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Peering Disputes Migrate To IPv6

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the square-peg-and-deliberate-round-hole dept.

1sockchuck writes "As more networks prepare for the transition to IPv6, we're seeing the first peering disputes (sometimes known as 'Internet partitions') involving IPv6 connectivity. The dispute involves Cogent, which has previously been involved in high-profile IPv4 peering spats with Sprint, Level 3 and Telia. Hurricane Electric, which has been an early adopter on IPv6, says Cogent won't peer with it over IPv6. Hurricane has extended an olive branch by baking a cake bearing a message of outreach for Cogent."

35 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Uh huh by countertrolling · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think we all know about the cake...

    --
    For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    1. Re:Uh huh by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 2, Funny

      I think we all know about the cake...

      It's full of strippers?

      --
      Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    2. Re:Uh huh by bennomatic · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's full of strippers?

      Yahoo!

      --
      The CB App. What's your 20?
    3. Re:Uh huh by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's so delicious and moist! :-)

  2. analogy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    That's kind of technical, so I'm most of slashdot doesn't understand. To put it in terms you would understand:

    You're a gay dude. You like to top and you like to bottom. You hook up with another dude, but he doesn't want to bottom, he only wants to top. As much as you love dick in your ass, you want to fuck his ass too.

    Hope that helps.

    1. Re:analogy by BronsCon · · Score: 5, Informative

      As much of a troll as this may have been, it was, sadly, a very accurate analogy of a relationship with Cogent.

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    2. Re:analogy by Ihmhi · · Score: 4, Funny

      Can someone give me that as an analogy with bi-curious cars instead?

      --
      Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
    3. Re:analogy by webmistressrachel · · Score: 3, Funny
      Yes, I can.

      Your bisexual male friend (who happens to be a car) wants to play with your girlfriend (who is also a car?). BUT he wont let you play with his (multiple) girlfriends, err.. sorry, cars. They're bored and don't get any while he plays away. In fact, I can think of a few situations like this in real life, too!! Wierd but accurate. Not posted AC..., girls with guts on Slashdot, scary eh?? Guys, run awaaaayyy!

      --
      This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
    4. Re:analogy by Ihmhi · · Score: 2, Funny

      If you didn't have guts, you would be some sort of person that is all hollow in the inside. That is the stuff of nightmares.

      --
      Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
  3. ob. by shentino · · Score: 3, Funny

    THE CAKE IS A LIE!

    1. Re:ob. by Interoperable · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It had to happen that this would be posted when the article went up. It's done now. We can avoid any more Portal references for the rest of the discussion.

      --
      So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
    2. Re:ob. by Molochi · · Score: 4, Funny

      This unfair to Cogent. They are obviously only doing what they must, because they can, for the good of all of us.

      --
      "The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
    3. Re:ob. by Rei · · Score: 2

      "The IT Center reminds you that the Beige IPv6 Router cannot speak. In the event that the Beige IPv6 Router does speak, the IT Center urges you to disregard it's advice."

      --
      It's a Cyrillic alphabet. It's like all those keys you never push on a calculator.
    4. Re:ob. by Jurily · · Score: 2, Funny

      Except the ones who are dead.

  4. The Cake is... by Impsyn · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/10/22/peering-disputes-migrate-to-ipv6/ Only article I could find with a pic of the cake.

    1. Re:The Cake is... by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Um... that's TFA. It wasn't hard to find. :/

      --
      "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    2. Re:The Cake is... by interkin3tic · · Score: 2, Funny

      Um... that's TFA. It wasn't hard to find. :/

      It's in TFA: it has been empirically demonstrated that accessing it is impossible for most people commenting.

  5. Oh great, Cogent is at it again by mikael_j · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Anyone feel like taking bets on how long it will take until the other Tier 1 ISPs gang up on Cogent and just shut off their peering to Cogent?

    Seriously, every one of these conflicts that Cogent gets involved in seems to involve Cogent acting like a bunch of dicks and the only people defending them are their most loyal customers and their employees, why are they even still in business?

    /Mikael

    --
    Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
    1. Re:Oh great, Cogent is at it again by Burdell · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Peering is generally only considered "fair" if there is a similar flow of traffic in each direction (averaged over a good period of time). Peering agreements are written with certain traffic ratios defined, and going outside those ratios terminates the agreement or triggers a payment clause. It appears that in every case, Cogent traffic had dropped outside of the contract ratios, and so they were asked to pay for service like anyone else (as it was no longer an equitable peering), and instead they threw a public tantrum and blamed everybody else.

      The details are never made public, so when it happens once, you don't really know who is telling the truth. When it happens over and over again with one provider, as with Cogent, a picture begins to form. Cogent is a "tier-1" wanna-be, but don't have the traffic to back it up. They've been caught lying before, so at this point, they have no credibility.

    2. Re:Oh great, Cogent is at it again by dozer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Back in the old days, whenever our peering ratio started getting wobbly, we'd just set up NNTP servers and have them hammer away (either downloading or uploading, depending on what direction we needed to move the balance).

      I assume ISPs are still doing this but they're probably using BitTorrent now instead of NNTP.

    3. Re:Oh great, Cogent is at it again by sjames · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That is true and quite silly all at once. Given network A and B with where B is full of servers that want to serve content (and ads of course) and A is full of clients that want to view that content, both networks have been paid by their customers to complete those transactions and both are failing to honor their agreements if they don't do it.

      On one hand, I see what you mean about it always being Cogent involved, but at the same time they undercut prices on all of the networks that have de-peered them, so it could be that there are ulterior motives.

    4. Re:Oh great, Cogent is at it again by oasisbob · · Score: 2, Informative

      That is true and quite silly all at once. Given network A and B with where B is full of servers that want to serve content (and ads of course) and A is full of clients that want to view that content, both networks have been paid by their customers to complete those transactions and both are failing to honor their agreements if they don't do it.

      That's true; however, for an ISP there is more to it than that. Depending on which POP generates the traffic, and which one sinks it, hot-potato routing can be unfair. Lets say BigPornSite uses SuperCheapISP (eg Cogent) to reach their customers: BigPornSite is located on the west coast, but most of their viewers aren't. BigPornSite will hand off their traffic to SuperCheapISP in the west-coast data center, and SuperCheapISP will route the traffic to the viewer's ISP. (Let's say its Comcast...) However, if the Comcast customer is located on the East coast, Comcast is stuck paying for the coast-to-coast transport instead of SuperCheapISP.

      So, SuperCheapISP got paid by the porn site to route the traffic for maybe 100m or so, and gets rid of it as soon as they can. Would you want to sign a peering agreement with them, knowing that they're going to dump tons of traffic on your network with no regards to where its actually going? Yes, it's silly, but there's a precedent here. Ratio limits are in place to protect against tricks like this.

  6. I wouldn't peer with HE either.... by teknopurge · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They are the Wal-Mart of bandwidth and offer dirt-cheap prices. How can they do that and expect to hand-off to more expensive/higher quality(It's Cogent, I know....) networks? People want cheaper and cheaper so a company will eventually come along that caters to that crowd, but how dare they expect to offer the same QoS and not pay for it. Forget peering then throttling the links, Cogent is doing the right thing and not even lighting the fiber.

    --
    Website Hosting
    1. Re:I wouldn't peer with HE either.... by mea_culpa · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't know about this. I've used HE for various hosting needs for over a decade and they were never the 'Wal-mart' in their price and quality range. Using the big box store analogy, I'd rank them a Macy's.

    2. Re:I wouldn't peer with HE either.... by teknopurge · · Score: 2, Insightful

      An SLA won't show it - latency reports will. Yes, we have plenty of them. Also yes, there are many ISPs that offer QoS for IP traffic. (including us)

      --
      Website Hosting
  7. Would I be an awful person... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Funny

    If I were to express confidence that there is a perfectly cogent explanation for the behavior of both disputing parties?

  8. Growing Trend... by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I haven't been with it long enough to know how often this kind of stuff goes on, but are Cake Gestures common in IT/IS/CT? Or only after the release of Portal? I recall IE sending a Cake to Firefox... Or Mozilla... Or something... (or vice versa, I don't really remember who congradulated who)...

    It almost seems like they would send a cake hoping it'll get news'd somewhere so the public favours whoever is sending the cake.

    Or maybe I'm just paranoid. The companion cube will do that to ya, you know.

    1. Re:Growing Trend... by Lennie · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually no, it was because HE's Leber mentioned on NANOG the following:
      “we stop short of baking cakes” to encourage peering. That got the ball rolling.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
  9. Transition going well... by freak132 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It seems that the IPv6 transition is going well; we've migrated peering disputes to the lovely next generation protocol.

  10. Re:Go peer with google instead by nnet · · Score: 2, Insightful

    like everything else google, ipv6 is in beta :)

  11. Re:Go peer with google instead by dotwaffle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Right, so you peer with Google, who have a fairly open peering policy. How does that solve you getting access to Cogent's customers? You expect Google to leak Cogent's routes to it's peers free of charge?

  12. Could someone elaborate? by spectre_240sx · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For those of us who don't have experience with how the big ISPs connect to each other, could someone shed some light on the situation? Does peering involve a physical connection or is it just down to advertising routes? I thought having your routes advertised was a good thing.

    1. Re:Could someone elaborate? by Lennie · · Score: 2, Informative

      Try this article and other posts on the same blog:

      http://www.renesys.com/blog/2005/12/peering_the_fundamental_archit.shtml

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
  13. Seen before with Cogent/Sprint by mjensen · · Score: 5, Informative

    The following is copied from a previous Cogent/Spint debacle posting:

    Just like what happened with Level(3) a few years ago.

    Cogent's history in the ISP market has been absolutely horrible. They came in to town as the Walmart of ISPs, investing in a huge new super-efficient backbone infrastructure doing everything it could to cut costs so they could offer insane deals to their customers. They were running 10Gigabit connections using existing fiber and brand new equipment. They had no 'legacy' hardware.

    The hosting industry bit into the Cogent game when they had customers running multimedia sites that needed tons of bandwidth (see: porn) and were tired of paying insane rates per mbps when Cogent had this brand new network with tons of capacity.

    But Cogent wasn't in the 'settlement free interconnect' game yet, they were paying for bandwidth themselves. So they went out and purchased a few ISPs that already had settlement free interconnects. The agreements are already in place, so it was a big win situation for them. But these agreements almost always come with the term that you must give as much as you receive (so you need to have a balance between hosted sites and end users.) Cogent didn't have end users, they had servers.

    Think of it this way: I am an apartment complex and I have an agreement to mow my neighbor's lawn and in exchange he shovels my sidewalk. It uses approximately the same amount of work. Now imagine my neighbor and all of his agreements are bought by the local golf course. Now the golf course now expects me to mow the entire course because the agreement was that they would shovel and I would mow. Cogent was the golf course, I am an ISP.

    Now in my apartment I house a bunch of golfers once I say "screw this, figure out your lawn situation yourself" the course says "ok, well, I guess your tenants are going to have to go without golf." What the hell am I to do now? Mow this golf course to keep my tenants happy?

    Finally I come to an agreement, the golf course has to pay me a small amount and I will mow their grass. Everything seems OK, but then the golf course gets in to a bit of trouble and all of a sudden decides "OK, well... he doesn't want his tenants to go without golf so he will probably keep mowing our grass even if we stop paying him." Here we are again, I'm in an impossible situation because I really care about my tenants but man, I just cannot mow an entire golf course all by myself. So I send the golf course warnings after warnings, and after I reach a tipping point I just say "GFY, I'm not mowing your course anymore." I stop mowing it, and the golf course says "IT IS TOTALLY HIS FAULT THAT YOU CANNOT PLAY GOLF!!!"

    Right now a lot of ISPs can hit Cogent's old pricing (and Cogent just cannot go any lower than they already are) so a lot if ISPs will just pass on Cogent and go for someone with a better record.

    There is a lot more to the story that we don't know about, and since these agreements are generally done under a NDA we will never know for sure what exactly is happening at Cogent.

    Just a FYI: I work for a hosting company that has had some dealings with Cogent in the past.

    1. Re:Seen before with Cogent/Sprint by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The analogy doesn't work though, because no matter how much traffic there is or how unbalanced it may be, every last bit of it represents a peer on one network that has paid for connectivity with the other network. Every meg Cogent shoveled through the peering point only went there because a customer of the other network wanted his porn from a server on Cogent's network.

      I won't say that Cogent is in any way, shape or form perfect. They could stand to improve a LOT in many areas. But then, the same is true of every transit provider.