On Sun, Jun 03, 2001 at 07:42:13PM -0700, David Klindt wrote:
I still fail to see how "peak bits" or "bursted bits" are more expensive than "regular bits". A 100Mbit FE port costs whatever it costs, and does not fluctuate with usage. This is true of almost all of your links within the network - excluding those where you have negotiated usage-based billing. An OC3, point to point, costs as much as it costs irrelevant of its usage. Therefore, every bit that crosses this circuit has a cost.
Why not simply pass this cost on to the customer bit for bit?
It is NOT that the each bit has the same cost - it is the cost of maintaining enough EXTRA bandwidth so that the downstreams do not bounce up against the ceiling. That amount is basically covered by using the 95 rule.
But peak vs non-peak has little to do with 95th percentile. Assuming that every day's traffic patterns are the same (which is rarely true, there is almost always a weekend/sunday difference), 95th percentile removes the top 1 hour 12 minutes from each day's peak. This is more then enough time to piss off your customers if they all hit the peak together and congest your network. If you really wanted to motivate customers to not all burst above what you have provisioned, you would charge them a "bursting fee". Personally I am of the philosophy that it is easier to build your network right. With the availability of cheap dark fiber, cheap wdm gear, and "carrier neutral exchange points" like PAIX and Equinix, the problem of "Oh crap my OC12 is full during peak times, it will be another 6 months before the telco can get me another one and it will double my operating costs" can be worked around. If you build a good network which is really scaleable, bursting costs you nothing. If you can pass the savings on to customers, while giving them a solid network, you will get more customers who WANT to push traffic. Pushing traffic leads to billing, which leads to money (usually). -- Richard A Steenbergen <ras@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)
On Sun, 3 Jun 2001, Richard A. Steenbergen wrote:
On Sun, Jun 03, 2001 at 07:42:13PM -0700, David Klindt wrote:
I still fail to see how "peak bits" or "bursted bits" are more expensive than "regular bits". A 100Mbit FE port costs whatever it costs, and does not fluctuate with usage. This is true of almost all of your links within the network - excluding those where you have negotiated usage-based billing. An OC3, point to point, costs as much as it costs irrelevant of its usage. Therefore, every bit that crosses this circuit has a cost.
Why not simply pass this cost on to the customer bit for bit?
It is NOT that the each bit has the same cost - it is the cost of maintaining enough EXTRA bandwidth so that the downstreams do not bounce up against the ceiling. That amount is basically covered by using the 95 rule.
But peak vs non-peak has little to do with 95th percentile.
Sure they do. I sell bandwidth. I either place a limit on each port, or I let a client go full open - their call. I MUST be in a position to cover those costs and yes, at times unused bandwidth. That cost must be past on to the client if I am to remain in business. If all clients were willing to set a ceiling and be forced to live within that ceiling, then no problem. Clients who select a ceiling pay for the (100 percent) of that bandwidth (ceiling). If I do not have the bandwidth to cover the peaks of all clients at the same time, I am shorting the clients.
But peak vs non-peak has little to do with 95th percentile. Assuming that every day's traffic patterns are the same (which is rarely true, there is
My nybble's worth: 95th percentile is usually based on a 5 minute average, and when you have a lot of upstream bandwidth you can move a lot of data quickly and it barely shows in a graph/monitoring system doing 'mrtg' style 5 minute samples. It's better than nothing, and identifies 'hogs' quickly. Because of the large amount of 'business hours' users we have, I've made some special deals to some 'off-hour' bandwidth hogs because of the available and unused bandwidth during those hours. --Mike--
participants (3)
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David Klindt -
mike harrison -
Richard A. Steenbergen