AS6895 ESPANIX-RS-AS Neutral Interconect Exchange for Spain

ESPANIX-RS-AS is the autonomous system of Asociación ESPANIX, the neutral

internet exchange point of Spain, headquartered in Madrid.

What it's used for

• Running the exchange's route servers and supporting infrastructure. Reverse DNS on the announced space resolves under espanix.net, with hostnames naming the exchange's Madrid and Barcelona sites.
• Members interconnect over the exchange fabric directly. Their traffic does not transit this ASN, so the AS number reflects the exchange's own systems rather than the traffic it carries.

Notable

• An IXP is neutral interconnection infrastructure and does not map onto the usual hosting, ISP, or enterprise categories. Its address space exists to number peering LANs and management systems.
• ESPANIX is a membership association rather than a commercial company. Its IPv6 peering LAN is a /48 out of 2001:7f8::/32, the RIPE NCC block reserved for internet exchange points, which is a reliable tell that an AS is an IXP.

Interesting

• ESPANIX operates across more than one Spanish city, which lets members reach the same exchange from separate facilities. That multi-site model is now common but was not when the exchange was established.