Implementations described and claimed herein provide systems and methods for a configurable optical peering fabric to dynamically create a connection between participant sites without any physical site limitations or necessity of specialized client and network provider equipment being located within such a facility. Client sites to a network may connect to a configurable switching element to be interconnected to other client sites in response to a request to connect the first client site with a second site, also connected to network, via the switching element. A request may trigger verification of the requested and, upon validation, transmission of an instruction to the switching element to enable the cross connect within the switching element. The first site and the second site may thus be interconnected via the switching element in response to the request, without the need to co-locate equipment or to manually install a jumper between client equipment.