On 9/12/16 4:09 AM, Paul Stewart wrote:
I’m not a fan of any IXP putting caches into their network via route
server or direct peering… first off “putting one” isn’t enough and where
do you draw the line? Using Netflix caches for example…..
The other challenge is that as the IXP grows, the only folks who will
benefit from it are the smaller peers anyways as the larger folks
already have them on-net.
The larger peers still get diversity and redundancy afforded by the IX,
and the IX nodes still get a more diverse set of eyeballs than private
ones. An IX will always have big providers, small providers, and even
end user networks. One can, of course, go it alone and eschew all
external resources.
Also - now the IXP is taking away possible revenue from some of it’s
members by bringing caches in. For those members on an IXP that are
selling IP Transit services, I can tell you that a heavy factor now in
how transit is sold is related to how much on-net caching is being done
(at least for some transit providers, not all).
Akamai wants to be on exchanges and they have been known to proactively
approach ones of all sizes to do so. The fact that an IX has those
resources might be because those resources want to be there. CDNs don't
usually want to be limited to someone's private network.
Now, if someone doesn't want Akamai on an IX because they have a private
cache they use a selling point... Obviously I'm a proponent of access to
resources. I could also be wrong and prices for "internet" will start to
go up again.
Actually this reminds me: Cogent called me a while back looking to sell
transit to me. One of their pitch points was the content they have on
net to which I asked, why would I pay you for content I can get
cheaper/free at an IX? Why would I buy transit from a single AS when I
can buy (cheaper) transport to reach multiple ASes? I wouldn't unless I
only knew how to "buy internet", which I suspect is the target market
they're after. But when those questions come up on lists like this
someone always chimes in and says hey, there's a better way. Of course
Cogent and others with that model want me to buy from them on their
terms, not be somewhere where there's options.
~Seth
