CIX has been established by signing the Memorandum (JPEG, 93 KB) on Establishment of National Center for Internet Traffic on the day of September 8, 2000 (Croatian Internet eXchange). Presentation from the ceremony of CIX establishing held in the building of the Croatian Chamber of Economy (PDF, 499.92 KB)
In that manner, five signatories of the Memorandum (Croatian Academic and Research Network CARNet, AT&T Global Network Services Croatia, Croatian Telecommunications, Iskon Internet and VIP - NET) have defined organisational and technical framework of CIX.
At the beginning of 2001, the CIX room was arranged on the second floor of the University Computing Center (SRCE) facility. During the arrangement of the room, all the necessary electrical (direct power supply and uninterruptible power supply) and telecommunication (copper and optical infrastructure within the SRCE) infrastructure was performed. Appropriate climatic conditions inside the room (humidity and temperature) are provided. Room access rules have been set to guarantee the physical safety of the equipment inside the room, a communication cabinet has been set up and equipped for the reception of CIX member equipment
The first connection to CIX (CARNet) was established on March 1, 2001. After Iskon Internet was connected to CIX on March 13, 2001, the first peering in CIX was also established.
Since its establishment in 2000, until March 31, 2005, the work of CIX had been financed by the Croatian Academic and Research Network CARNet, as its own service, which has been designed and technically maintained by Srce.
In 2005, at the founding meeting of the CIX Council, Srce, as the host, took over the full responsibility for CIX. CIX thus became a non-profit service of Srce, which ensured the conditions for interconnection and uninterrupted operation of CIX 24 hours a day throughout the year. In 2006, the first session of the CIX Council was held, and in the same year, CIX gained its fifteenth member.
Since 2008, CIX has been a full member of the European Internet Exchange Association (Euro-IX), whose goal is to promote a culture of open exchange of ideas and experiences among its members. In the same year, the first agreement on membership and use of CIX services was signed with one of the foreign members (VeriSign).
On June 1, 2016, a second CIX location was established in Zagreb, in the Digital Realty ZAG1 data center. The CIX infrastructure was thus distributed across two locations in the city of Zagreb. Although the previous design of the CIX infrastructure provided redundancy for the switching infrastructure and the location itself provided redundancy for the power system, the establishment of the CIX2 hub further increased the availability of the CIX service.
As of April 2025, CIX is compliant with the recommendations of the Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS). The most important recommendations are preventing the spread of incorrect routing information and protecting the peering infrastructure. To prevent the spread of incorrect routing information on route servers, CIX uses IRR (Internet Route Registry) and RPKI (Resource Public Key Infrastructure) validation.
In May 2025, the third headquarters of the Croatian Internet Exchange (CIX) was put into operation in the DC North data center in Varaždin. With the additional distribution of CIX's network infrastructure, CIX's resilience and availability have been increased, and CIX's members have been provided with an even better quality of service, as well as reliability and flexibility.
