Netflix Open Connect Content Delivery Network
netflix.com
netflix.com
I'd like to know if my ISP participates and, if not, be able to call in to suggest they do. If they still don't join in a reasonable time frame, then I'd at least have the option to switch providers to someone that participates.
A program like this will be more successful if they allow for consumers to pressure ISPs to participate.
Also, Netflix offered to change their distribution model into a P2P model as well -- the Big5 ISP's said no to that too.
Also, a "negotiation" with a monopoly is often indistinguishable from extortion.
A consumer broadband network often distributes out over a very large area and condenses into micro POPs. In the Bay Area think Pleasanton, Concord, Marin, etc. The ISP must then backhaul traffic from these micro POPs to a major POP where the whole internet interconnects (Santa Clara/San Jose).
If Netflix were to install a million terabits a second of peering and a hundred thousand caching appliances in San Jose, it wouldn't alleviate the ISPs pain point at all, which is the backhaul to the micro POPs.
Putting OpenConnect appliances into micro depolyments "out in the field" solves the problem, because it moves the content and caching out to the last mile. However the ISPs are reluctant to do this because then what used to be a half rack of telcom gear in a small shed somewhere has now become a defacto colocation facility. You have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Vudu, YouTube, Microsoft, eBay, and two dozen others each with 4u of gear in hundreds of locations that you are paying for power and rolling out to service when they fail (because you can't let competitors have physical access to each others gear, and a node failure can saturate the uplinks from the micro POP).
And as other have noted, the issues with defacto colocation.
If you don't get a box fixed fast enough, or choose not to install the MSN or Baidu box, everyone in your house starts to complain about it.
I'm not defending the ISPs here, just simply explaining their perspective. I am a huge proponent of net neutrality, and I'm currently in the process of deploying something similar to OpenConnect for another large network.
As an Optimum subscriber, I can say there is a massive difference between the Netflix experience at my apartment in Brooklyn compared to Netflix at my office in Manhattan.
It looks like they are heavily redundant boxes with the goal of reducing field maintenance, running FreeBSD as the OS.
Presumably for ZFS
Seeing that they are using just controller cards instead of raid cards, and FreeBSD, it seems even if they were not using specific features of ZFS, the performance and other automatic things ZFS does to provide superior (compared to most (all?) other filesystems) data integrity and protection... they would be using it by default...
Why no ZFS - 21:30
OpenConnect isn't the first attempt at this sort of business model, either. Back in the 90s, Akami tried this same thing with their "FreeFlow ISP" service model - putting their servers in the ISP's point of presence in order to eliminate their bandwidth costs. Then, as now, major ISPs refused.
This is not a new practice and I'm surprised it doesn't come up more frequently in the net neutrality debate. It's been going on for years -- broadcast.com did it, YouTube and Google do it, and I'm sure others do as well. We've never really had net neutrality -- peering agreements have been happening forever in shady back room deals at NANOG. At least the more recent shenanigans are happening out in the open.
It's no different than if Netflix was paying Comcast (or whover ISP) to colo a server(s) in their data centers (you can do this as a normal citizen too).
The only difference, the idea is Comcast wouldn't charge Netflix for colo space since Netflix is "earning" it via cost reduction for the ISP. So they are still technically paying for the colo space.
Perhaps I missed your point though -- because this seems to be a much better way to a neutral net than having ISP's charging both sides of the pipe (which the small guys can't afford even more)
So, yes, you can colo in one of your ISP's DC's. Netflix is doing just that (which is why it's not a peering agreement, it's a colo agreement). They just don't get charged because they are saving the ISP the money they would normally charge for the colo service (sometimes more).
Even if you can colo with Comcast (which I can't find any information about online) you're still not direct-peering with their AS, which is what Netflix is asking for with Open Connect. I'm sure they'll also charge you for bandwidth. This is definitely different than putting a box in a colo facility. This is putting a box in a peering location and eliminating the transit cost and performance hit.
I suppose the ISP could offer some kind of "virtual colo", where instead of putting your servers in the ISP data center for fast access they offer some kind of faster connection to your data center. This would have two big advantages over physical colo. First, it would not have the space limitations so it could be more widely available. Second, the price could be based on how many customers you are serving at the ISP so that even small content providers can afford it.
This now sounds similar to "fast lanes", which have been the major focus of opposition to the proposed approach to net neutrality of trying to regulate under section 706.
The problem I see is that in both the company specific CDN approach and the "fast lane" approach it comes down to a content provider is making an arrangement with an ISP to make that content provider's content better for its customers on that ISP.
Is that against net neutrality? If the answer is "yes", then I don't see why it should matter if it is done via physical boxes placed on the ISP's network or by prioritizing traffic from that content provider or by purchasing a higher capacity interconnect to the backbone providers that content provider's traffic comes through. This seems to me to be one of those things where it should be looked at as a black box, and net neutrality should be concerned with the externally visible behavior of the box, not the mechanisms within the box.
My understanding is that private peering and caches are primarily a cost optimization and are not about performance (as long as the "normal" Internet isn't deliberately congested). This way of thinking makes CDNs compatible with net neutrality.
Net neutrality means treat all the traffic the same, doesn't matter where it comes from or what protocol it is. That's why "this" doesn't come up more often in the net neutrality debate, because it's got nothing to do with it.
What if Comcast offered to host Open Connect devices for a fee -- would that be a violation of net neutrality? To me that just seems like the free market doing what free markets do (I'm ignoring for a moment that Comcast is basically a monopoly which is a legitimate problem).
What if Comcast throttled everyone _except_ Netflix. Is that really different than Comcast allowing _only_ Netflix to peer?
I'm not against net neutrality but I do think the issue is more complicated than people make it out to be. Once you understand that this is common practice the position of Comcast, et al. does make more sense. If Netflix is saving a shit-ton of money and providing a better service to their customers by peering, and Comcast has less upside, why shouldn't Comcast charge Netflix for the privilege?
I don't know if we can accurately estimate who's saving how much, and I definitely don't believe anything coming from Comcast. Given that there is no way to reach Comcast customers other than Comcast and both parties have an incentive to lie about their costs, I think zero is the fairest price for such peering.
Netflix OpenConnect is just doing that on a much larger scale.
It would be unfair if Netflix was paying to "speed up its traffic" (read as: slow down competitor's traffic).
openconnect appears, at least to me, like it's a collaboration between providers of different services to enhance the value for their shared customers.
edit: directed at both mmalone and condiment
The fact that ISPs will unplug it five seconds later.
The way that satellite TV networks charge a subscriber fee to the cable operators.
HBO only charges each customer once (via the cable company). If Netflix tried to double-dip by charging the customer directly and also charging the ISP they'd get rightly flamed.
At the risk of angering the many people who watch Netflix.
I don't get the double-dipping argument either. We already have that with television, newspapers, and radio being paid by advertisers yet still charging a subscription to viewers.
Too many disk failures to be worth spending money on the expensive "enterprise" drives when a standard SATA drive will due the job just fine (especially in arrays like this -- plenty of spindles to get performance)
Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 3TB
Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 3TBThis is very out of date. Their latest OpenConnect appliances use SSD drives, have higher capacity, and use less power. They're heavier, too.
My impression is that companies that don't like the GPL either deal with it (Android) or just violate it (almost all embedded devices). Nobody is actually willing to switch to BSD for licensing reasons.
Sony releases the GPL source code here: http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux/Others/DECR-1000.html
Just because you pay someone or a company for something, doesn't automagically make it better.
> Sony switched over from Linux (ps3) to kfreebsd (ps4) due to licensing.
neither of these options require licensing btw.