UIXP Portal: Launch Announcement

Today we are proud to announce the launch of the UIXP Portal; an open-source central management system and customer portal. It’s taken a few weeks to set up and modify -- and there are still a few bugs -- but it should be a vast improvement over the collection of independent systems we had before.

The software, formally known as IXP Manager, was developed by the team at INEX (The Internet Neutral Exchange Association). They provided valuable assistance throughout our deployment by working with us to resolve bugs and implement feature requests. We plan to continue actively working with them to improve this software as we feel it has clear value to the global Internet exchange community.

The system can be accessed via the “Portal Login” link at the top-right corner of our website and directly via this URL: https://portal.uixp.co.ug

Here’s a brief list of features:

• Centralized management of customers, switches, ports, and other core infrastructure.
• Automated configuration of MRTG, Reverse DNS (PTR), Route Servers, and Nagios. These systems were previously managed manually, which was becoming increasingly time consuming as the exchange has grown.
• Public aggregate statistics and Looking Glass functionality. This helps outside networks better evaluate the value of joining our exchange.
• Support for multiple sites and peering fabrics, making future expansion easier.
• Automated reporting and alerts for traffic anomalies, congestion, etc.

The system also provides a customer portal with:

• Port data and statistics: bits, packets, errors, discards, and broadcasts
• Technical and contact data for all networks at the exchange
• A peering matrix which shows network interconnectivity based on route server data. Sflow capability will be added in the future to improve accuracy and capture bilateral peering sessions.
• A peering manager that helps customers keep track of bilateral sessions.
• Integrated mailing list subscription management.
• The ability to add or delete additional customer user accounts.
• The ability to update customer NOC contact and billing data.

If you are one of the networks connected to our exchange, here’s how to get started:

1. Send us an e-mail address that we can associate with your organization’s “master” account. This account will *only* have the ability to create regular accounts for your company. Regular accounts created by this master account will have access to the full customer portal functionality described above.
2. Send us a generic technical/NOC e-mail address (e.g. peering@domain.com) that we can add to our core contact database for your company.

Once the master account has created at least one regular account, please use it to:

1. Update your company’s full NOC contact and billing data.
2. Subscribe to our mailing lists by visiting the account profile page.

Please contact us to submit the above data or if you have any questions when getting started.