The way this story on Slashdot is spun is extremely wrong headed for the Slashdot audience. I am going to rebut this by explaining how the Internet works.
First, let me say that Peering is an extremely complex topic. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake in some peering decisions. Historically, the consternation in peering was over who paid to transport data over "long haul" network hops. i.e. it is a valid argument to say that it is unfair for a local ISP that is only in Seattle Washington to peer with Level 3 at a single location in Seattle, while Level 3 operates a global network with dozens of undersea cable links that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build/operate. In this kind of unbalanced relationship, Level 3 pays for all of the high costs to transport data (in both directions) across the globe when a customer on the small ISP in Seattle wants to talk with a Level 3 customer in Europe.
Now the "fair" solution to the prior case is for the small ISP to purchase IP transit from another large ISP (say Verizon Business), and then Verizon Business and Level 3 can peer in dozens of locations around the world. Then when a customer in Seattle on the small ISP wants to communicate with someone in Europe on Level 3, the packet will be transmitted from the small ISP, to Verizon Business, who will pass it to Level 3 via peering (likely in Seattle), and then Level 3 will transport it to Europe. On the return path, Level 3 will hand it to Verizon Business at a location peering point in Europe, and Verizon Business will transport it back across the globe to Seattle, hence making it "fair" whereby Level 3 transported data one way, and Verizon Business transported it the other way (with the small ISP paying Verizon Business for this service).
Now I need to explain how CDN's work differently in the peering game than traditional Tier 1 ISP's. You see, most flows on the Internet are not peer-to-peer these days. Most are heavily weighted unidirectional from Content Providers down to "eyeballs" (i.e. end users). So years ago, Content Distribution Networks were created to accelerate/facilitate this. Basically the business model is to place servers out as close to the "edge" (i.e. near end users) as possible, and then use them to cache data from the "origin" (the main web site that content comes from) in order to make loading faster for end users, and reduce load on the central web site servers. Now this can be accomplished in a couple different ways. CDN's would prefer to ship servers to ISP's and have the ISP place the server in their building and plugged into the ISP network. This is an amazing deal for the CDN as they don't have to pay for space/power/cooling, and the ISP is paying for the "upstream" bandwidth (i.e. back to the "Origin"), and they are not paying to deliver that data down to the end users. The reason this might be attractive to an ISP is if they are paying a lot for upstream bandwidth, and so having a CDN node within their network reduces their IP transit costs.
The other common way for CDN's to work is for CDN's to rent colo space in "carrier hotels" (regional network concentration points) and to buy their own upstream bandwidth. They can then peer publicly (i.e. on a public peering exchange such as the SIX in Seattle) and/or "privately" by private fiber interconnection. This takes some of the burdon off ISP's as all they need to pay for is their router ports to connect (plus perhaps a fee to the peering exchange if it is not a private interconnect). Though the legal agreements around any peering relationship are nearly always kept secret (who knows which party is or is not paying the other...)
Soo... Now to Netflix: Netflix really is a lot like a CDN (the main difference being that they don't reach back to an "origin" site in real time - their content distribution nodes can download all the movies in the library all at a given time (during non peak hours) and from a single known upstream point). From what I understand about their new model of cont
I wrote an extensive article on choosing a datacenter/colocation facility several months back. The full post can be found on my blog, but I will paste it below for your Slashdot reading convenience:
Choosing a colocation facility is one of the most important decisions an IT professional can make. It will have repercussions for years down the road, as there is generally a contract term associated, and it becomes difficult/costly to move. At the same time, unless you are a facilities professional, it is hard to tell the difference between the quality of one facility vs. that of another without knowing the right questions to ask. I have developed this list in the hopes that it will be a reference to folks evaluating datacenter options. This has been written using the assumption that you need a local datacenter rather than a DR facility (which can have very different needs), however, many of the same concepts will apply.
Location When it comes right down to it, there are still certain things you have to do physically in person. You can’t run a network cable through SSH or RDP. Having a datacenter close by makes a huge difference, especially when you lose remote connectivity and must go push a button in an emergency (we all have done this once or twice). In general, the newer, more high-end, and redundant your equipment is, the less you should have to touch it in person. Things are getting much better with out of band remote access controllers, but sometimes being there is worth a lot. You can’t hear that fan making funny noises from your office. Does the facility have good access to transportation such as freeways and airports? Are their hotels nearby if you will have out-of-town contractors visiting? How close to logistics depots are you for your vendor-of-choices parts, i.e. Cisco, Dell, HP, etc Does the facility have adequate parking that is close to the building, does it cost money? Is it somewhere you want to leave your car in the middle of the night while you are inside working? Do you have line-of-sight to the datacenter? If you can manage to get a wireless link to your datacenter this can be an extremely cost-effective option for high speed connectivity. There is something to be said for controlling your own destiny when it comes to your connectivity rather than being at the mercy of a telecom provider. Will the facility allow you to put a wireless antenna on the roof and how much will they charge?
Staffing Do they have on-site staff 24×7 to respond to emergency situations, to secure the facility, and to provide access when you forget/loose your badge (or have to stop by on your way home from the gym). If they do not have staff on site 24×7, what is their on-call policy? How long would it take them to respond to a power failure, a UPS exploding, a transformer catching fire in the parking lot, an Internet outage, an FM-200 fire suppression system going off, an HVAC system failing, or any other major malady (yes I have had all of these things happen to me in facilities I have worked in, and I am still waiting for the day a fire sprinkler goes off or there is a real fire in a datacenter). What level of professional services can they provide? Basic remote hands (please press the power button)? More advanced troubleshooting (help diagnose a failed network switch)? Or even managed services (i.e. they take care of backups). How competent are their NOC engineers, facilities folks, etc What quality of vendors do they use to do electrical work, HVAC maintenance, network cabling? This can be hard to tell, but there are lots of small clues you can pick up on. Does their staff speak English fluently and without heavy accent? It is extremely difficult to communicate on the phone with someone in a loud datacenter environment about complex technical issues when both of you are having a hard time understanding each other. This dramatically slo
Using PGP email is impractical for most company's due to the need for software on both ends and the training required to use it. I am currently using a product from a new internet startup http://www.kryptiq.com that allows you to send secure email to anybody without them having to have client software on the other end. The only requirement is that they have a HTTPS capable browser. Their software runs as a plugin to Outlook (yes I know its Outlook, but that is what most health care providers use) and it is brain dead simple to use. Every time you send an email it pops up and asks if you want to send it secure or insecure (which can be annoying, but is a good way to ensure compliance).
Slashdot Mirror
The way this story on Slashdot is spun is extremely wrong headed for the Slashdot audience. I am going to rebut this by explaining how the Internet works.
First, let me say that Peering is an extremely complex topic. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake in some peering decisions. Historically, the consternation in peering was over who paid to transport data over "long haul" network hops. i.e. it is a valid argument to say that it is unfair for a local ISP that is only in Seattle Washington to peer with Level 3 at a single location in Seattle, while Level 3 operates a global network with dozens of undersea cable links that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build/operate. In this kind of unbalanced relationship, Level 3 pays for all of the high costs to transport data (in both directions) across the globe when a customer on the small ISP in Seattle wants to talk with a Level 3 customer in Europe.
Now the "fair" solution to the prior case is for the small ISP to purchase IP transit from another large ISP (say Verizon Business), and then Verizon Business and Level 3 can peer in dozens of locations around the world. Then when a customer in Seattle on the small ISP wants to communicate with someone in Europe on Level 3, the packet will be transmitted from the small ISP, to Verizon Business, who will pass it to Level 3 via peering (likely in Seattle), and then Level 3 will transport it to Europe. On the return path, Level 3 will hand it to Verizon Business at a location peering point in Europe, and Verizon Business will transport it back across the globe to Seattle, hence making it "fair" whereby Level 3 transported data one way, and Verizon Business transported it the other way (with the small ISP paying Verizon Business for this service).
Now I need to explain how CDN's work differently in the peering game than traditional Tier 1 ISP's. You see, most flows on the Internet are not peer-to-peer these days. Most are heavily weighted unidirectional from Content Providers down to "eyeballs" (i.e. end users). So years ago, Content Distribution Networks were created to accelerate/facilitate this. Basically the business model is to place servers out as close to the "edge" (i.e. near end users) as possible, and then use them to cache data from the "origin" (the main web site that content comes from) in order to make loading faster for end users, and reduce load on the central web site servers. Now this can be accomplished in a couple different ways. CDN's would prefer to ship servers to ISP's and have the ISP place the server in their building and plugged into the ISP network. This is an amazing deal for the CDN as they don't have to pay for space/power/cooling, and the ISP is paying for the "upstream" bandwidth (i.e. back to the "Origin"), and they are not paying to deliver that data down to the end users. The reason this might be attractive to an ISP is if they are paying a lot for upstream bandwidth, and so having a CDN node within their network reduces their IP transit costs.
The other common way for CDN's to work is for CDN's to rent colo space in "carrier hotels" (regional network concentration points) and to buy their own upstream bandwidth. They can then peer publicly (i.e. on a public peering exchange such as the SIX in Seattle) and/or "privately" by private fiber interconnection. This takes some of the burdon off ISP's as all they need to pay for is their router ports to connect (plus perhaps a fee to the peering exchange if it is not a private interconnect). Though the legal agreements around any peering relationship are nearly always kept secret (who knows which party is or is not paying the other...)
Soo... Now to Netflix:
Netflix really is a lot like a CDN (the main difference being that they don't reach back to an "origin" site in real time - their content distribution nodes can download all the movies in the library all at a given time (during non peak hours) and from a single known upstream point). From what I understand about their new model of cont
I wrote an extensive article on choosing a datacenter/colocation facility several months back. The full post can be found on my blog, but I will paste it below for your Slashdot reading convenience:
http://www.bitplumber.net/2009/04/how-to-choose-a-colocation-facility/
How to choose a colocation facility
Choosing a colocation facility is one of the most important decisions an IT professional can make. It will have repercussions for years down the road, as there is generally a contract term associated, and it becomes difficult/costly to move. At the same time, unless you are a facilities professional, it is hard to tell the difference between the quality of one facility vs. that of another without knowing the right questions to ask. I have developed this list in the hopes that it will be a reference to folks evaluating datacenter options. This has been written using the assumption that you need a local datacenter rather than a DR facility (which can have very different needs), however, many of the same concepts will apply.
Location
When it comes right down to it, there are still certain things you have to do physically in person. You can’t run a network cable through SSH or RDP. Having a datacenter close by makes a huge difference, especially when you lose remote connectivity and must go push a button in an emergency (we all have done this once or twice). In general, the newer, more high-end, and redundant your equipment is, the less you should have to touch it in person. Things are getting much better with out of band remote access controllers, but sometimes being there is worth a lot. You can’t hear that fan making funny noises from your office.
Does the facility have good access to transportation such as freeways and airports? Are their hotels nearby if you will have out-of-town contractors visiting? How close to logistics depots are you for your vendor-of-choices parts, i.e. Cisco, Dell, HP, etc
Does the facility have adequate parking that is close to the building, does it cost money? Is it somewhere you want to leave your car in the middle of the night while you are inside working?
Do you have line-of-sight to the datacenter? If you can manage to get a wireless link to your datacenter this can be an extremely cost-effective option for high speed connectivity. There is something to be said for controlling your own destiny when it comes to your connectivity rather than being at the mercy of a telecom provider. Will the facility allow you to put a wireless antenna on the roof and how much will they charge?
Staffing
Do they have on-site staff 24×7 to respond to emergency situations, to secure the facility, and to provide access when you forget/loose your badge (or have to stop by on your way home from the gym).
If they do not have staff on site 24×7, what is their on-call policy? How long would it take them to respond to a power failure, a UPS exploding, a transformer catching fire in the parking lot, an Internet outage, an FM-200 fire suppression system going off, an HVAC system failing, or any other major malady (yes I have had all of these things happen to me in facilities I have worked in, and I am still waiting for the day a fire sprinkler goes off or there is a real fire in a datacenter).
What level of professional services can they provide? Basic remote hands (please press the power button)? More advanced troubleshooting (help diagnose a failed network switch)? Or even managed services (i.e. they take care of backups).
How competent are their NOC engineers, facilities folks, etc What quality of vendors do they use to do electrical work, HVAC maintenance, network cabling? This can be hard to tell, but there are lots of small clues you can pick up on.
Does their staff speak English fluently and without heavy accent? It is extremely difficult to communicate on the phone with someone in a loud datacenter environment about complex technical issues when both of you are having a hard time understanding each other. This dramatically slo
Using PGP email is impractical for most company's due to the need for software on both ends and the training required to use it. I am currently using a product from a new internet startup http://www.kryptiq.com that allows you to send secure email to anybody without them having to have client software on the other end. The only requirement is that they have a HTTPS capable browser. Their software runs as a plugin to Outlook (yes I know its Outlook, but that is what most health care providers use) and it is brain dead simple to use. Every time you send an email it pops up and asks if you want to send it secure or insecure (which can be annoying, but is a good way to ensure compliance).