Bandwidth Savings

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1

Hi Guys

We are an ISP in the Caribbean, and are faced with extremely high Bandwidth
costs, compared to the US, we currently use Peer App for Caching however
with most services now moving to HTTPS the cache is proving to be less and
less effective. We are currently looking at any way we can save on
Bandwidth or to be more Efficient with the Bandwidth we currently have. We
do have a Layer 2 Circuit between the Island and Miami, I am seeing there
are WAN Accelerators where they would put a Server on either end and sort
of Compress and decompress the Traffic before it goes over the Layer 2, I
have never used this before, has any one here used anything like this, what
results would I be able to expect for ISP Traffic?

If not any ideas on Bandwidth Savings, or being more Efficient with want we
currently.

Many thanks for any Help

Keenan

2

The first step would be profiling your traffic sources. I would imagine you probably have a bunch of YouTube, Netflix et al. content, that those content providers will send you a cache box for, subject to minimum traffic requirements.

Regards,
Marty Strong

3

I reached out to my vendor and got back the following. Also what services have you seen move to HTTPS that you're not able to cache?

Hi Luke,

Regarding HTTPS Streaming and Netflix...

Netflix announced in the spring of 2015 that it would move to HTTPS delivery by April of 2016. At the time of that first announcement, some concluded Netflix might not be able to afford the capital investment required to enable HTTPS delivery.

Given Netflix did not complete the HTTPS project by their first deadline, we believe they have been focused on other priorities such as their global expansion, So, given this history, it's not clear just when or if Netflix will make the move to majority HTTPS for delivery. Furthermore, Netflix is under considerable pressure from investors to improve subscriber growth, revenue growth and profitability. The HTTPS project does not support any of these goals. In fact, Netflix reported net income is marginal and a move to full HTTPS delivery would likely consume all profits for the year.

Along with the rest of the industry, we recognize the need for Open Caching systems to support HTTPS streaming from upstream content providers. This is one of the reasons why we were a Founding Member, along with 16 other streaming companies, in the Streaming Video Alliance in the fall of 2014. The SVA now includes almost 50 member companies from across the streaming ecosystem and around the world. More importantly, the Open Caching Working Group has issued functional requirements, unanimously approved by SVA members, which include support for HTTPS streams.

The SVA Board has invited Netflix to join the Alliance and, in doing so, endorse the Open Caching work underway. This would open up a path in the short run to ensure any open cache can continue to support Netflix content even if Netflix moves to HTTPS delivery. We expect to see Netflix become more active in the SVA soon given other major streaming providers, such as Hulu and Amazon, are joining now.

In conclusion, the SVA has developed a solution for Open Cache support of HTTPS streaming and we expect all streaming providers, including Netflix, will align with the SVA's direction.

http://www.streamingvideoalliance.org/

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Regards,

Luke Guillory
Network Operations Manager

Tel: 985.536.1212
Fax: 985.536.0300
Email: lguillory@reservetele.com

Reserve Telecommunications
100 RTC Dr
Reserve, LA 70084

4

Those will probably not help a lot with https: data, as a properly encrypted
stream is very close to random bits and thus not very compressible.

As others have noted, your best chances are getting content providers to give
you a local cache of their most popular content.

5

The problem with the local cache[s] is the bandwidth cost of populating the
cache and keeping it coherent can be greater than the bandwidth saved. From
your description, I would expect this to be the case so a local cache will
not help. Rule of thumb is if your downstream traffic is not at least
3gb/sec, you won't see a win from a cache. This problem can be mitigated if
you can find other large bandwidth consumers on the island and partner to
share a cache. Examples of potential partners would be your competitors,
universities, government organisations, etc. The savings can be
significant.

If there is a local peering point on the islands, this would be the best
place for shared caches. Sharing caches via an existing non-profit peering
organization or having a non-profit, educational organization, or the
government take the lead can lower the suspicion barrier and result in more
sign-ups.

6

Netflix won’t even begin talks for their cache if you're not doing a minimum of 5Gbps. They also require massive uploads to the cache often, these are things are 200TB now if I recall and they send everything unlike the transparent who only grab what's already being consumed.

Luke Guillory
Network Operations Manager

Tel: 985.536.1212
Fax: 985.536.0300
Email: lguillory@reservetele.com

Reserve Telecommunications
100 RTC Dr
Reserve, LA 70084

7

​​
I don't know the the Caribbean Internet Exchanges market. Are any worth
peering at versus buying additional L2 bandwidth to Miami?

https://cw.ams-ix.net/
http://www.ocix.net/ocix/

Rick​

8

The challenges are almost certainly economics related, at the lack of
competition and high costs for layer 1/2 transport from his Caribbean
island to Miami. Via whatever submarine cables exist that are controlled by
larger ILEC type entities/telcos. Or satellite (whether geostationary
transponder capacity or o3b).

Depending on what island we're talking about, the $$$$$/month for a single
1GbE or 10GbE layer 2 transport service from $ISLAND to Miami will be very
high compared to what a network operator in the US 48 states is accustomed
to paying.

9

I believe the ISP is located in Trinidad & Tobago.

There are five international submarine cables that land on the island:
- SG-SCS
- Americas-II
- ECFS
- Southern Caribbean Fiber
- ECLink

Of those, 1 go to the closest real interconnectivity hub of Miami, with the others requiring another pair onwards.

ECLink lands in Curaçao, which could give access to AMS-IX Caribbean, which may help with connectivity to content providers, both Akamai and Goole are live and we are in the process of connecting (https://cw.ams-ix.net/connected_parties). Pricing however, is probably just as expensive on that cable than to Miami.

It would be interesting to hear from the OP the rough pricing for connectivity to Miami, vs. elsewhere.

Regards,
Marty Strong

10

Seemingly also a GGC is there: https://ix.tt/cache-services-now-live-at-ttix/ maybe if the cost is low it might be worth it, assuming the incumbent doesn’t make it prohibitive.

Regards,
Marty Strong

11

Keenan Singh <keenansingh@airlinktt.net> writes:

Hi Guys

We are an ISP in the Caribbean, and are faced with extremely high Bandwidth
costs, compared to the US, we currently use Peer App for Caching however
with most services now moving to HTTPS the cache is proving to be less and
less effective. We are currently looking at any way we can save on
Bandwidth or to be more Efficient with the Bandwidth we currently have. We
do have a Layer 2 Circuit between the Island and Miami, I am seeing there
are WAN Accelerators where they would put a Server on either end and sort
of Compress and decompress the Traffic before it goes over the Layer 2, I
have never used this before, has any one here used anything like this, what
results would I be able to expect for ISP Traffic?

If not any ideas on Bandwidth Savings, or being more Efficient with want we
currently.

For Apple-originated data there's Caching Server, part of macOS
Server,

https://www.apple.com/macos/server/features/#caching-server

You buy a Mac, and get macOS Server from the App Store. If you're
using a typical single-outgoing-IP NAT, put the Mac behind the NAT,
and make sure other hosts on the NAT can talk to it. If you're using
public IP space, or you have NATs where you can't do that, you add
DNS-SD TXT records to the search domain for your customers' machines
(as configured with DHCP). Then your customers will use the Mac as a
local caching source of Apple software updates and store content. You
can have several and they'll automatically cluster and failover.

There's documentation at

https://help.apple.com/serverapp/mac/5.0/#/apd5E1AD52E-012B-4A41-8F21-8E9EDA56583A

12

Measure what you're doing in as much detail as you can. Slice-and-dice
it by source, destination, time-of-day, protocol, day-of-week, etc.
and plot the results. In most cases, the problems will make themselves
leap off the page. (We could all probably predict what they are right
now, but real live measurements are still a good idea.) Once you've
identified the problems, you'll be much closer to enumerating possible
solutions (and you can avoid wasting time on the issues that aren't
worth addressing).

---rsk

13

Peering is great when you can get to the IX inexpensively. I assume that glass that goes underwater has a significant increase in cost and therefore the cost savings of peering would be minuscule in comparison to the cost of the rest of the connectivity.

14

I remember there were a couple different owners down there, but Columbus swallowed them up, then C&W got Columbus then Liberty got C&W.

Not knowing the international cable market, is this like AT&T, Comcast or Verizon (the largest US last mile operators) being your only option?

15

At the end of the day it’s a cost/benefit analysis, reading the OP’s message it’s clear that the IX or transit isn’t really the problem, but rather how much traffic traverses to the point of transit/IX. I think until we see some numbers both in terms of traffic and in terms of price to say Miami, Willemstad, etc. we can’t easily determine a good solution.

Regards,
Marty Strong

16

Keenan

Netflix won’t even begin talks for their cache if you're not doing a minimum of 5Gbps.

Outside of the US I believe it is less based on presentations I have seen in Africa.

They also require massive uploads to the cache often, these are things are 200TB now if I recall and they send everything unlike the transparent who only grab what's already being consumed.

Talk to their inter-connect team, the ones I know are very approachable.

  f