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P2P Remains Dominant Protocol
An anonymous reader writes "Last week, a press release was issued by Ellacotya that suggested something quite startling — HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, aka Web traffic) had for the first time in four years overtaken P2P traffic. However a new article from Slyck disputes this, and contends that P2P remains the bandwidth heavyweight."
Here I thought P2P was a class of applications, you know, ones that communicate peer to peer.
WTF. We can't even blame editors for this crap anymore, because they gave us the Firehose.
as much as everyone loves http traffic, its not going to overtake the likes of bittorrent traffic anytime soon (unless of course ISP's start blocking all P2P related traffic)
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, aka Web traffic) had for the first time in four years overtaken P2P traffic
That'll be because AJAX has lead to a massive increase in HTTP traffic. How much traffic do the Web 2.0 "applications" from Google alone generate, do you think?
Many people have been saying that Web 2.0 is an utterly wasteful way to do things. There's the proof. Now can we stop building Web 2.0 "applications", please?
P2P (while actually a mix of several types of protocols) by default is 1000 - 1000000 times as bulky as most HTTP transfers are (unless you're downloading files off an HTTP file server) Most of the time though it's just text and pics. I think the article is just reaffirming what /. users already knew.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
P2P is not one protocol, but many. Some P2P systems, such as Gnutella, even use HTTP for file transfers.
A lot of P2P applications even uses http in one phase or another of its execution, what is the case of bittorrent clients communication with trackers, that is done over using http requests.
What they might be implying is that the so called "legitimate" traffic (casual WWW surfing) is outpacing filesharing. Ironically, this growing is due the popularization of tools that allow users to share the files via www, tools like Youtube and Flickr (and pornotube, *cough*) that they would share via P2P applications like Kazaa, Napster or IMesh.
Bottom line is: people don't care about the tools, but about the use they do to the tools. Nothing to see here, move along.
P2P (which is a class of applications, not a specific protocol) was created to deal with huge files. Of course it will generate a lot of traffic. Duh!
HTTP is a protocol, P2P are a classification of applications, some of which use the HTTP protocol as a transport layer.
Comparing the two is as pointless as comparing Real Player with TCP/IP. P2P is used to shift big binaries files around, HTTP to shift small TEXT files.
Firehose has actually made the quality of stories go down!
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
encrypted and anonymous distributed p2p protocol will dominate forever and anti-pirates will be assimilated
What do use your internet connection for the most?
...
- Surf the web
- Use P2P software
- E-mail
- Telecommuting
- Gaming
- CowboyNealing on the latest CowboyNeal of my CowboyNeal application using the CowboyNeal protocol
Last week, a press release was issued by Ellacotya that suggested something quite startling -- HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, aka Web traffic) had for the first time in four years overtaken P2P traffic.
Okay, so the very young Slashdotter that just popped out of his mother might not know what HTTP actually stands for, but I can't believe there are any Slashdotters who don't know what HTTP is.
What?
It'd be http based. Not for efficiency or any technical reason, but because it's the best camouflage.
Deleted
Ellacoya are well-known for selling routers optimised (and I use that word with the kind of looseness only Goatse man can convey) for bandwidth shaping, in particular for throttling P2P. PlusNet were one of the first ISPs in the UK to be hated for widespread deployment of their kit.
Remember, a press release is almost always marketing; and this form of marketing is about getting people to purcahse solutions for problems that don't quite exist as described. (Microsoft are good at this; Google are first rate.)
Youtube (and similar services) and trojans.
Both rely heavily on HTTP for data transfer. But then again, how do you measure that? By port? By header? Who keeps me from running a HTTP server on port 21? Who dictates that I must not wrap a package into a HTTP header so the corporate firewall doesn't get irate?
Generally, I doubt that you can reliably measure it. Especially with P2P services soon implementing a wrapper to fool anti net-neutrality laws and traffic shaping the various ISPs either will implement soon or employ already.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So... If i set up a web server, and tell my friends to download my new web page, is that p2p or http? By the way, as long as HTTP isn't multicast, wouldn't it classify as a peer-to-peer protocol?
due to the large amount of traffic shaping slowing down downloads to slower than dialup speeds.
Alot of people are starting to use p2p over http to avoid it
This is only going to get more common
I think we need to start differentiating between all the different kinds of apps that run over port 80, not because it's the right choice of port but because they're badly written, and whether or not a streaming movie (or application update) can any longer be properly described as "HTTP."
I am going to say "no." Many of these are apps in their own right that aren't really using HTTP for anything other than a handshake/init and should be doing their business over their own ports, especially all the streaming Flash video. 554/TCP anyone? What gives?
Anyone know the nuts and bolts of streaming Flash? That can't possibly be just a GET request, can it? If it's anything more, the traffic isn't really HTTP in my book. It's misused port 80. I know Windows Update isn't proper HTTP. That goes waaay beyond GET.
--
Toro
As most slashdotters know, there is often a mistaken impression that the "World Wide Web" and HTML equal the internet. Web browsers processing HTML are just one application that rides on the internet, and it wasn't even the first application that did so.
The importance of HTML was that it was the "killer app" that drove internet connections to people's homes. Naturally, the initial implementation of connectivity was tuned to HTML; particularly the standard implementation where bandwidth into the home far exceeds bandwidth out of the home, but also with regards to some ISPs blocking ports or shaping traffic.
As internet applications continue to evolve, it is only natural that the web will someday become only a tiny fraction of internet traffic.
The challenge for ISPs is to react to this, and provide the services that their customers need before their competitors do. Who knows, perhaps someday soon we will see a standard home connection where outbound bandwidth is 10x inbound bandwidth.
I thought it was Pirate 2 Pirate?
:-)
At least, that's what the MAFIAA seem to think...
While it is true that the one research company may have had flaws in their study and/or other motivating factors. It can't be overlooked that the main source used in the article is a company that needs P2P to be the main part of Internet traffic to have their business work. So, what they say would also be highly suspect. The last source referenced that was more in line with the original work is probably the most accurate as they don't seem to have any bias.
AJ Henderson