Why the Olympics Didn't Melt the Internet

perlow tips his blog entry over at ZDNet on why the Internet didn't melt when millions of users streamed 480i video for a week. The short answer is Limelight Networks of Tempe, Arizona. "[W]hy the Internet didn't 'melt' is quite simple — [Limelight is] completely 'off the cloud.' In other words, unlike Akamai and similar content caching providers, their system isn't deployed over the public Internet... Limelight has partnered with over 800 broadband Internet providers worldwide... so that the content is either co-located in the same facility as your ISP's main communications infrastructure, or it leases a dedicated Optical Carrier line so that it actually appears as part of your ISP's internal network. In most cases, you're never even leaving your Tier 1 provider to get the video."

Comments

Be careful or net will turn back into cable TV

[presidenteloco]

If the general cloud does not also support high-bandwidth content viewing, the pipe providers (cable cos) will grab our throats and shake us down for money.

This trend ought to be resisted, by net neutrality legislation or just more peer to peer innovation.

Re:Be careful or net will turn back into cable TV

[Solandri]

If the general cloud does not also support high-bandwidth content viewing, the pipe providers (cable cos) will grab our throats and shake us down for money.

This is an "already been solved" problem, and even has a dedicated IP address range (224-239.x.x.x). The multicasting solution is the optimal solution for this type of problem - identical information being broadcast "live" to millions or hundreds of millions of locations.

It's even more efficient than Akami or Limelight, which are more suited for on-demand asynchronous streaming applications like pay-per view and web sites. With Akami or Limelight, the ISP has to send the same video stream to every single viewer (though you can ease the burden with some smart routers). With multicasting, the video stream is sent only once along each network route. If a viewer wishes to see the video, they just tap into that one stream. The IOC and subsequently the ISPs went with the less-optimal solution represented by Limelight because they wanted to have more control over the distribution.

New switching and routing technology.

[cuby]

Because of the fractal shape of IP traffic, until some time ago, the only solution was to over dimension the trunk capacity, now, a lot of new techniques where developed to properly dimension and forward data packets.
We may have a lot of data, but we have also more efficient ways to deliver it.

Or....nobody cared

[Gothmolly]

Other than watercooler chat about "that swimmer kid", this has to be the least watched Olympics ever. China got the big FAIL on this one.

Re:Or....nobody cared

[strelitsa]

NBC doesn't seem to think that nobody's watching. They're claiming American Idol-esque numbers so far.

Re:Or....nobody cared

[pla]

NBC doesn't seem to think that nobody's watching. They're claiming American Idol-esque numbers so far.

Which means, comparatively, that nobody watched.

American Idol and various other record-breaking series' don't even come close to the numbers for major events like the superbowl or the olympics. Claiming that this year's olympics "only" did as well as American idol amounts to a record-breaking poor viewership.

Re:Or....nobody cared

[evil_aar0n]

I watched the womens' marathon, last night, while at a local Applebee's - at least when they didn't break away for another five minute commercial - but, other than that, pretty much zip. I don't feel like rewarding either NBC or China for their complicity in subjugating Tibet and supporting genocide in Darfur. Fuck 'em.

Cheating in gymnastics - underage athletes - and requiring their country flag bearers to strip nude just to apply for the "privilege" strikes me as wrong.

And I _do_ check whether the stuff I buy is made in China. Sometimes I can't avoid buying it, though.

Re:Or....nobody cared

[Blade]

Actually, this is the Olympics I've watched the most. I've just not sat down and watched it on the TV like previous years. This is the first time I've been able to sit at my PC and watch the bits I was interested in on the BBC website, and then fast forward through some other stuff the Sky+ box recorded, and then catch some stuff on the Sky+ interactive section on the BBC, and then head back to the PC and watch a bit more on iPlayer or the BBC news site. For me, it's really brought home the changes in broadcasting major sporting events that have taken place in only four years.

Re:Or....nobody cared

[Gothmolly]

If you don't count the famous dancer crippled in pre-production rehearsal, or the lipsync of the national anthem, or the 56 kids that weren't really 56 different ethnic groups, or that the opening fireworks were faked, or the fact that most of the events are not full of spectators to keep crowd sizes down, or the 1000s of homeless animals killed to clean up the streets, or the protesters who were sent for re-education through labor, or the fact that they closed most of the factories and forbid people to drive to clean the air, or that they pumped the clouds full of silver nitrate to make it rain, or that they hospitalized their homeless as insane so that the city looked nicer, or that most citizens lack basic freedoms, then yes, it runs just like clockwork.

NBC only provided streams to a small % of US PCs.

[whoever57]

NBC provided streaming video for only a small proportion of Internet-connected computers: Those running more expensive versions of Vista -- what proportion of all the desktop computers connected to the Internet is this?

Re:Wait, who had 480i streaming video?

[mikek2]

I sincerely think NBC & Limelight did a good job. The video is smooth, free, and wonderfully thorough (i.e. I can watch the non-'cool' events, such as judo, wrestling, etc).

Granted, I HATE it's not open-source friendly, but that's a way off goal (what with the NBC/M$ alliance).

Nevertheless, I take this year's online coverage as a step in the Right Direction.

That's not the reason

[mobby_6kl]

I thought it was because nobody actually cares enough to watch.

Re:Wait, who had 480i streaming video?

[Auz]

To put the US at the top I suppose...

What about Neutrality?

[Adrian Lopez]

Let me get this straight. Olympics content is getting special treatment due to commercial deals between the Olympics Committee, Limelight Networks, and a bunch of ISPs?

How does this bode for Net Neutrality?

Re:What about Neutrality?

[Stray7Xi]

In this case, there is a distributed bunch of servers, so when a user requests a file, it's not even reaching the internet backbone, it's reaching a dedicated video server which is local to the ISP. Net neutrality has nothing to do with this, this is just agreements between companies to make highly demanded video available to users without costing the ISPs as much bandwidth.

Yes it does. Because it places a content provider onto a special tier. Why do you think many ISP's cached it locally, because they were getting paid. That's the primary fear of net neutrality. That if you don't pay both your ISP and your customer's ISP the data will be deprioritized. The road to a non-neutral net starts with content providers voluntarily paying for "higher tiers".

The very fact that ISP's choose what goes on their caching servers, means its non-neutral. Even if it was made free and the ISP's used discretion accepting videos, still non-neutral. The only neutral network is one the ISP doesn't make choices for me on what content gets prioritized.

Re:Wait, who had 480i streaming video?

[slashqwerty]

Another reason it didn't melt the internet is because SilverLight isn't supported on all platforms thus many people couldn't even access it.

Re:A good old fashion slashdotting...

[Anonymous Coward]

LimeLight runs quite a lot of Linux internally.

Re:Wait, who had 480i streaming video?

[Anonymous Coward]

To put the US at the top I suppose...

It is always a good idea to praise your neighbor when that neighbor is low on oil and high on nuclear weapons while you are high on oil but low on nuclear weapons.

Re:Because it was about 2% of YouTubes traffic?

[clang_jangle]

And of course, that would be the real story, rather than the slashvertisement for Limelight Networks via perlow's blog we ended up with. But hey, perlow and Limelight are happy, and that's the what matters, right?

Re:Wait, who had 480i streaming video?

[Anonymous Coward]

to put the US first?

Re:Wait, who had 480i streaming video?

[nicolas.kassis]

The two they care about (Mac, Windows) works fine. I still thinks it's a pain to have to run a windows vm on Linux to get content. Someone tell me why they couldn't just use flash like espn360 did for the Euro2008?

Re:Wait, who had 480i streaming video?

[Anonymous Coward]

I switched to Mac so that I would never need to use anything from Microsoft ever again.

Don't help Microsoft try to take over the web again, DO NOT USE SILVERLIGHT (or anything that tries to be compatible with it).

Re:Wait, who had 480i streaming video?

[Blade]

I don't care which way they sort it as long as the UK stays ahead of France.

Re:Wait, who had 480i streaming video?

[timeOday]

Ranking by total medials is absurd, because it gives equal weight to bronze as gold. If you believe that, why award medals at all, or bother to count them?

Re:Wait, who had 480i streaming video?

[Walkingshark]

good point! silverlight is an abomination, but one which will certainly die out over time. (IMO, of course)

I used to think that about AOL.

Pushing a protocol...

[Gription]

Obviously MS has an in with msNBC but the choice to force the use of a relatively uncommon 'Flash wannabe' is close to Vista marketing tactics.

If given a choice any web designer would choose Flash or just go straight for wmv/mpg/avi. The only reason to choose an unadopted distribution method is because of the arrogance of the distributor.

Most of the world can't watch...

[Roger W Moore]

That's why the internet didn't melt: linux users can't watch.

Funny, but the real reason it didn't melt is because they refuse to stream video across international boundaries so most of the world cannot access it. Living in Canada my wife cannot access the NBC videos and I cannot access the BBC videos. Given the UK's fantastic performance so far this Olympics is it incredibly frustrating to have to read about it or to catch the odd event on CBC - who actually are very good at covering non-Canadian centric events but obviously don't give foreign medal wins top billing so they are hard to catch unless you watch them live.

Given that the Olympic ideal is bringing the world together perhaps they might like to extend that to web video coverage and allow all of us to watch our home countries athletes wherever we are in the world instead of going out of their way to implement technological barriers to obstruct this?

Re:Wait, who had 480i streaming video?

[pcolaman]

Why is it an abomination? Just curious to see if you can actually defend your position or if you just mindlessly bash MS because 99% of your friends do as well.

Re:News flash...

[entrylevel]

Nobody was. This is an ad for Limelight.

Re:Who cares.

[Neoprofin]

Really? Almost 2/3rds of the people in the world watched the opening ceremony? I appreciate that the Wikipedia article cites their source, but the article it quotes doesn't give any metric for their estimation.

I can't believe that between people who couldn't watch it, people who didn't want to watch it, and people who just didn't despite urge and ability, that 4 billion people still caught it.

Tell me again how that is NOT like Akamai ...

[mxs]

Akamai does the exact same thing. Limelight is nothing special. The technique is the same. Any CDN worth its salt will have boxes colocated with major ISPs -- the more, the better.

Furthermore, why didn't it melt the internet ? Oh, that's easy. The Olympics streamed a couple million streams, total. This, in the grand scheme of things, is a nice bit of engineering, but nothing special. YouTube does more traffic than the olympics did in a week, in a day. I don't know what the bigger Apple keynotes got, but I'm sure it's up in those heights, too. I have a vague idea how much BitTorrent traffic there is on the net, and it dwarfs the olympic traffic by several orders of magnitude.

The Slashdot story is a marketing piece for LLNW. They have a decent product, to be sure, but they didn't do anything revolutionary here.

ZDnet parrots a press release and it's front page?

[rustman]

I"m sorry, but this is a puff piece about Limelight and nothing more. Limelight and Akamai are both "edge servers", Akamai has been putting cache boxes into ISPs for a long time. So Limelight put stream proxies into DSL providers head ends, it's not brain surgery; it's just making a business deal.

Re:Wait, who had 480i streaming video?

[Atario]

You can find the real rank here: http://www.realmansolympics.com/

Jebus, what a stupid site. These appear to be the rules:

1. Women do it = bad
2. Teamwork = bad
3. Metric system = bad
4. Being born not the largest man in the world = bad
5. Some kinds of judging (as of going out of bounds in track) = good, judging of other kinds (as of going out of bounds in gymnastics) = bad
6. Using muscles for brute force = good, using muscles for optimized technique = bad

I repeat: what a stupid site. The fact that this is the second time I've seen this crap modded up to +4 or better in two days does not speak well of Slashdot.