[147507] in North American Network Operators' Group
Peering vs. Transit vs. Profit [was: Overall Netflix bandwidth usage
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Patrick W. Gilmore)
Mon Dec 12 17:22:47 2011
From: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick@ianai.net>
In-Reply-To: <77F26F9D-F271-4C37-B017-3EC4C7AF8117@lixfeld.ca>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:21:45 -0500
To: NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Dec 12, 2011, at 5:00 PM, Jason Lixfeld wrote:
> On 2011-12-12, at 4:22 PM, Simon Lockhart <simon@slimey.org> wrote:
>=20
>> I guess most (i.e. those
>> which aren't Akamai) are more concerned with making money than with =
delivering
>> a good service to the end user.
>=20
> Really? I always thought that higher profits and buying transit were =
mutually exclusive relative to higher profits and openly peering.
>=20
> So what you are saying is that one stands to make more by paying =
upstreams for bit swapping? How's that work?
You are assuming that peering with $ISP will lower someone's transit =
bill. That is demonstrably false in the case of Level 3 who (to a first =
approximation - please do not argue corner cases) pays no one for =
transit.
It is also likely false over some set of $ISP_n for some peers. As a =
trivial example, if $NETWORK peers with your transit, not only would it =
not save them money to peer with you, it may cost them money if peering =
with you endangers the peering with your upstream. This can happen if =
$NETWORK does not have enough traffic to qualify for peering with your =
upstream when your traffic is removed from the link.
So peering does not always equal profit. Would that life were so =
simple! =3D)
> If the argument is that the opex required for maintaining peering =
relationships is too expensive relative to the direct and indirect cost =
of buying bandwidth, I love to be edumacated on how that math actually =
works because it makes absolutely no sense to me.
Peering is not free. I can easily see the cost of bringing up a port to =
someone with 10 Mbps costing more than it saves for some perfectly valid =
network topologies. And that's just the most obvious example. The one =
above is another obvious example.
There are reasons not to peer. Assuming there are not is a bad way to =
enter a negotiation. Put yourself in the place of the other network, =
figure out what their pain points are - performance, complexity, =
stability, cost, slot density, spare cycles (human and machine), etc., =
etc. To be successful in a negotiation, I submit it is useful to help =
them eliminate one or more of those pain points, i.e. make it worth =
their while.
Remember, my company's peering policy (at public exchanges) is "YES". =
Since I wrote the policy, you can probably guess my view on peering. =
But if simply I assumed no one ever had a reason to say "no", I wouldn't =
get very far.
There are two sides to every story. Sometimes the other side is =
confused, or even flat out wrong, but not always. And even when the =
other side is wrong, it may not be useful to bash them over the head =
with the truth.
--=20
TTFN,
patrick
P.S. I also think "giving good service" is one vital component of =
"making more money". But maybe I'm silly.
