Re: different thinking on exchanging traffic
From: "Sean M. Doran" <smd@clock.org> Subject: Re: different thinking on exchanging traffic Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 17:38:12 -0700 [...] Meanwhile, you might find the Sprint response to the NSFNET NAP solicitation ("National Virtual NAP") hanging around somewhere online. You should read it and imagine why it didn't fly.
I believe that all four of the winning NSFNET NAP submissions proposed nationwide "NAPs". I believe that the reason they didn't happen is that the NSF asked for and assumed it would get four geographically-focused solutions. I suspect that the notion of awarding four NAPs, all of which covered all of the country, provided the NSF a certain amount of heartburn. I believe that the nationwide NAP concept died, (or was killed), at the time for administrative, not technical, reasons. But, this is all speculation on my part... I have two conflicting notions about the the interesting possibilities offered by nationwide layer-two services: o Layer-two services with distance-insensitive pricing, such as ATM, create some interesting opportunities. If it doesn't cost any more to get across the country than to get across town, why should I build a local NAP rather than a nationwide NAP? (Unless, of course, I am a RBOC and am administratively constrained from offering inter-LATA service.) (I am also ignoring a comparison of a NAP-in-a-closet/POP/parking ramp versus a NAP-in-a-metropolitan-area; this is e-mail to nanog, not a paper for Sigcomm.) Perhaps more relevant today, why should I build a regional Gigapop, _if_ my ATM pricing is truly distance-insensitive? (There might be an answer to the last question, I really don't know. But, I keep asking.) In other words, if pricing is distance-insensitive, why do I need local exchanges? o Distance matters. It is easy to configure an IP network over a large layer-two service that bounces packets around the country, (because IP routing protocols generally think in terms of hop count, not [physical] distance). It would be nice if routing protocols thought about [physical] distance, rather than require the network designer to be responsible for designing the network such that considerations of physical distance were implicit in the network design. Of course, in the good old days before distance-insensitive-priced services, this wasn't such an issue. (I don't know whether there are very many copies of Sprint's "National Virtual NAP" proposals hanging around. I had to nearly sign my life away to get a copy at the time...) -tjs
On Fri, May 22, 1998 at 10:02:47PM -0500, Tim Salo wrote:
I have two conflicting notions about the the interesting possibilities offered by nationwide layer-two services:
o Layer-two services with distance-insensitive pricing, such as ATM, create some interesting opportunities. If it doesn't cost any more to get across the country than to get across town, why should I build a local NAP rather than a nationwide NAP? (Unless, of course, I am a RBOC and am administratively constrained from offering inter-LATA service.) (I am also ignoring a comparison of a NAP-in-a-closet/POP/parking ramp versus a NAP-in-a-metropolitan-area; this is e-mail to nanog, not a paper for Sigcomm.) Perhaps more relevant today, why should I build a regional Gigapop, _if_ my ATM pricing is truly distance-insensitive? (There might be an answer to the last question, I really don't know. But, I keep asking.)
In other words, if pricing is distance-insensitive, why do I need local exchanges?
Forgive me, but kee-rist! Haven't I bung this drum enough this month? Because, more and more as the net penetrates, the traffic is more and more _local_. Geographically local. My point about MAE-East-in-a-garage was that there was only _one_ of them; where it _was_ was only thrown in for spite. Especially as the net becomes more used for telecommuting, there is absolutely _no_ sense in my having to telnet from St Pete 30 miles to Tampa via a router in Maryland or San Francisco, "just" because the two sites in question decided to buy their connectivity from different backbones.
o Distance matters. It is easy to configure an IP network over a large layer-two service that bounces packets around the country, (because IP routing protocols generally think in terms of hop count, not [physical] distance). It would be nice if routing protocols thought about [physical] distance, rather than require the network designer to be responsible for designing the network such that considerations of physical distance were implicit in the network design. Of course, in the good old days before distance-insensitive-priced services, this wasn't such an issue.
I don't know if it's _possible_ to push this into the routing layer -- even if the routing protocol decides not to ship those 30 mile packets 3000 miles... it doesn't _matter_ if there's no link to _put them on_. It's obvious that it's time for my nap (no pun intended), my underscore quotient has shot through the roof. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff Unsolicited Commercial Emailers Sued The Suncoast Freenet "Two words: Darth Doogie." -- Jason Colby, Tampa Bay, Florida on alt.fan.heinlein +1 813 790 7592 Managing Editor, Top Of The Key sports e-zine ------------ http://www.totk.com
The moving finger of Jay R Ashworth, having written:
<SNIP> Jay> Because, more and more as the net penetrates, the traffic is more and Jay> more _local_. Geographically local. My point about MAE-East-in-a-garage Jay> was that there was only _one_ of them; where it _was_ was only thrown Jay> in for spite. Jay> Especially as the net becomes more used for telecommuting, there is Jay> absolutely _no_ sense in my having to telnet from St Pete 30 miles to Jay> Tampa via a router in Maryland or San Francisco, "just" because the two Jay> sites in question decided to buy their connectivity from different Jay> backbones. Yup. Especially in places with a high-density of high-tech, lousy commutes and a high penetration of "home" Internet access and many ISPs. Currently there are at least 60 ISPs serving the San Diego county area. There are LOTS of packets from "home" to "office" that make a round-trip via MAE-West. Some people have decided that this is silly. Even if it is "cost-effective", it *squanders* bandwidth at MAE-West that could best be used for other traffic. I wonder how much bandwidth at the MAEs could be saved if more areas built local low-cost NAPs just for local traffice exchanges? See this URL for details on the SD-NAP project: http://www.caida.org/Caida/caidaix.html
On Sat, May 23, 1998 at 04:50:52PM -0700, Tom Perrine wrote:
Currently there are at least 60 ISPs serving the San Diego county area. There are LOTS of packets from "home" to "office" that make a round-trip via MAE-West. Some people have decided that this is silly. Even if it is "cost-effective", it *squanders* bandwidth at MAE-West that could best be used for other traffic.
I wonder how much bandwidth at the MAEs could be saved if more areas built local low-cost NAPs just for local traffice exchanges?
I think there's a lot of merit to this proposal. When I first signed on with a local Internet provider, the owner explained to me that GEOGRAPHIC proximity does not always equal INTERNET proximity. Back then (1991-92) there was not a lot of infrastructure, so often that couldn't be helped. It's quite different now, though. -- Steven J. Sobol - Founding Member, Postmaster/Webmaster, ISP Liaison -- Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail (FREE) - Dedicated to education about, and prevention of, Unsolicited Broadcast E-mail (UBE), also known as SPAM. Info: http://www.ybecker.net
On Fri, May 29, 1998 at 11:31:27PM -0400, Steve Sobol wrote:
I wonder how much bandwidth at the MAEs could be saved if more areas built local low-cost NAPs just for local traffice exchanges?
I think there's a lot of merit to this proposal. When I first signed on with a local Internet provider, the owner explained to me that GEOGRAPHIC proximity does not always equal INTERNET proximity. Back then (1991-92) there was not a lot of infrastructure, so often that couldn't be helped. It's quite different now, though.
No it's not. There's still little confluence between the two distance metrics. :-) You're correct in noting that the infrastructure will support it now, though. Gotta go find me a vulture capitalist... Cheers, - jra -- Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff Unsolicited Commercial Emailers Sued The Suncoast Freenet "Two words: Darth Doogie." -- Jason Colby, Tampa Bay, Florida on alt.fan.heinlein +1 813 790 7592 Managing Editor, Top Of The Key sports e-zine ------------ http://www.totk.com
On Mon, Jun 01, 1998 at 02:24:41PM -0400, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
I think there's a lot of merit to this proposal. When I first signed on with a local Internet provider, the owner explained to me that GEOGRAPHIC proximity does not always equal INTERNET proximity. Back then (1991-92) there was not a lot of infrastructure, so often that couldn't be helped. It's quite different now, though.
No it's not.
There's still little confluence between the two distance metrics. :-)
That wasn't my argument; my argument was that there wasn't a lot that could be done about the lack of confluence. :) Now, with medium-sized cities like Cleveland covered by several different national NSP's as well as regional NSP's and ISP's, there isn't much of a reason that things should stay that way.
You're correct in noting that the infrastructure will support it now, though.
Thank you. :) -- Steven J. Sobol - Founding Member, Postmaster/Webmaster, ISP Liaison -- Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail (FREE) - Dedicated to education about, and prevention of, Unsolicited Broadcast E-mail (UBE), also known as SPAM. Info: http://www.ybecker.net
On Sat, May 23, 1998 at 04:50:52PM -0700, Tom Perrine wrote:
Currently there are at least 60 ISPs serving the San Diego county area. There are LOTS of packets from "home" to "office" that make a round-trip via MAE-West. Some people have decided that this is silly. Even if it is "cost-effective", it *squanders* bandwidth at MAE-West that could best be used for other traffic.
I wonder how much bandwidth at the MAEs could be saved if more areas built local low-cost NAPs just for local traffice exchanges?
I think there's a lot of merit to this proposal. i
Then check out the San Diego NAP.... --bill
Currently there are at least 60 ISPs serving the San Diego county area. There are LOTS of packets from "home" to "office" that make a round-trip via MAE-West. Some people have decided that this is silly. Even if it is "cost-effective", it *squanders* bandwidth at MAE-West that could best be used for other traffic.
I wonder how much bandwidth at the MAEs could be saved if more areas built local low-cost NAPs just for local traffice exchanges?
I think there's a lot of merit to this proposal. i
Then check out the San Diego NAP....
if it is really a local-only exchange point, i.e. no one is using it for transit, and all are only exchanging local routes, lots of folk out here would be very interested in real measurements. like how much of an isp's traffic can they actually shed locally? not conjecture, real data. randy
On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Randy Bush wrote:
if it is really a local-only exchange point, i.e. no one is using it for transit, and all are only exchanging local routes, lots of folk out here would be very interested in real measurements. like how much of an isp's traffic can they actually shed locally? not conjecture, real data.
Here in Utah, we have the UtahREP http://utah.rep.net with about 12 or so participants which are generally the largest local ISPs as well as the Utah Education Network. Soon Electric Lightwave and US West will be connecting to the UtahREP as well. Currently about 5%-15% of my traffic gets routed over the UtahREP. Of course the local gamers love it for the very low latency connection to all the Quake2 servers hosted by local UtahREP connected ISPs. Many of the ISPs connected to the UtahREP send newsfeeds to each other. Also, we have created an "UtahREP Caching Proxy Mesh" using ICP (Inter Cache Protocol) which is working quite well. I have about 95% participation rate from my dialup users (using a proxy autoconfig file), and I have just broken the 60% hit rate mark. Regional Exchange Points are an excellent idea. Dax Kelson Internet Connect, Inc.
On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, Randy Bush wrote:
Currently about 5%-15% of my traffic gets routed over the UtahREP.
please describe measurement technique.
randy
You are up late. :) Well, before my UtahREP connection, 100% of my traffic went over my transit links. Now about 5-15% of my total traffic (show int X) goes over my UtahREP connection. Today there are only 13 participants on the UtahREP, although there are about 40 ISPs in Utah (although probably 30 of them have less than 1,000 customers). All 40 would have to be connected to the UtahREP to know for sure exactly how much of my IP traffic is "local" (local being defined as within the state of Utah). Now when US West joins, the definition of "local" will change since their coverage includes 14 states. Dax Kelson Internet Connect, Inc.
On Mon, Jun 01, 1998 at 11:47:23AM -0700, bmanning@karoshi.com wrote:
Then check out the San Diego NAP....
URL for more info..? -- Steven J. Sobol - Founding Member, Postmaster/Webmaster, ISP Liaison -- Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail (FREE) - Dedicated to education about, and prevention of, Unsolicited Broadcast E-mail (UBE), also known as SPAM. Info: http://www.ybecker.net
Then check out the San Diego NAP....
URL for more info..?
-- Steven J. Sobol - Founding Member, Postmaster/Webmaster, ISP Liaison --
A sampling may be found at: http://www.isi.edu/div7/naps If there are others that people know about (public or private) and would be willing to share that information with me, I'd appreciate it. --bill
Steve, The San Diego NAP URL is www.caida.org/Caida/caidaix.html Tracie On Mon, Jun 01, 1998 at 11:47:23AM -0700, bmanning@karoshi.com wrote:
Then check out the San Diego NAP....
URL for more info..? -- Steven J. Sobol - Founding Member, Postmaster/Webmaster, ISP Liaison -- Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail (FREE) - Dedicated to education about, and prevention of, Unsolicited Broadcast E-mail (UBE), also known as SPAM. Info: http://www.ybecker.net
participants (8)
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bmanning＠karoshi.com -
Dax Kelson -
Jay R. Ashworth -
Randy Bush -
Steve Sobol -
Tim Salo -
Tom Perrine -
Tracie Monk