On Sun, Jan 21, 2007, Charlie Allom wrote:
This is a pure example of a problem from the operational front which can be floated to research and the industry, with smarter solutions than port blocking and QoS.
This is what I am interested/scared by.
Its not that hard a problem to get on top of. Caching, unfortunately, continues to be viewed as anaethma by ISP network operators in the US. Strangely enough the caching technologies aren't a problem with the content -delivery- people. I've had a few ISPs out here in Australia indicate interest in a cache that could do the normal stuff (http, rtsp, wma) and some of the p2p stuff (bittorrent especially) with a smattering of QoS/shaping/control - but not cost upwards of USD$100,000 a box. Lots of interest, no commitment. It doesn't help (at least in Australia) where the wholesale model of ADSL isn't content-replication-friendly: we have to buy ATM or ethernet pipes to upstreams and then receive each session via L2TP. Fine from an aggregation point of view, but missing the true usefuless of content replication and caching - right at the point where your customers connect in. (Disclaimer: I'm one of the Squid developers. I'm getting an increasing amount of interest from CDN/content origination players but none from ISPs. I'd love to know why ISPs don't view caching as a viable option in today's world and what we could to do make it easier for y'all.) Adrian