech, EuroIX, Nov 3-4, 2003 Lisbon, Portugal

112. Equinix Singapore Peering Forum, meet Gov’t and Press, Nov 6-7, 2003, Singapore

113.------------ 2004 -------------- missing 2004, 2005 calendars…. Searching for gigs here http://www.equinix.com/press/press/2004/index.htm

114. NANOG 30, Miami FL, Feb 8-10, 2004 chaired Peering BOF VII, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0402/norton.html

115.NANOG 31, San Francisco, CA, presented “Evolution of the U.S. Peering Ecosystem” http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0405/norton.html

116.APRICOT 2004, Feb 18-23, 2004, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, chair Peering Track, run Peering Simulation Game, http://www.apricot.net/apricot2004/conference-peering.htm , presented “The Evolution of the US Peering Ecosystem”

117. Tokyo Peering Forum, presented “The Asia Pacific Peering Ecosystem”, March 10, 2004, Tokyo, Japan, http://www.equinix.com/press/press/2004/02_24_04.htm

118.Gigabit Peering Forum VIII, San Jose CA March 16, 2004, https://ecc.equinix.com/peering/agendas.htm  presented “Asia Pacific Peering Ecosystem”

119.Gigabit Peering Forum IX, chair, New York City, NY, Sept 14, 2004, presented “The Business Case for Peering v2”, https://ecc.equinix.com/peering/agendas.htm#sj2004

120.NANOG 32, Reston, VA, Oct 17-19, 2004, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0410/agenda.html, small private walk through of white papers

121.RIPE 49, Manchester, Sept 20-21, 2004, Peering Simulation Game, EOF, http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-49/eof.html

122.NANOG 33, Las Vegas, chaired Peering BOF, Jan 30-Feb 1, 2005, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0501/index.html chaired peering BOF VIII http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0501/norton.html

123. NZNOG 2005, Waikato University, New Zealand, Feb 2-8, 2005, “Asia Pacific Peering Ecosystem” and “Peering Simulation Game”

124.APRICOT 2005, Kyoto, Japan, Feb 16-25, 2005, chaired Peering Track, http://www.apricot.net/apricot2005/bof.html#b8

125. NOTA Peering Forum, Miami, FL, March 3-7, 2007, data collection and informal white paper walk through here.

126. Australia Telecommunications Users Group (ATUG) 2005, Massive Disruption in Ecosystems,  http://www.atug.com.au/atug2005program.cfm, March 9-10, 2005, Sydney Australia,

127.WebMonsters, Las Vegas, Private content forum with largest content companies in the world, presented peering tutorial and 2010 exercize.

128. RIPE 50, Stockholm, Sweden, May 1-7, 2005, presented Peering Simulation Game, Director’s Cut, http://ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-50/index.html

129.Sydney Peering Forum July 26, 2005, Sydney Australia, chaired the meeting, presented the Asia Pacific Peering Ecosystem white paper.

130. NAMex Peering Meeting, Rome, Italy, Oct 1-8, 2005, invited paid speaker at IX Member meeting.

131.ISPCon Santa Clara, panel with Bill Woodcock, Gene Lew on peering strategies, Oct 17-20, 2005

132.NANOG 35, Los Angeles, Oct 23-25, 2005, chaired Peering BOF X, http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0510/agenda.html

133.Gigabit Peering Forum, October 26, 2005, chaired peering forum

134.NANOG 36, Feb 12-15, 2006, Peering BOF XI http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0602/norton.html

135.APRICOT 2006, Feb 26-Mar 3, 2006, Perth, Australia, Chaired Peering Track

136.ATUG 2006, Mar 6-7, 2006 Sydney, Australia, “Why Telstra won’t Peer”

137.NANOG 37, June 4-7, 2006, San Jose, CA, Peering BOF XII http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0606/norton.html   and Newcomer Orientation NANOG History http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0606/newcomers.html

138.Tokyo Peering Forum, June 20, 2006, Keynote: “Internet Video: Massive Disruption of the US Peering Ecosystem”

139.Peering Council, Sept 27, 2006, Half Moon Bay, CA “Internet Video: Massive Disruption of the US Peering Ecosystem”

140.NANOG 38, Oct 8-11, 2006 St. Louis, MO Peering BOF XIII http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0610/norton.html

141.Sydney Peering Forum, Nov. 8, 2006, Chair and present “Internet Video: Massive Disruption of the US Peering Ecosystem”

142.NANOG 39, Feb 4-7, 2007, Toronto, Chair Peering BOF, present “History of NANOG” http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0702/norton.html

143. APRICOT 2007, Bali Indonesia, Feb 23-Mar 2, 2007, Chaired Peering Track, presented “Video Internet, the Next Wave of Massive Disruption to the U.S. Peering Ecosystem”, presented “Peering Tutorial”, http://www.apricot.net/apricot2007/program.php

144.Stanford Networking Seminar, March 15, 2007, presented “Video Internet, the Next Wave of Massive Disruption to the U.S. Peering Ecosystem”

145. Stanford Clean Slate Seminar, March 21, 2007, presented “Video Internet, the Next Wave of Massive Disruption to the U.S. Peering Ecosystem”

146. Global Peering Forum, Belieze, March 24-30, 2007, presented “Video Internet, the Next Wave of Massive Disruption to the U.S. Peering Ecosystem”

147. RIPE 54, Estonia, European Operator’s Forum Plenary, May 7-11 2007, presented “Video Internet, the Next Wave of Massive Disruption to the U.S. Peering Ecosystem”

148. NANOG 40, June 4-6, 2007, Bellevue, Washington, presented “Video Internet, the Next Wave of Massive Disruption to the U.S. Peering Ecosystem”, chaired Peering BOF XV, presented History of NANOG

149. Content Networking Forum, BandCon Event, Los Angeles, Panel on Content Delivery, June 13, 2007

150.Merit Members Meeting, Ann Arbor, MI, May 19, 2007, presented “Video Internet, the Next Wave of Massive Disruption to the U.S. Peering Ecosystem”

151.Tokyo Peering Forum, July 25, 2007, gave keynote, abbreviated version of “Video Internet, the Next Wave of Massive Disruption to the U.S. Peering Ecosystem”

152.Stanford Roundtable on Policy and Economics, September 21, 2007, Stanford Campus

153.NANOG 41, Albuquerque, NM, chair Peering BOF XVI,  Oct 14-17, 2007

154. BandCon Content Networking Seminar, San Jose, Nov 7, 2007

155.AUSNOG, Nov 15-16, 2007, “Video Internet, the Next Wave of Massive Disruption to the U.S. Peering Ecosystem”

156. Lecturing at UC Berkeley Networking Class, Dec 4, 2007 UC Berkeley joint seminar on Video, Haas School of Business

157.CoolTech Forum, DLA Piper, Jan 17, 2008, Video Internet

158.APRICOT 2008 – Chair Peering Track, Peering Tutorial, Feb 22-28,2008 Taipei, Taiwan

159.Battery Ventures – June 2008 – Video Internet presentation to partners

160.UC Berkeley – Grad Study Telecommunications Class – Construction of the Modern Video Internet, October 7, 2008