a333
A hot cup of integrals please
join:2007-06-12
Rego Park, NY
 ·Cingular Wireless
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| reply to espaeth
Re: Is this a good thing for the net?
First of all, you took my statement "bandwidth is bandwidth" COMPLETELY out of context. Nice try, though...
Next, exactly how do you think seeding works? The uploading you do during YOUR transfer in turn speeds up someone else's download of the SAME file, hence letting a lot of heavy users get their files faster, reducing strain on the network in general. How hard is it to get this? P2P software REDUCES congestion, and avoids the situations most HTTP downloads would just keep trying to hammer their way through. To distribute Blizzard patches to several million users simultaneously using the regular HTTP/unicast methods would require a port into the 'net that's the size of a national backbone.
And what is all this B.S. about upstream bandwidth? Unless you set your client to use 100% of your upstream bandwidth, and make it open up ~2000 ports, you are NOT causing any harm to the network, PERIOD. It's the same as if you had been uploading that 400 MB family reunion movie to Grandma Ginny. As I said, bandwidth is bandwidth. P2P doesn't magically make my available bandwidth a multiple of 10.
Overall, none of you network engineers/"experts" have given me a VALID reason to throttle P2P in PARTICULAR. |
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espaeth
Digital Plumber
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Minneapolis, MN
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| said by a333  :The uploading you do during YOUR transfer in turn speeds up someone else's download of the SAME file, hence letting a lot of heavy users get their files faster, reducing strain on the network in general. The payoff on P2P only works if many people leave their connection seeding after their transfer completes. The fast downloads of a few require extra upstream capacity from many others to be used.
said by a333 :To distribute Blizzard patches to several million users simultaneously using the regular HTTP/unicast methods would require a port into the 'net that's the size of a national backbone. It would require an intelligent method of distribution like using content delivery networks. Microsoft has more customers than Blizzard, and they have no problems deploying massive service packs and regular patches via HTTP transfers. Linux package managers like apt, yast, yum, or up2date also grab package updates via HTTP for the tens of millions of Linux boxes out there. Same deal with antivirus updates, or really the overwhelming majority of software updates.
Blizzard uses P2P for one key reason: cost. It moves the distribution burden and expense from them to you. In reality the WoW patches would deploy significantly faster if Blizzard were to "man up" and pay for CDN delivery.
said by a333 :And what is all this B.S. about upstream bandwidth? Unless you set your client to use 100% of your upstream bandwidth, and make it open up ~2000 ports, you are NOT causing any harm to the network, PERIOD. It's the same as if you had been uploading that 400 MB family reunion movie to Grandma Ginny. Broadband bandwidth is oversubscribed. Your "idle" bits are intended to be someone else's "used" bits. The difference here is again finite vs infinite duration transfers. You start a standard upload of that 400MB video to Grandma Ginny, walk away, and once your transfer finishes there is no more traffic on the network. Using a P2P application, on the other hand, will keep putting bits on the network for as long as you let the application run. Little Timmy queues up some MP3s to download in the morning before he goes to school -- even though the transfer will probably finish in the first 30-45 minutes, the P2P app will keep uploading to other P2P clients the entire time he's away at school, or even longer if he leaves the client running after he gets home.
The other issue is concurrence. With standard transfers you have normal human triggers that cause the load to be randomly distributed. (ie, the chances of you and your neighbor clicking a website button to trigger a large download at the same time a relatively small) Since the distribution from P2P is constant and automated, the chances of transfers of multiple P2P users all hitting the network at the same time are significantly greater. |
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amigo_boy
join:2005-07-22
Tempe, AZ
·Cox HSI
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4 edits | reply to a333
said by a333 :letting a lot of heavy users get their files faster, reducing strain on the network in general. That's illogical. If it were true that letting torrents run faster so they finish sooner (and consume bandwith for less time), torrent users wouldn't use QoS to slow down their torrents for the benefit of their web browsing, DNS lookups and VOIP.
I agree that distributed serving reduces network load compared to the load of multiple people downloading from one server. But, if distributed loads facilitate data transfer that wouldn't have been feasible from one server (because the provider wouldn't pay for enough bandwidth to meet the demand), then it has the effect of creating "virtual" servers which are unfunded on networks that didn't bargain for providing that kind of bandwidth.
It's an interesting challenge. But, let's not be coy about what's happening.
Mark |
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rawgerz
In Debt we trust
Premium
join:2004-10-03
Grove City, PA
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| reply to espaeth
said by espaeth :Broadband bandwidth is oversubscribed. Your "idle" bits are intended to be someone else's "used" bits. The difference here is again finite vs infinite duration transfers. You start a standard upload of that 400MB video to Grandma Ginny, walk away, and once your transfer finishes there is no more traffic on the network. Using a P2P application, on the other hand, will keep putting bits on the network for as long as you let the application run. Little Timmy queues up some MP3s to download in the morning before he goes to school -- even though the transfer will probably finish in the first 30-45 minutes, the P2P app will keep uploading to other P2P clients the entire time he's away at school, or even longer if he leaves the client running after he gets home. That's what QOS is for. Prioritize http and keep P2P at the bottom. Everyone wins. Now, if everyone using P2P was using a high encrypted VPN, then it would be a problem. Or "unlimited" high speed tiers that don't have the bandwidth to support all the clients. But that's not exactly the end user's fault.
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funchords
Hello
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join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
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| reply to espaeth
Espaeth, FWIW, there's a reason that dedicated file-sharers flee to "private" (they're not really) "trackers" (they're mostly websites-tracker hybrids), and it's because most people don't share all that constantly. So they sign up for these private sites (like sports leagues) to set and enforce some community rules about uploading at least as much as people download. That users do this and that it's the sharing imbalance motive is very clear.
If we lived in the world you're describing, the average up/down "ratio" would be 5:1 and private sites wouldn't exist. My guess is the average up/down ratio is 1/5. Yes, users upload longer than they download, but they also have asymmetric pipes. It takes 5-15x longer to upload the same amount as they download.
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
| reply to a333
said by a333 :P2P software REDUCES congestion, and avoids the situations most HTTP downloads would just keep trying to hammer their way through. To distribute Blizzard patches to several million users simultaneously using the regular HTTP/unicast methods would require a port into the 'net that's the size of a national backbone. Pay Limelight or Akamai like a proper company »www.akamai.com/html/customers/cu···ist.html .
Intelligent localized caching and distribution and redirection of clients to the closest server. Datacenters all over the world. Almost no transoceanic link usage by clients connecting to a CDN. |
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edam
@btopenworld.com
| reply to a333
said by a333 :P2P software REDUCES congestion, and avoids the situations most HTTP downloads would just keep trying to hammer their way through. Haha ha!! You've obviously never managed a network, mate... |
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ezln23
@qwest.net
| P2P does not reduce traffic because it enables the delivery of media that would otherwise cost too much money or is unavailable (music, movies, etc.). It may, in fact, be more efficient than delivering the same amount of data through a CDN and it is certainly cheaper for the distributor of the media. |
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NetAdmin
CCNA
join:2008-05-22
| reply to espaeth
said by espaeth :You start a standard upload of that 400MB video to Grandma Ginny, walk away, and once your transfer finishes there is no more traffic on the network. Using a P2P application, on the other hand, will keep putting bits on the network for as long as you let the application run. Little Timmy queues up some MP3s to download in the morning before he goes to school -- even though the transfer will probably finish in the first 30-45 minutes, the P2P app will keep uploading to other P2P clients the entire time he's away at school, or even longer if he leaves the client running after he gets home. I would like to point out that more BT clients are now setting defaults that eliminate this issue. Most BT clients will shutdown the transfer once the user has reached an Upload to Download ratio of greater than or equal to 1. Users have to manually change that option to seed indefinitely.
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There is no such thing as too much vacation, but I would wager that there is such a thing as too little. |
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espaeth
Digital Plumber
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Minneapolis, MN
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| said by NetAdmin :I would like to point out that more BT clients are now setting defaults that eliminate this issue. Most BT clients will shutdown the transfer once the user has reached an Upload to Download ratio of greater than or equal to 1. Users have to manually change that option to seed indefinitely. Which is great if people actually update their software. Considering the number of SQL slammer packets I still see hitting my firewall to this day, forgive me if I remain skeptical that this will make a difference anytime soon. |
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NetAdmin
CCNA
join:2008-05-22
| said by espaeth :Which is great if people actually update their software. Considering the number of SQL slammer packets I still see hitting my firewall to this day, forgive me if I remain skeptical that this will make a difference anytime soon. There is a significant level of difference in the sophistication of the heavy BT user and the average user with an unpatched XP Home box at home. Heavy BT users are the types of people who tend to obsessively upgrade their software to be on the bleeding edge.
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There is no such thing as too much vacation, but I would wager that there is such a thing as too little. |
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Pipes
@co.uk
| No, the stereotypical heavy BT user is someone who compulsively downloads and seeds to curate a collection of data which in a lot of cases they don't even use in its entirety. It's a habit thing, but it's not hugely technical.
There's no reason why mass BT users need smarts to shove data around. They don't need their machines patched up to date. Hell, a lot even use Windows- go look at the stats for how many 'doze machines are patched up to date (yeah, I know Windows Update is slow and clumsy, but still).
Chances are, you average BT junky isn't running a jailed client on an OpenBSD box- they're running uTorrent, Vuze or whatever on the malware-riddled Windows PC that they use for everything. While some may accuse this view of assuming the lowest common denominator, I'd say it's more regression to the mean. |
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