Re: Inevitable death, was Re: Verizon Public Policy on Netflix
Mike: An ASN is, literally, just a number. One that's used by a very awkward and primitive routing system that requires constant babysitting and tweaking and, after lo these many years, still doesn't deliver the security or robustness it should. Obtaining this token number (and a bunch of IP addresses which is no different, qualitatively, from what I already have) would be a large expense that would not produce any additional value for my customers but could force me to raise their fees -- something which I absolutely do not want to do. Perhaps it's best to think of it this way: I'm outsourcing some backbone routing functions to my upstreams, which (generously) aren't charging me anything extra to do it. In my opinion, that's a good business move. As for "peering:" the definition is pretty well established. ISPs do it; content providers at the edge do not. Netflix is fighting a war of semantics and politics with ISPs. It is trying to cling to every least penny it receives and spend none of it on the resources it consumes or on making its delivery of content more efficient. We have been in conversations with it in which we've asked only for it to be equitable and pay us the same amount per customer as it pays other ISPs, such as Comcast (since, after all, they should be just as valuable to it). It has refused to do even that much. That's why talks have, for the moment, broken down and we are looking at other solutions. --Brett Glass At 09:58 PM 7/14/2014, Mike Lyon wrote:
So we are splitting hairs with what "peering" means? And I am sure Netflix (or any other content / network / CDN provider) would be more than happy to statically route to you? Doubtful.
Dude, put your big boy pants on, get an ASN, get some IP space, Â I am a smaller ISP than you I am sure and I have both. It's not rocket science. How are other networks suppose to take you seriously if you don't have an ASN?
-Mike
Thanks, I am so happy I now understand what an ASN and BGP are. I had no clue! Fuck it, we don't need BGP anywhere. Everyone go static! Back to the binge drinking now as I started when I first started reading this thread... -Mike On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 9:21 PM, Brett Glass <nanog@brettglass.com> wrote:
Mike:
An ASN is, literally, just a number. One that's used by a very awkward and primitive routing system that requires constant babysitting and tweaking and, after lo these many years, still doesn't deliver the security or robustness it should. Obtaining this token number (and a bunch of IP addresses which is no different, qualitatively, from what I already have) would be a large expense that would not produce any additional value for my customers but could force me to raise their fees -- something which I absolutely do not want to do.
Perhaps it's best to think of it this way: I'm outsourcing some backbone routing functions to my upstreams, which (generously) aren't charging me anything extra to do it. In my opinion, that's a good business move.
As for "peering:" the definition is pretty well established. ISPs do it; content providers at the edge do not.
Netflix is fighting a war of semantics and politics with ISPs. It is trying to cling to every least penny it receives and spend none of it on the resources it consumes or on making its delivery of content more efficient. We have been in conversations with it in which we've asked only for it to be equitable and pay us the same amount per customer as it pays other ISPs, such as Comcast (since, after all, they should be just as valuable to it). It has refused to do even that much. That's why talks have, for the moment, broken down and we are looking at other solutions.
--Brett Glass
At 09:58 PM 7/14/2014, Mike Lyon wrote:
So we are splitting hairs with what "peering" means? And I am sure
Netflix (or any other content / network / CDN provider) would be more than happy to statically route to you? Doubtful.
Dude, put your big boy pants on, get an ASN, get some IP space, Â I am a smaller ISP than you I am sure and I have both. It's not rocket science. How are other networks suppose to take you seriously if you don't have an ASN?
-Mike
-- Mike Lyon 408-621-4826 mike.lyon@gmail.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/mlyon
If you are a multi-homed end user and you feel that a BGP configuration for that is a big management nightmare then you probably should not be running BGP. It would take me somewhere less than 15 minutes to set this up with two carriers and unless the carrier's are at drastically different tiers, there is no need to be doing a ton of "tweaking". I have run a bunch of networks like that and the workload of BGP was not even in my top 100 tasks. That "awkward and primitive" routing system has scaled pretty well and works well enough that there is not any widespread desire to change it. Sure we might change some things today (which we actually have over time, you know there are different BGP versions, right?), but if you can come up with a better system that is still in widespread use in 30 years, I will be impressed. Here is the number one reason to have an ASN and your own addresses: If you are using your upstream provider's address space and dump them, you will have to renumber. That is a big deal for anyone with a large internet facing presence and usually results in at least some downtime. Due to the way DNS works (cacheing), there is no really instantaneous way to change all the addressing on your publicly facing systems without incurring some interruption. You also could have your upstream provider get acquired or re-arrange their network whenever they feel necessary and you do not control your own destiny at all. It can also be complex announcing address space you received from one provider through another provider's network especially if those two providers change their peering arrangements between them. As a side benefit of having my own AS number, I can avoid or push traffic to certain carriers by changing my announcements. You can't do that without your own AS. Steven Naslund Chicago IL
Mike:
An ASN is, literally, just a number. One that's used by a very awkward and primitive routing system that requires constant babysitting and tweaking and, after lo these many years, still doesn't deliver the security or robustness it should. Obtaining this token number (and a bunch of IP addresses which is no different, qualitatively, from what I already have) would be a large expense that would not produce any additional value for my customers but could force me to raise their fees -- something which I absolutely do not want to do.
Perhaps it's best to think of it this way: I'm outsourcing some backbone routing functions to my upstreams, which (generously) aren't charging me anything extra to do it. In my opinion, that's a good business move.
As for "peering:" the definition is pretty well established. ISPs do it; content providers at the edge do not.
Netflix is fighting a war of semantics and politics with ISPs. It is trying to cling to every least penny it receives and spend none of it on the resources it consumes or on making its delivery of content more efficient. We have been in conversations with it in which we've asked only for it to be equitable and pay us the same amount per customer as it pays other ISPs, such as Comcast (since, after all, they should be just as valuable to it). It has refused to do even that much. That's why talks have, for the moment, broken down and we are looking at other solutions.
--Brett Glass
On 07/15/2014 07:33 AM, Naslund, Steve wrote:
Here is the number one reason to have an ASN and your own addresses: If you are using your upstream provider's address space and dump them, you will have to renumber. That is a big deal for anyone with a large internet facing presence and usually results in at least some downtime. Due to the way DNS works (cacheing), there is no really instantaneous way to change all the addressing on your publicly facing systems without incurring some interruption. You also could have your upstream provider get acquired or re-arrange their network whenever they feel necessary and you do not control your own destiny at all. It can also be complex announcing address space you received from one provider through another provider's network especially if those two providers change their peering arrangements between them.
OK, I used to work for a Web hosting company who (at the start of my tenure) did not have an ASN, and was not using BGP. Wasn't multi-homed, either. Every time they changed providers, they had to renumber. Now, this was a Linux house, very little Windows hosting, so the last time they renumbered from one upstream number space to another, I came up with a way to bridge the DNS update problem. 1) First step was to shorten the old times on DNS, about a month in advance of the changeover. 2) I had both upstreams on an overlap of two months. 3) I shifted all outgoing traffic to the new circuit, and DNS to the new numbers 4) In each of the Linux servers, I had both IP addresses configured. 5) In each box, the old address was then NATted to the new address. During the two-month transition period, my Web servers would answer to both addresses, and kept everything straight with NAT so that outgoing traffic exited the boxes using the same circuit. After two months, I took all the jerry-rigging out, and canceled the old circuit. Result: absolute minimum down-time for the Web sites, even for cable-based surfers. It was even easier when the hosting company got their own IP block and ASN. We just added the advertisements into the edge network, and did the same shuffle to our owned IP addresses. After a couple of months, we gave back the old addresses and stopped announcing them (by prearrangement with our legacy upstream, by the way.) Then we were home free and portable. Renumbering doesn't have to be a customer nightmare, if you plan carefully and use all the facilities you have at your disposal. And the earlier renumbering was done at the time that cable companies used to hold onto DNS caches FOREVER. Are those days over? I sure hope so.
On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 12:21 AM, Brett Glass <nanog@brettglass.com> wrote:
Perhaps it's best to think of it this way: I'm outsourcing some backbone routing functions to my upstreams, which (generously) aren't charging me anything extra to do it. In my opinion, that's a good business move.
Last comment on the thread. And the truth will set you free! Please have your upstream provider peer with Netflix and all will be right in the world. As a single-homed customer of said ISP, you are subject to their rules. No need for your involvement in this old routing protocol and numbers business, let them do it as it's their business, not yours. I will not respond further and we can let this thread finally die. - charles
In message <201407150421.WAA26665@mail.lariat.net>, Brett Glass writes:
Mike:
An ASN is, literally, just a number. One that's used by a very awkward and primitive routing system that requires constant babysitting and tweaking and, after lo these many years, still doesn't deliver the security or robustness it should. Obtaining this token number (and a bunch of IP addresses which is no different, qualitatively, from what I already have) would be a large expense that would not produce any additional value for my customers but could force me to raise their fees -- something which I absolutely do not want to do.
Perhaps it's best to think of it this way: I'm outsourcing some backbone routing functions to my upstreams, which (generously) aren't charging me anything extra to do it. In my opinion, that's a good business move.
As for "peering:" the definition is pretty well established. ISPs do it; content providers at the edge do not.
Bullshit. Lots of entities peer. Hell, I've peered over 9600 baud leased line slip connections back in 80's. Late 80's but still the 80's. The only requirement for peering is that you want to interconnect. I've also peered over fibre pulled between building on a campus. In all cases both entities bought and dedicated ports on their routers. Routes were exchanged and bits shipped back and forth. An ISP and a content provider can peer. Their common job is to ship bits to the ISP's customers. They are peers on that role.
Netflix is fighting a war of semantics and politics with ISPs. It is trying to cling to every least penny it receives and spend none of it on the resources it consumes or on making its delivery of content more efficient. We have been in conversations with it in which we've asked only for it to be equitable and pay us the same amount per customer as it pays other ISPs, such as Comcast (since, after all, they should be just as valuable to it). It has refused to do even that much. That's why talks have, for the moment, broken down and we are looking at other solutions.
--Brett Glass
At 09:58 PM 7/14/2014, Mike Lyon wrote:
So we are splitting hairs with what "peering" means? And I am sure Netflix (or any other content / network / CDN provider) would be more than happy to statically route to you? Doubtful.
Dude, put your big boy pants on, get an ASN, get some IP space, Â I am a smaller ISP than you I am sure and I have both. It's not rocket science. How are other networks suppose to take you seriously if you don't have an ASN?
-Mike
-- Mark Andrews, ISC 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742 INTERNET: marka@isc.org
On 15 July 2014 06:21, Brett Glass <nanog@brettglass.com> wrote:
Perhaps it's best to think of it this way: I'm outsourcing some backbone routing functions to my upstreams, which (generously) aren't charging me anything extra to do it. In my opinion, that's a good business move.
Ah but they are charging you for it. You are paying approximately 40x as much for your bandwidth as you should be (you said you paid 20 USD/Mbps - an outrageous rate). You have a link to a place where you can buy 1 Gbps flatrate for USD 500 per month, so why aren't you? Regards, Baldur
On Jul 14, 2014, at 21:21 , Brett Glass <nanog@brettglass.com> wrote:
Mike:
An ASN is, literally, just a number. One that's used by a very awkward and primitive routing system that requires constant babysitting and tweaking and, after lo these many years, still doesn't deliver the security or robustness it should. Obtaining this token number (and a bunch of IP addresses which is no different, qualitatively, from what I already have) would be a large expense that would not produce any additional value for my customers but could force me to raise their fees -- something which I absolutely do not want to do.
Interesting... I, and many of my customers, have ASNs and are running BGP and haven't had to tweak or babysit it for years. It just cruises along doing the right thing. Generally, we only have to modify it when we add/move/change a peering and/or transit relationship.
Perhaps it's best to think of it this way: I'm outsourcing some backbone routing functions to my upstreams, which (generously) aren't charging me anything extra to do it. In my opinion, that's a good business move.
That's fine, and from the rest of the world's perspective, your network is just another part of their network. You are invisible and irrelevant.
As for "peering:" the definition is pretty well established. ISPs do it; content providers at the edge do not.
I disagree. Many content and eyeball networks engage in a variety of forms of peering in various situations and for various reasons. The definition of "peering" is an exterior gateway protocol adjacency formed between two routers in different autonomous systems. (note, I use the term exterior gateway protocol in the generic sense, where BGP is the most prominent example du jour, not to specifically refer to the now antiquated EGP of days gone by).
Netflix is fighting a war of semantics and politics with ISPs. It is trying to cling to every least penny it receives and spend none of it on the resources it consumes or on making its delivery of content more efficient. We have been in conversations with it in which we've asked only for it to be equitable and pay us the same amount per customer as it pays other ISPs, such as Comcast (since, after all, they should be just as valuable to it). It has refused to do even that much. That's why talks have, for the moment, broken down and we are looking at other solutions.
Nope... Netflix is trying to help their customers and make it as easy as they reasonably can for the eyeball networks that serve those customers. Some less than scrupulous eyeball networks seem to be fighting a war to try and extort Netflix to subsidize their operations, and you have thus placed yourself in some interesting and dubious company by attempting to carry out a similar attempt at extortion. Perhaps you are emboldened by the success of one or more of these very large eyeball networks into thinking that this is how the world should operate. Perhaps something else drives your beliefs. Either way, I suspect that if your entire subscriber base disappeared from Netflix' customer roles, they would barely notice, if at all. OTOH, I suspect you get fairly regular complaints from your customers because you don't provide adequate bandwidth to enough of the internet to include reliable functional access to Netflix as part of your product line. Regardless of what you say in the fine print, your customers are expecting that they are buying access to the entire internet, including Netflix. They're asking for those packets from Netflix and once Netflix gets them to the front door of one or more of the ASNs advertising your customer's network numbers, Netflix has done their job. From there, your customers have paid you to take those bits and deliver them. Your failure to do so is just that... Your failure. Trying to get Netflix to help compensate you for a business model that doesn't provide sufficient revenue to correct the situation is absurd at best. Owen
participants (8)
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Baldur Norddahl -
Brett Glass -
Charles Gucker -
list -
Mark Andrews -
Mike Lyon -
Naslund, Steve -
Owen DeLong