Broadband initiatives - impact to your network?
I'm one of the reporters who covers broadband and cloud computing for InformationWeek magazine (www.informationweek.com), and it's interesting to me that one of the issues with cloud adoption has to do with the limited pipe networks available in this country. For example, it's not feasible to do a massive data load through the networks that are currently available -- you need to FedEx a hard drive to Amazon. Holy cow, it's SneakerNet for the 21st Century! Initiatives like the federal BTOP (Broadband Technology Opportunity Program) and Google's infamous (and so far invisible) fiber program promise to change, by orders of magnitude, the pipe that's available to most folks, and therefore change equations like SneakerNet for cloud loads. Surely the backbone will also need to be much more capacious, with middle mile changes like this. I am interested in hearing from folks on this list about the impacts that these programs are having on your network build-out and management plans. I'm also interested in hearing your perspective on real network management issues that could either be caused by or fixed by proposed FCC regulation of broadband. I don't have a political axe to grind, and I know that broadband is something of a political issue right now. But there are pragmatics that data center managers and CIOs have to deal with every day, and knowing what's coming up on the national broadband agenda is becoming more and more important. You can reply to me either on-list, or off-list (jf@feldman.org) if you want to remain anonymous. My deadline is Monday, close of business (5pm ET). Thanks so much for your perspective. --Jonathan Jonathan Feldman Contributing Editor, InformationWeek http://www.informationweek.com Twitter: @_jfeldman
On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 9:03 AM, Jonathan Feldman <jf@feldman.org> wrote:
I'm one of the reporters who covers broadband and cloud computing for InformationWeek magazine (www.informationweek.com), and it's interesting to me that one of the issues with cloud adoption has to do with the limited pipe networks available in this country. For example, it's not feasible to do a massive data load through the networks that are currently available -- you need to FedEx a hard drive to Amazon. Holy cow, it's SneakerNet for the 21st Century!
is this a 'this country' bandwidth problem or the problem that moving 10tb of 'corporate data' in a 'secure fashion' from 'office' to 'cloud' really isn't a simple task? and that cutting a DB over at a point in time 'next tuesday!' is far easier done by shipping a point-in-time copy of the DB via sata-drive than 'holy cow copy this over the corp ds3, while we make sure not to kill it for mail/web/etc other corporate normal uses' ? The broadband plan stuff mostly covers consumers, not enterprises, most of the (amazon as the example here) cloud folks offer disk-delivery options for businesses. you seem to be comparing apples to oranges, no? -chris
More than one person has pointed out that offline media will always be higher bandwidth than transmission lines (but nobody with such elegance and hilarity as Nick Hilliard's last post). Point taken. The question, in my mind, is whether it's reasonable to ask that regional providers reach the same bar as privately owned campus networks. I don't agree with you, Christopher, that the broadband plan won't affect corporate users. I know that this list _mostly_ consists of operators, but I've gotten some offline responses to my initial query that seem to indicate that enterprise users utilize SOHO (consumer grade, but with higher speeds) for various branch office needs. Also, when a technology gets "consumerized" it tends to create interesting effects in terms of features and price points. Think of it this way: where would corporate mobile phones be without the consumer effect? We'd still be carrying them around in bags and only corporate officers would have them. I appreciate everyone's response! On Jun 28, 2010, at 5:46 PM, Christopher Morrow wrote:
On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 9:03 AM, Jonathan Feldman <jf@feldman.org> wrote:
I'm one of the reporters who covers broadband and cloud computing for InformationWeek magazine (www.informationweek.com), and it's interesting to me that one of the issues with cloud adoption has to do with the limited pipe networks available in this country. For example, it's not feasible to do a massive data load through the networks that are currently available -- you need to FedEx a hard drive to Amazon. Holy cow, it's SneakerNet for the 21st Century!
is this a 'this country' bandwidth problem or the problem that moving 10tb of 'corporate data' in a 'secure fashion' from 'office' to 'cloud' really isn't a simple task? and that cutting a DB over at a point in time 'next tuesday!' is far easier done by shipping a point-in-time copy of the DB via sata-drive than 'holy cow copy this over the corp ds3, while we make sure not to kill it for mail/web/etc other corporate normal uses' ?
The broadband plan stuff mostly covers consumers, not enterprises, most of the (amazon as the example here) cloud folks offer disk-delivery options for businesses.
you seem to be comparing apples to oranges, no?
-chris
I've never claimed to be particularly bright, but I do like to challenge assumptions. I meant "privately owned campuses spanning many miles." Is that a WAN? LAN? "MAN"? Seriously, should there really be a difference? If so, why must there be a difference? Let's not forget that ADSL is distance limited. Should it have ever been classified as a WAN technology? Compare that to fiber-connected Ethernet, a so-called LAN technology that goes miles and miles. On Jun 28, 2010, at 6:50 PM, Randy Bush wrote:
The question, in my mind, is whether it's reasonable to ask that regional providers reach the same bar as privately owned campus networks.
you are comparing LAN to WAN, never a bright idea
randy
-----Original Message----- From: Jonathan Feldman Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 4:14 PM To: Randy Bush Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Broadband initiatives - impact to your network?
I've never claimed to be particularly bright, but I do like to challenge assumptions.
It isn't only the amount of bandwidth available but also in many cases the protocols used to transmit the data. It takes smarter than the average bear to figure out how to get data across a fat pipe over a long distance at a high rate. TCP protocols are limited by the number of packets allowed to be "in flight" according to how the stack is configured. One might need to go to unorthodox or rather new methods to use all the available bandwidth. There are many cases of someone being stymied as to why they can't even get anywhere near 10 megabits of throughput on a GigE path from Los Angeles to London using FTP, for example. In many cases the responsibility of getting data from point A to point B is handled by people who don't bring their network operators into the discussion where problems like this can be pointed out to them. Often the first time the enterprise network group hears about it is when someone complains that the "fast pipe" to $continent is "slow" and therefore must be broken and that is generally followed by the demand that it be fixed immediately if that demand is not included in the first email. That is when conversations bearing sounds like mpscp and uftp begin and then someone says "aw, screw it, just send them a disk". George
That is when conversations bearing sounds like mpscp and uftp begin and then someone says "aw, screw it, just send them a disk".
LOL!!!!
Subject: RE: Broadband initiatives - impact to your network? Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:46:37 -0700 From: gbonser@seven.com To: jf@feldman.org; randy@psg.com CC: nanog@nanog.org
-----Original Message----- From: Jonathan Feldman Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 4:14 PM To: Randy Bush Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Broadband initiatives - impact to your network?
I've never claimed to be particularly bright, but I do like to challenge assumptions.
It isn't only the amount of bandwidth available but also in many cases the protocols used to transmit the data. It takes smarter than the average bear to figure out how to get data across a fat pipe over a long distance at a high rate. TCP protocols are limited by the number of packets allowed to be "in flight" according to how the stack is configured. One might need to go to unorthodox or rather new methods to use all the available bandwidth.
There are many cases of someone being stymied as to why they can't even get anywhere near 10 megabits of throughput on a GigE path from Los Angeles to London using FTP, for example. In many cases the responsibility of getting data from point A to point B is handled by people who don't bring their network operators into the discussion where problems like this can be pointed out to them. Often the first time the enterprise network group hears about it is when someone complains that the "fast pipe" to $continent is "slow" and therefore must be broken and that is generally followed by the demand that it be fixed immediately if that demand is not included in the first email.
That is when conversations bearing sounds like mpscp and uftp begin and then someone says "aw, screw it, just send them a disk".
George
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:46:37 -0700 From: "George Bonser" <gbonser@seven.com>
-----Original Message----- From: Jonathan Feldman Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 4:14 PM To: Randy Bush Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Broadband initiatives - impact to your network?
I've never claimed to be particularly bright, but I do like to challenge assumptions.
It isn't only the amount of bandwidth available but also in many cases the protocols used to transmit the data. It takes smarter than the average bear to figure out how to get data across a fat pipe over a long distance at a high rate. TCP protocols are limited by the number of packets allowed to be "in flight" according to how the stack is configured. One might need to go to unorthodox or rather new methods to use all the available bandwidth.
There are many cases of someone being stymied as to why they can't even get anywhere near 10 megabits of throughput on a GigE path from Los Angeles to London using FTP, for example. In many cases the responsibility of getting data from point A to point B is handled by people who don't bring their network operators into the discussion where problems like this can be pointed out to them. Often the first time the enterprise network group hears about it is when someone complains that the "fast pipe" to $continent is "slow" and therefore must be broken and that is generally followed by the demand that it be fixed immediately if that demand is not included in the first email.
That is when conversations bearing sounds like mpscp and uftp begin and then someone says "aw, screw it, just send them a disk".
If you really want to improve on the performance of data transfers over long distances (e.g. across an ocean), take a look at http://fasterdata.es.net. The Department of Energy and ESnet provides this information primarily for researchers needing to over large volumes of data over many thousands of kilometers. While some of the information will be beyond the capabilities of the average network user and either end can cause the performance problems, the information can explain a bit about why the problems exists and does provide some simple changes that can greatly enhance transfer speed. -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634 Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4 EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751
On Monday, June 28, 2010 06:50:10 pm Randy Bush wrote:
The question, in my mind, is whether it's reasonable to ask that regional providers reach the same bar as privately owned campus networks.
you are comparing LAN to WAN, never a bright idea
Even ATM years ago blurred that arbitrary line. Why does there even need to be a line between local and wide in terms of networking? As far as IP is concerned, there is no difference. Even as far as Ethernet is concerned, there is no difference. It's ATM's promise all over again with people reinventing wheels that shouldn't have to be reinvented....WAN's exist for demarcation, typically, at least in the way I've used them (I used a POS OC3 over a 35 mile path for three years as a LANish link, with the WAN link that had BGP speakers attached being FastEthernet... talk about blurring a line; and now I use a L3VPN tunnel on a WANish Metro Ethernet link to replace the direct OC3 LAN link....)) The BTOP applications of which I'm familiar could just as easily carry traffic that would traditionally be classified as local area; or even storage area, for that matter, as fibre channel in particular does very well over long distances (run IP on FC, and get better than Ethernet throughput for less money, even.... :-)). Drop a wave mux in, hit it with intermediate reach optics, up the number of buffers (on FC, at least, and pay the license for the larger buffers, to vendor B at least), and drop your storage elsewhere. I'd rather get a wave than IP or even SONET transport any day. Wish it were an option here. And I see the BTOP ARRA apps having the potential, if done right, to extend the 'LAN' (as opposed to 'broadcast domain' even though I know many use the two terms synonymously) to a global reach. WAN's historically have been differentiated by lower bandwidth, greater segmentation/demarcation of traffic, and higher cost relative to LAN links; BTOP has the potential to eliminate that distinction.
On 6/29/2010 09:17, Lamar Owen wrote:
On Monday, June 28, 2010 06:50:10 pm Randy Bush wrote:
you are comparing LAN to WAN, never a bright idea
Even ATM years ago blurred that arbitrary line.
Why does there even need to be a line between local and wide in terms of networking?
As with most toe-drawn-lines-in-the-dirt the agendum here is not what the author wants you to think it is. -- Somebody should have said: A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Freedom under a constitutional republic is a well armed lamb contesting the vote. Requiescas in pace o email Ex turpi causa non oritur actio Eppure si rinfresca ICBM Targeting Information: http://tinyurl.com/4sqczs http://tinyurl.com/7tp8ml
you are comparing LAN to WAN, never a bright idea
Even ATM years ago blurred that arbitrary line.
Why does there even need to be a line between local and wide in terms of networking? As far as IP is concerned, there is no difference. Even as far as Ethernet is concerned, there is no difference.
I beg to differ. There is a big difference between a multipoint traffic within a small geographical area (typically realized with switches), and trying to realize the same multipoint topology/traffic across a national backbone, typically using VPLS and similar technologies. On the other hand, Ethernet used as a framing/encapsulation technology for point to point links works just fine across large distances. Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug@nethelp.no
The question, in my mind, is whether it's reasonable to ask that regional providers reach the same bar as privately owned campus networks.
you are comparing LAN to WAN, never a bright idea
Today's residential internet speeds ("WAN") are greater than the LAN speeds of 20 years ago. Users generally don't care about "LAN" vs "WAN", and just want their stuff to work fast and well. I would counter your statement with a warning that it's never a bright idea to simply discount what people want to be able to do just because it would involve what us techies call a "WAN." It's too easy to forget what users want to be able to do; for example, maybe at&t didn't really properly predict that users would be downloading huge amounts of YouTube, pictures, app-driven data, and movies over their "3G" network, which is kind of the ultimate example of the general point I'm making. It's likely correct that WAN speeds will never match LAN speeds, so from that point of view, you're correct, but that doesn't mean that it might not be nice to be able to backup someone's PC over a SOHO cablemodem to a corporate backup server, and in fact some people try to do that, since the alternatives are not good. Bleh :-) ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.
On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 6:26 PM, Jonathan Feldman <jf@feldman.org> wrote:
I don't agree with you, Christopher, that the broadband plan won't affect corporate users. I know that this list _mostly_ consists of operators, but
(there are a fair number of consumer network operations folks on nanog as well...) There have been plans to offer 'business' connectivity (replacing T1/T3 last-mile type things) from the likes of Verizon (FiOS) for some time. To date you can't (and they don't seem to have plans really) get a last-mile tail on FiOS with BGP for routing information (like for a redundant connection setup, or for alternate provider paths: FiOS 50mbps link from VZ + 45mbps Ds3 from ATT using BGP to manage your redundancy needs). I don't know that you could not do the same on Comcast or Cox's deployments at this time, maybe someone from these alternatives have already spoken up privately on the matter.
I've gotten some offline responses to my initial query that seem to indicate that enterprise users utilize SOHO (consumer grade, but with higher speeds)
Sure, lots of folks use 'consumer grade' links for out-sites, that dish on top of the Mobil station being the cannonical example. These out-sites don't generally have the data concentration of the main office, nor the bandwidth needs, nor the redundancy/resiliency needs. Using a SOHO/Consumer link in the right place is a fine solution, using it at your core site, not so fine...
for various branch office needs. Also, when a technology gets "consumerized" it tends to create interesting effects in terms of features and price points.
Still waiting for that on the FiOS space or the Comcast space (where's my 100mbps cable/FiOS link with BGP for redundancy?). I CAN get a 50mbps bidirectional FiOS link with static ip addresses (that I have to pay for the 'privilege' of having) but I can NOT use my own ip space, nor can I use a routing protocol to tell VZ or the rest of the world to prefer my alternate link to get to my office. That's suboptimal, and not 'business class' service.
Think of it this way: where would corporate mobile phones be without the consumer effect? We'd still be carrying them around in bags and only corporate officers would have them.
I'm not sure that the corporate smartphone usage was driven by consumers, it seems (to me) to be the other way around actually... I'm not a mobile-maven so who knows :) -Chris
I appreciate everyone's response!
On Jun 28, 2010, at 5:46 PM, Christopher Morrow wrote:
On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 9:03 AM, Jonathan Feldman <jf@feldman.org> wrote:
I'm one of the reporters who covers broadband and cloud computing for InformationWeek magazine (www.informationweek.com), and it's interesting to me that one of the issues with cloud adoption has to do with the limited pipe networks available in this country. For example, it's not feasible to do a massive data load through the networks that are currently available -- you need to FedEx a hard drive to Amazon. Holy cow, it's SneakerNet for the 21st Century!
is this a 'this country' bandwidth problem or the problem that moving 10tb of 'corporate data' in a 'secure fashion' from 'office' to 'cloud' really isn't a simple task? and that cutting a DB over at a point in time 'next tuesday!' is far easier done by shipping a point-in-time copy of the DB via sata-drive than 'holy cow copy this over the corp ds3, while we make sure not to kill it for mail/web/etc other corporate normal uses' ?
The broadband plan stuff mostly covers consumers, not enterprises, most of the (amazon as the example here) cloud folks offer disk-delivery options for businesses.
you seem to be comparing apples to oranges, no?
-chris
is geoff's isp business 101 still the canonic reference for what this reporter needs for clue? doing it micro-incrementally on list is a major ton of <bleep>. randy
Hello every one I am curious as to how others are documenting their network; both visually and configurations. Is there any a software offers a database with web-based front end that can document in a very details. thanks -- Tarig Y. Adam CTO - SUIN www.suin.edu.sd _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection. https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx?id=60969
Tarig Yassin <tariq198487@hotmail.com> writes: First: *PLEASE* do not start a new thread by replying to a mail an changing the subject. There is something called reference header which allows real mail clients (read: not Outlook or Notes) to do threading. This makes it much easier to read large amounts of mail
I am curious as to how others are documenting their network; both visually and configurations.
Is there any a software offers a database with web-based front end that can document in a very details.
Most people I know use a wiki for documentation and rancid for configuration management. If you want to access your configurations wia web you can use rancid + webcvs. There are also several database based tools for ip address management. Check the list archives for details. Jens -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Foelderichstr. 40 | 13595 Berlin, Germany | +49-151-18721264 | | http://blog.quux.de | jabber: jenslink@guug.de | ------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Jun 29, 2010, at 8:28 AM, Jens Link wrote:
I am curious as to how others are documenting their network; both visually and configurations.
Is there any a software offers a database with web-based front end that can document in a very details.
Most people I know use a wiki for documentation and rancid for configuration management. If you want to access your configurations wia web you can use rancid + webcvs.
There are also several database based tools for ip address management. Check the list archives for details.
There was a pretty nifty presentation at NANOG49 that may be what you're looking for: https://netdot.uoregon.edu/ -b
On Monday, June 28, 2010 05:46:00 pm Christopher Morrow wrote:
The broadband plan stuff mostly covers consumers, not enterprises, most of the (amazon as the example here) cloud folks offer disk-delivery options for businesses.
One successful BTOP application in North Carolina has more to do with enterprises (in this case, educational institutions) than with consumers.
On Tue, 29 Jun 2010, Lamar Owen wrote:
On Monday, June 28, 2010 05:46:00 pm Christopher Morrow wrote:
The broadband plan stuff mostly covers consumers, not enterprises, most of the (amazon as the example here) cloud folks offer disk-delivery options for businesses.
One successful BTOP application in North Carolina has more to do with enterprises (in this case, educational institutions) than with consumers.
Likewise in Pennsylvania. jms
On 27/06/2010 14:03, Jonathan Feldman wrote:
For example, it's not feasible to do a massive data load through the networks that are currently available -- you need to FedEx a hard drive to Amazon. Holy cow, it's SneakerNet for the 21st Century!
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a stationwagon full of $current_high_density_storage_media. Nick
... as Andrew T teaches ... :D On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Nick Hilliard <nick@foobar.org> wrote:
On 27/06/2010 14:03, Jonathan Feldman wrote:
For example, it's not feasible to do a massive data load through the networks that are currently available -- you need to FedEx a hard drive to Amazon. Holy cow, it's SneakerNet for the 21st Century!
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a stationwagon full of $current_high_density_storage_media.
Nick
I wrote a first round BTOP application. No, the program doesn't quite promise to change, by orders of magnitude, the pipe that's available to most folks, and even if it did, that isn't a very strong promise. "Most folks" live in urban areas, adequately served by physics, if not the private, and the surviving public infrastructure. "Most folks" who reside in BTOP eligible area codes are not adequately served by physics, and BTOP is, IMHO, limited solutions to the physics problem, with possibly sustainable public incentive funding. The "orders of magnitude" claim, and the plural in "orders" is key, is both over blown and misses what is, IMHO, the most interesting aspect of revisiting the physics assumptions about the edge of service. Is unidirectional transport (monitized video streams) the rural service most absent and most valued, or are other characteristics of networks competitive with, or superior to, that service model? The sneaker net meme is worth holding on to, among others. Some of this was grist for the PILC WG. I went with Plan B, but then again, my application got zero funding, and folks that follow this may appreciate the relevance of the mapping portion of the BTOP/BIP package to selection, and the role of state government in selection. I suggest coverage of the lobbying of BTOP/BIP grants is at least as interesting as the problems various applicants attempt to state and provide solutions for. Held until after 5pm PDT, mostly so I could take a walk. Eric
On Jun 28, 2010, at 7:42 PM, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:
Is unidirectional transport (monitized video streams) the rural service most absent and most valued, or are other characteristics of networks competitive with, or superior to, that service model?
If you drive around rural central and northeastern Texas, every ranch house and bunkhouse has a DirecTV or Dish installation. Surprisingly, many of these same houses also have DSL available from the (heavily subsidized) telephone coops in the area. The speeds aren't screaming, typically being in the 300-700 down/128-384 up ADSL-2+ range. So the demand is there, and so is the service in some areas. --Chris
Jonathan Feldman wrote:
I'm one of the reporters who covers broadband and cloud computing for InformationWeek magazine (www.informationweek.com), and it's interesting to me that one of the issues with cloud adoption has to do with the limited pipe networks available in this country. For example, it's not feasible to do a massive data load through the networks that are currently available -- you need to FedEx a hard drive to Amazon. Holy cow, it's SneakerNet for the 21st Century!
What's wrong with this? It's not feasible to build a network that spans many ISPs and backbones, capable of doing massive data loads, if the demand for these loads (e.g. "upload all our data to a cloud computing system") is infrequent and usually one-time-only - which it seems to be. It's not as if there's a huge performance hit to using FedEx to solve this problem - what is the benefit to the customer in having it all happen within hours instead of 1-2 days? There are other, far more often desired or accessed services (e.g. video on demand, video teleconferencing) that absolutely need high performance big pipe bandwidth, whose needs can not be met with FedEx. Customers who need to access or offer video-on-demand are far more willing to pay, month after month, for access to a high performance backbone. Your average corporate customer isn't going to be willing to pay month-after-month for a super big super fast pipe (faster than they need for their everyday internet access purposes) just so that they can - once - upload their entire corporate database to "the cloud" faster than they can FedEx disks to their chosen cloud provider. Look at the business case (or lack thereof) for the service before you ask "why isn't this available". Unless/until there's a business case for many customers to pay for the service, there's not going to be any purpose in creating the product. jc
If the data you need to preload is sufficiently large (e.g. 10s or hundreds of terabytes then yeah it should come as no surprise that it might be more convenient to move by shifting around disks. 100TB of raw disk is around $8000. On 2010-06-28 21:50, JC Dill wrote:
Jonathan Feldman wrote:
I'm one of the reporters who covers broadband and cloud computing for InformationWeek magazine (www.informationweek.com), and it's interesting to me that one of the issues with cloud adoption has to do with the limited pipe networks available in this country. For example, it's not feasible to do a massive data load through the networks that are currently available -- you need to FedEx a hard drive to Amazon. Holy cow, it's SneakerNet for the 21st Century!
What's wrong with this? It's not feasible to build a network that spans many ISPs and backbones, capable of doing massive data loads, if the demand for these loads (e.g. "upload all our data to a cloud computing system") is infrequent and usually one-time-only - which it seems to be. It's not as if there's a huge performance hit to using FedEx to solve this problem - what is the benefit to the customer in having it all happen within hours instead of 1-2 days? There are other, far more often desired or accessed services (e.g. video on demand, video teleconferencing) that absolutely need high performance big pipe bandwidth, whose needs can not be met with FedEx. Customers who need to access or offer video-on-demand are far more willing to pay, month after month, for access to a high performance backbone. Your average corporate customer isn't going to be willing to pay month-after-month for a super big super fast pipe (faster than they need for their everyday internet access purposes) just so that they can - once - upload their entire corporate database to "the cloud" faster than they can FedEx disks to their chosen cloud provider.
Look at the business case (or lack thereof) for the service before you ask "why isn't this available". Unless/until there's a business case for many customers to pay for the service, there's not going to be any purpose in creating the product.
jc
On Jun 29, 2010, at 12:59 AM, joel jaeggli wrote:
If the data you need to preload is sufficiently large (e.g. 10s or hundreds of terabytes then yeah it should come as no surprise that it might be more convenient to move by shifting around disks. 100TB of raw disk is around $8000.
The cost of equipment is not the driver here, as you can presumably reuse it. Looking around, I can find a 2 Terabyte drive with a ship weight of 2 pounds. To ship this from Virginia to Cupertino, California overnight by FedEx is $ 53.46, and I can mail them back for $ 14.50. Assuming that "overnight" is a 24 hour delay, this is an effective bandwidth of 185 Mbps. If I do this every weekday for a month (20 days), I have shipped 40 Terabytes for $ 1359.20, so I have an effective "work week bandwidth cost" of $ 7.34 / Mbps / Month, which seems fairly competitive, especially as I can turn this on and off as needed (e.g., I don't have to pay for Holidays). So, depending on need, the shipment of physical media may be cost competitive, as well as merely convenient. Regards Marshall
On 2010-06-28 21:50, JC Dill wrote:
Jonathan Feldman wrote:
I'm one of the reporters who covers broadband and cloud computing for InformationWeek magazine (www.informationweek.com), and it's interesting to me that one of the issues with cloud adoption has to do with the limited pipe networks available in this country. For example, it's not feasible to do a massive data load through the networks that are currently available -- you need to FedEx a hard drive to Amazon. Holy cow, it's SneakerNet for the 21st Century!
What's wrong with this? It's not feasible to build a network that spans many ISPs and backbones, capable of doing massive data loads, if the demand for these loads (e.g. "upload all our data to a cloud computing system") is infrequent and usually one-time-only - which it seems to be. It's not as if there's a huge performance hit to using FedEx to solve this problem - what is the benefit to the customer in having it all happen within hours instead of 1-2 days? There are other, far more often desired or accessed services (e.g. video on demand, video teleconferencing) that absolutely need high performance big pipe bandwidth, whose needs can not be met with FedEx. Customers who need to access or offer video-on-demand are far more willing to pay, month after month, for access to a high performance backbone. Your average corporate customer isn't going to be willing to pay month-after-month for a super big super fast pipe (faster than they need for their everyday internet access purposes) just so that they can - once - upload their entire corporate database to "the cloud" faster than they can FedEx disks to their chosen cloud provider.
Look at the business case (or lack thereof) for the service before you ask "why isn't this available". Unless/until there's a business case for many customers to pay for the service, there's not going to be any purpose in creating the product.
jc
participants (21)
-
Brandon Kim -
Brett Watson -
Chris Boyd -
Christopher Morrow -
Eric Brunner-Williams -
George Bonser -
JC Dill -
Jens Link -
Joe Greco -
joel jaeggli -
Jonathan Feldman -
Justin M. Streiner -
Kevin Oberman -
Lamar Owen -
Larry Sheldon -
Marshall Eubanks -
Nick Hilliard -
Randy Bush -
Stefano Gridelli -
sthaug＠nethelp.no -
Tarig Yassin