Tom, All due respect, but there is a massive difference between one user downloading 50G and thousands of users each downloading 50G when they all go to play their videogame of choice at around the same time.
-Matt On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 2:46 PM Tom Beecher <beec...@beecher.cc> wrote: > A user sends a few megabytes of request and receives 50 gigs of reply. >> They aren't DDoSing the network, but they're amplifying a single 50 gig >> copy they receive from the mothership and turning it into likely tens of >> terabytes of traffic. >> Yes, that's a CDN's job, but that volume of legitimate traffic and the >> very tiny window with which it is transmitted is likely to be a burden for >> even the largest residential ISPs. >> > > I'm sitting at home, and I could send a 50k request for a 50G file right > now from a source not fronted by a CDN. What do? My ISP is still has to > deliver it to me. The fact that the 50G file does or does not come from a > CDN is irrelevant. The CDN just happens to be a point source that a lot of > users happen to connect to. > > CDNs want to have the best performance to users because that's what brings > them business. A poorly performing CDN will lose customers to a better > performing one. The trend for years has been instead of ISPs investing in > infrastructure to effectively handle the traffic that their users request, > they turf that to CDNs. In many cases, a CDN will put a cache box in or > extend a circuit at a loss to them, because they know if the performance > metrics get bad, business will be taken elsewhere, even if the CAUSE of the > poor performance is actually at the edge of, or inside , the ISPs network. > > ISPs in the US can get away with this because their users are captive and > rarely have an alternative choice of provider. > > > On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 4:33 PM Matt Erculiani <merculi...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Patrick, >> >> > First, to be blunt, if you really think Akamai nodes are “sitting idle >> for weeks” before CoD comes out with a new game, >> > you are clearly confused. >> >> "Idle" in the sense that when you look at a graph of traffic before and >> after a large push such as this makes the rest of the week's traffic look >> like a horizontal line at the bottom, admittedly poor word choice, yes, but >> far from "confused" as to what CDNs do under relatively normal >> circumstances. Otherwise very valid points you've raised. >> >> Tom, >> >> > Akamai, and other CDNs, do not **generate** traffic ; they serve the >> requests generated by users. >> >> A user sends a few megabytes of request and receives 50 gigs of reply. >> They aren't DDoSing the network, but they're amplifying a single 50 gig >> copy they receive from the mothership and turning it into likely tens of >> terabytes of traffic. >> Yes, that's a CDN's job, but that volume of legitimate traffic and the >> very tiny window with which it is transmitted is likely to be a burden for >> even the largest residential ISPs. >> >> -Matt >> >> On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 2:09 PM Patrick W. Gilmore <patr...@ianai.net> >> wrote: >> >>> Matt: >>> >>> I am going to disagree with your characterization of how Akamai - and >>> many other CDNs - manage things. First, to be blunt, if you really think >>> Akamai nodes are “sitting idle for weeks” before CoD comes out with a new >>> game, you are clearly confused. >>> >>> More importantly, I know for a fact Akamai has spent ungodly amounts of >>> money & resources putting content precisely where the ISPs ask them to put >>> it, deliver it over the pipes the ISPs ask them to deliver it, at precisely >>> the capacity the ISPs tell them. >>> >>> On the other hand, I agree with your characterization of residential >>> broadband. It is ridiculous to expect a neighborhood with 1,000 homes each >>> with 1 Gbps links to have a terabit of uplink capacity. But it also should >>> have a lot more than 10 Gbps, IMHO. Unfortunately, most neighborhoods I >>> have seen are closer to the latter than the former. >>> >>> Finally, this could quickly devolve into finger pointing. You say the >>> CDNs bear some responsibility? They may well respond that the large >>> broadband providers ask for cash to interconnect - but still require the >>> CDNs to do all the work. The CDNs did not create the content, or tell the >>> users which content to pull. When I pay $NATIONAL_PROVIDER, I expect them >>> to provide me with access to the Internet. Not just to the content that >>> pays that provider. >>> >>> Personally, I have zero problems with the ISPs saying “give me a cache >>> to put here with this sized uplink” or “please deliver to these users over >>> this xconn / IX / whatever”. I have a huge problem with the ISPs blaming >>> the ISPs for delivering what the ISP’s users request. >>> >>> Of course, this could all be solved if there were more competition in >>> broadband in the US (and many other countries). But that is a totally >>> different 10,000 post thread (that we have had many dozens of times). >>> >>> -- >>> TTFN, >>> patrick >>> >>> On Apr 1, 2021, at 3:53 PM, Matt Erculiani <merculi...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> Niels, >>> >>> I think to clarify Jean's point, when you buy a 300mbps circuit, you're >>> paying for 300mbps of *internet *access. >>> >>> That does not mean that a network should (and in this case small-medium >>> ones simply can't) build all of their capacity to service a large number of >>> customer circuits at line rate at the same time for an extended >>> period, ESPECIALLY to the exact same endpoint. It's just not economically >>> reasonable to expect that. Remember we're talking about residential service >>> here, not enterprise circuits. >>> >>> Therefore, how do you prevent this spike of [insert large number here] >>> gigabits traversing the network at the same time from causing issues? Build >>> more network? That sounds easy, but there are plenty of legitimate reasons >>> why ISPs can't or don't want to do that, particularly for an event that >>> only occurs once per quarter or so. >>> >>> Does Akamai bear some burden here to make these rollouts less >>> troublesome for the ISPs they traverse through the last mile(s)? IMO yes, >>> yes they do. When you're doing something new and unprecedented, as Akamai >>> frequently brags about on Twitter, like having rapid, bursty growth of >>> traffic, you need to consider that just because you can generate it, >>> doesn't mean it can be delivered. They've gotta be more sophisticated than >>> a bunch of servers with SSD arrays, ramdisks, and 100 gig interfaces, so >>> there's no excuse for them here to just blindly fill every link they have >>> after sitting idle for weeks/months at a time and expect everything to come >>> out alright and nobody to complain about it. >>> >>> On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 1:21 PM Niels Bakker <niels=na...@bakker.net> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> * nanog@nanog.org (Jean St-Laurent via NANOG) [Thu 01 Apr 2021, 21:03 >>>> CEST]: >>>> >An artificial roll out penalty somehow? Probably not at the ISP >>>> >level, but more at the game level. Well, ISP could also have some >>>> >mechanisms to reduce the impact or even Akamai could force a >>>> >progressive roll out. >>>> >>>> It's an online game. You can't play the game with outdated assets. >>>> You'd not see walls where other players would, for example. >>>> >>>> What you're suggesting is the ability of ISPs to market Internet access >>>> at a certain speed but not have to deliver it based on conditions they >>>> create. >>>> >>>> >>>> -- Niels. >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Matt Erculiani >>> ERCUL-ARIN >>> >>> >>> >> >> -- >> Matt Erculiani >> ERCUL-ARIN >> > -- Matt Erculiani ERCUL-ARIN
