YouTube's Fine - Analysts Don't Understand Internet Peering

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20090416_youtube_analysts_internet_peering/

by iamelgringo • 17 years ago

60 26 17 years ago

I don't get this. Wouldn't most of YouTube's traffic be downstream from Google's servers to the hoards of individual internet viewers all over the world? How exactly does peering help?

eugenejen• 17 years ago

If Google operates their own backbones, then Google's peering agreement with other tier 1 backbone providers helps. The peering agreement allows packets passed in/out from Google with other providers without extra bandwidth charge.

bilbo0s• 17 years ago

Until, of course, peering agreements are renegotiated. I think this is where other bandwidth providers will stick it to Google.

They only have leverage for the moment. It's like falling off a cliff. Everyone thinks . . . "so far . . . so good" on the way down. But it's not the period that you are falling that is important, it's how you stop when you reach the bottom.

wmf• 17 years ago

Google peers with many broadband ISPs.

mblakele• 17 years ago

Indeed they do: https://www.peeringdb.com/private/participant_view.php?id=43...

I had no idea so much information was publicly available.

jganetsk2• 17 years ago

It makes perfect sense that Google peers with downstream ISPs.

However, I think Mr. Turner's analysis is wrong. It is in the interest of the Tier 1s to continue to gouge Google. YouTube pushes out way more bytes out than it pulls in... even including video uploads, client-made HTTP GETs, and TCP ACKs. This asymmetry pokes holes in the presented argument (assuming that those in a peering agreement measure bandwidth in bytes per second and not packets per second, and that both parties strive for balanced bandwidth usage).

If Google were to route all traffic through a single Tier 1... the latter would be completely screwed. The ISP would constantly have to push all these YouTube bytes out to all the other Tier 1s, and it's all the other networks that get the leverage.

The only leverage for this clever Tier 1 is in exploiting their position as the exclusive route into Google. They may even be tempted to extort the other networks... pay lots of money or your user don't get access to Google. This would barely work. All the remaining Tier 1s would simply stop by the Googleplex to say "hi guys, here's a bunch of half-duplex links. We are going to push bytes to you but not take any from you. Ciao". Google, of course, would agree. This lone Tier 1 is effectively bypassed, and it still has to find a way to get its massive quantity of upstream traffic into everyone's networks.

A Tier 1 might offer Google a special deal if they feel they are underutilizing their uplinks, and therefore want to push the peering situation back into equilibrium. But, they would definitely put a cap on Google's bandwidth usage, so as to guarantee that things don't swing too far the other way.

It definitely makes sense for Google to peer with the downstream guys (the Tier 2s and 3s). This reduces costs for both parties. The ISP doesn't have to pay for upstream transit to route to Google, and Google doesn't have to pay for upstream transit to route into the ISP. It's a win-win situation. And, it also improves user experience by decreasing latency, a big priority for Google.

abstractbill2• 17 years ago

I was surprised by how many people took the Credit Suisse analysis seriously (we peer heavily at justin.tv too).

krakensden2• 17 years ago

You probably can't say, but just in case you can- what's the ballpark of your bandwidth costs?

abstractbill2• 17 years ago

Sorry, you guessed right - all I can say is it's a lot less than it would be if we didn't do any peering.

skorgu• 17 years ago

Each time the traditional media butchers a technical story I'm astonished anew. And then I get a second round of surprise when everyone accepts it so uncritically because it was in a non-blog context.

volida7• 17 years ago

I don't know about your costs, but you have seem to have something in common, you both exploit copyrighted content.

Maybe soon enough you'll have a lawsit in common.

volida7• 17 years ago

I expected down voting, so for those who of you who doubt what I said, here is a sample of some live evidence:

http://www.justin.tv/search?q=soccer&commit=Search

albertsun• 17 years ago

Wasn't one of the big reasons behind the TeliaSonera vs Cogent spat a little while ago the large difference in traffic going one away across the peering agreement versus the other way and that Cogent wanted Telia to pay more for that difference?

I don't know what the ratio of data uploaded to YouTube versus downloaded is in comparison to Justin.tv or other big bandwidth heavy sites, but I would guess that Google still has to pay quite a hefty price for these peering agreements. ISPs after all don't just want more traffic across their network for the sake of it.

jganetsk2• 17 years ago

Is any of your peering with Tier 1s?

krakensden2• 17 years ago

Can anyone find the original Credit-Suisse article? Are their estimates based on pure ISP costs, or do they incorporate the cost of running the infrastructure to serve that content?

Assuming he's right about Google's data transfer costs (I... know next to nothing about how the backbones operate), the amount of Google infrastructure dedicated to running Youtube can't be that cheap. That's a huge amount of data, that needs to be distributed to all their various local data centers, plus developers working full time on the project, etc.

I guess what I'm saying is, just because it's easy to want the bean counters to be wrong, doesn't mean they are.

One of the articles linked to from the main article says Credit Suisse estimated Google's bandwith at 30 million megabits/second. At google appengine prices, that would cost ~ $440 per second (I'm assuming non-SI units). Presumably google's real costs are much lower than that, but still...

YouTube's Fine - Analysts Don't Understand Internet Peering

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