(UPDATED)

A Peering Agreement is usually a documentation trail that indicates how two network operators are going to interconnect. They are required when operators have Selective or Restricted peering policies.

The documentation trail can take a range of forms depending on the operators involved, and can range from email exchanges all the way to a formal contract between the two entities.

A peering agreement will usually contain the following information:

• The AS numbers to be used by each party
• The AS numbers of customers that are to be transited by each party (if applicable)
• IP address space (IPv4 and/or IPv6) to be announced by each party (and by each party's customers as applicable)
• Subnets of the IP address space to be announced by each party (acceptable ranges, used for traffic engineering)
• The location of the physical interconnect
• The bandwidth/capacity of the interconnect
• Any specific BGP options (password to protect the session, use of MEDs, use of BGP communities,…)
• Administrative contact for each party
• Technical contact for each party
• Network Operations Centre (24×7) contact for each party
• What happens in case of network problems (escalation path) or disputes

Much of this is already contained in a well documented PeeringDB entry, but many operators still request a direct agreement so that there is supporting documentation indicating how the two parties will interact with each other.

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