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Re: What does 95th %tile mean?
by richb＠pioneer.ci.net 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

I was among the first to get into a dispute with Exodus over the in+out billing policy. I prevailed in the dispute because there was inconsistent language in the service agreement. We had a DS3 and the agreement was capped at a certain monthly obligation based on 45 megabits of usage (actually, I think we paid the maximum at 25 or 30 megabits). But the in+out calculation produces a maximum usage level, for a DS3, of 90 megabits. Rather than change their billing policy, Exodus resolved the dispute by altering our per-meg transit price. Transit is a commodity exchanged in a system of free enterprise. So as long as you ask the vendor to put the usage calculation method in writing _before_ the contract is signed (preferably, disclosed at the time the first price quote is rendered), then there isn't room for disagreement. Roughly speaking, an in+out price quote should carry about half (maybe up to 70%) the per-meg transit price of a max(in,out) price quote. If you know your usage patterns ahead of time, or can readily speculate based on the app (all my users are running Napster, or I'm serving porn to Latin America, or whatever), then you can readily compare price quotes so long as you know how the usage calculatoin works. -rich

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The ultimate routing loop?
by Sean Donelan 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

I'm in washington this week, and as usual, some of the strangest ideas come up. Suppose I wanted the best chance for my packet to get through, no matter what tier 1, 2, 3 network was still operating between points A and B. I designate a "special" IP address block, and arrange for the top 10 providers to accept announcements for the block both directly, and transit through any of the other 10 providers. This would allow transit via a third-party network to restore connectivity across a partioned AS. For this network block, other than BGP loop detection, it would bypass the normal peer/transit/peer filters. If a AS was partioned, you might see a route cross two or three primary backbones, and even the same backbone twice. But if the packet went through, its worth it. The questions is: Are more available paths really better? Or does it just create more instability?

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Re: How to game the system (was Re: What does 95th %tile mean?)
by Sean Donelan 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

On Thu, 19 April 2001, Greg A. Woods wrote: > From the provider's perspective this doesn't really matter a whole lot > and they can reduce the effect of your bursts on their other customers > by simply narrowing their window. There's no need to do silly sliding > windows, multiple windows, etc. -- the averages are just fine. >From a provider's perspective it does matter. The most costly part of any network is the last 1% because most of the fixed cost of the network is based on the peak capacity, not average capacity. Billing based on average usage works best if you have a large population and excess capacity. Generally its the largest of the large customers who have the most to gain by gaming the system. A few T1 customers gaming the system is just noise. But you might have an OC48 customer who pegs their link requiring you to add more peak capacity to your network. But times their traffic, so their average usage never exceeds an OC24, and pays the average price. This is the type of customer which nailed the electric companies. If you can save tens of thousands dollars by starting an electric smelter at 30 minutes past the hour instead of exactly on the hour, its noticable. The electric companies reserve their fanciest meters for large power consumers like smelters and colo providers :-) This was fine in the past, when we were doubling the Internet's capacity every X days. I have a feeling providers will start managing/reducing the excess capacity headroom in their networks. And will start looking at ways to wring more money out of their current customers. Some rocket science accountant somewhere should be working on a way to maximize the chargable usage by just shifting the window bins back and forth until he finds the maximum. Is there any commercial provider not trying to maximize billable usage? By carefully choosing window bins, a provider could generate 1%, 25%, 50% more revenue across all his usage-based customers. And if you got this idea from me, I expect 5% of the take....

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Re: Governments CERT plans to sell early warnings on Web threats
by Sean Donelan 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

Finally, the CERT is actually getting some money for their stuff. Usually, some "security" company (A.K.A. large accounting firm/professional consulting firm) charges a large sum of money claiming they will scour all the secret hacker lairs. But all you get are re-packaged CERT messages. However, are there any "real humans" involved in this effort. The alliance's web site seems purposely designed to obscure all information about the people behind the alliance. No executive direct is listed, no members or listed, only generic roll accounts are listed for e-mail. On Thu, 19 April 2001, Eric Germann wrote: > > http://www.msnbc.com/news/561513.asp?0nm=N14O

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RE: Government?s CERT plans to sell early warnings on Web threat s
by Paul Lantinga 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

This is not such a great deal. As many people have mentioned on various news websites, CERT is often *really* slow at getting out warnings - sometimes months or weeks after they have been posted on bugtraq. Buyer beware, that is, unless you enjoy paying for regurgitated warnings that are mostly available elsewhere. -Paul LANtinga Opinions are my own, who else? > -----Original Message----- > From: Eric Germann [mailto:ekgermann@cctec.com] > Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 11:16 AM > To: nanog(a)merit.edu > Subject: Government?s CERT plans to sell early warnings on Web threats > > > http://www.msnbc.com/news/561513.asp?0nm=N14O >

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RE: What does 95th %tile mean?
by Richard A. Steenbergen 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

On Thu, Apr 19, 2001 at 05:18:02PM -0700, David Schwartz wrote: > > > Same algorithm, same raw data, different 95% answers, both valid, yet > > one is twice as large as the other. Great outcome for a billing > > system isn't it? > > Any billing scheme based upon statistical sampling will, with > some probability, err in the favor of one party or the other randomly. > But it is important that the customer understands that he is being > billed based upon statistical sampling and thus there are no "exact" > measurements. Fair billing sysems? The traffic "samples" are just the current value of a byte counter minus the value of that same counter <x> minutes ago, divided by <x>. If you wanted to be "fair", you would bill on exact number of bytes transfered. But on the subject of fair... Most people bill on counters from their customer aggregation switch, but if you transfer data between two customers you are billed as though you sent it around the world, how is this fair? If you send traffic out a paid transit or free peer it costs you the same, how is this fair? If you pay only the higher of your inbound or outbound traffic, and you are a web server pushing 100Mbit out, then you get that 99.9Mbit in if you pay for it or not, how is that fair? How many people actually count every byte they transfer, and how many ISPs are actually capable of matching your count with theirs so you know they are not inflating their numbers either deliberately or accidentally. Hell, do you think the price you pay is fair? There is a reason major ISPs dont publish their prices openly, and that is because if you are not helping some sales person make his Z8 payments or comparison shopping and demanding better prices, you are probably getting screwed. Some people will charge for putting you on redundant uplinks with HSRP/VRRP, some will not. Some people will have redundant diverse well-planned infrastructures and some will not. Some will charge for both directions and 95th percentile, some will charge for 1 and 90th percentile. They will all claim to have better networks then they really do in one form or another, and they will all hide behind an NDA to make sure you don't find out because like it or not everyone has some skeleton in their wiring closet. And yes some will have huge amounts of money yet be run by idiots, and some will have almost no money and scrape out a solid reliable network. That is the nature of business, and fair is what you are willing to pay for the service you get. If you don't like it, vote with your wallet. :P -- Richard A Steenbergen <ras(a)e-gerbil.net> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177 (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)

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AOL and Earthlink postmaster-like contacts?
by Alan Clegg 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

If there is anyone with any clout with AOL on the list, please contact me directly. I need to talk with someone that actually has clue regarding mail policy and what their black-hole and "spam" policies are. Additionally, I'd like to talk with someone from Earthlink regarding their recent run-in with AOL's mail blackholes. I'll be providing details of what is going on as soon as I get it figured out myself. [btw, yes, I've contacted postmaster@ but both seem to be relatively deep black holes themselves] Thanks, AlanC -- perl -le '$_="6110>374086;2064208213:90<307;55";tr[0->][ LEOR\!AUBGNSTY];print' echo "6110>374086;2064208213:90<307;55" | tr '0->' ' LEOR\!AUBGNSTY' alan(a)clegg.com

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Re: What does 95th %tile mean?
by Sean Donelan 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

On Thu, 19 April 2001, Geoff Huston wrote: > It leads to the situation where the provider confidently asserts that the > 95% value was xkbps, and the customer confidently asserting ykbps and both > readings are equally valid, with both measurements using the _same_ > measurement technique. How is the consequent billing dispute resolved _fairly_? The great thing about changing jobs every once in a while is I get to experience the joy of looking at things from the outside. Because colo's use a lot of power, I'm learning a lot about how the electric companies work. Geez, if you thought telephone companies were bad :-) The power industry has a version of the 95% billing. Like ISPs, originally it was a simple measurement every 5 (10, 15, etc) minutes. Figure out the peak measurement, and you are done. Users figured out how to better control their usage, i.e. turning on motors for 9 minutes and then turning them off for six minutes. Were there billing disputes, you betcha! Now electric companies use a variety of sliding windows, and different ways to calculate usage. The top-of-the-line power meters have over 100 different ways to measure (and therefor different ways a utility can charge) power consumption. Each becoming progressively more complex, trying to eliminate ways for people to game the system. To resolve some billing disputes, the top meters include "pulse" connections so you can precisely synchronize your check meter with the utility's meter for auditing. So, does someone need to develop an Internet meter for your Internet line with a dial which spins faster when you use more packets?

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NANOG 22 / AT&T
by Rodney Joffe 19 Apr '01

19 Apr '01

If anyone from AT&T or AT&T Local Services is on the list, and can assist us with some layer8/layer9 logistical help relating to connectivity at NANOG 22 in Phoenix, I'd appreciate an email. Thanks... -- Rodney Joffe CenterGate Research Group, LLC. http://www.centergate.com "Technology so advanced, even we don't understand it!"(SM)

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OT: DSL equipment of non-american manufacture
by Jim Mercer 19 Apr '01

19 Apr '01

i'm looking at a new project, but am having some difficulties with export restrictions of the USA. can anyone point me at DSL head-end equipment of non-USA manufacture? -- [ Jim Mercer jim(a)pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.ca ] [ Reptilian Research -- Longer Life through Colder Blood ] [ aka jim(a)reptiles.org +1 416 410-5633 ]

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