[CAnet - news] The folly of peering ratios

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Hi all -

At the Peering BOF X at NANOG 35 in Los Angeles last week we held a debate
on the rationality of Peering Traffic Ratios as a Peering Partner selection
criteria. During the debate both sides made good points, but interestingly,
some of the strongest arguments on both sides of the debate came out during
the Q&A and during coffee break/bar/beer-n-gear ad hoc debates that
followed.  I have classified roughly six arguments culled from these
discussion, attributed where I remembered the source, along with the
corresponding counter arguments that seemed to collectively reveal the folly
of peering traffic ratios as a peering discriminator. I have documented and
diagrammed these arguments in the form of a white paper titled, of course,
"The Folly of Peering Traffic Ratios."

I am looking for some people to review the paper, provide feedback, better
defend an argument on either side, provide anecdotes, whatever you believe
would help make the paper an accurate portrayal of the arguments on both
sides of this issue. If you have the time to let me walk you through the
paper over the phone (about 20 minutes) and discuss, that would be the best
- I find I get the most feedback this way. I'll send out a note to the list
when I have done enough walk throughs to feel comfortable enough that I have
things about right and that the draft can be circulated more broadly.

Here is the current summary from The Folly of Peering Ratios v0.5:
------------------------------------------ snip
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Summary
In the heated discussions surrounding this topic there were six flavors of
arguments put forth to support peering traffic ratios as a peering selection
criteria.

Argument #1 - "I don't want to haul your content all over the world for
free." This argument is countered with the observation that, whether peered
with a content heavy or an access heavy ISP, the ISP is being paid by its
customers for providing access to that traffic. It is not hauling the
traffic for free.

Argument #2 - "OK, but there is massive asymmetry here. Look at how many
bits miles I have to carry your content, while you have only to deliver your
content across the exchange point." Regardless of whether peered with
content or access the load on your network is about the same; the access or
content traffic has to traverse your network to get to your customers. This
is an argument perhaps for more geographically distributed points of
interconnection.

Argument #3 - "As an Access Heavy ISP, I don't want to peer with Content
Heavy ISPs, because doing so will screw up my peering traffic ratios with my
other peers."  The analysis and diagrammed traffic flows in this paper prove
this assertion true, however, the argument is circular: 'Peering Traffic
Ratios are valid criteria because they support Peering Traffic Ratios with
others.'

Argument #4 - "I want revenue for carrying your packets." While this
argument is business rational, peering traffic ratios are a poor indicator
of the value derived from the interconnection.

Argument #5 - "My backbone is heavily loaded in one direction - I don't have
$ to upgrade the congested part of my core without a corresponding increase
in revenue." This loading problem can better be solved with better traffic
engineering, with more resources for the core or by temporarily postponing
all additional peering until the core is upgraded. Introducing a peering
traffic ratio requirement is at best a temporary solution and signals a
poorly managed network - a bad image for peers and transit customers alike.

Argument #6 - "I don't want to peer with anyone else. Peering ratios help me
systematically keep people out." This is an understandable (although seldom
articulated out loud) argument but is a poor defense for peering traffic
ratios per se since it is an arbitrary discriminator; one could just as well
have specified the size of the backbone core, the market capitalization or
debt structure, or an extremely large number of distributed interconnect
points.

Peering Traffic Ratios emerged years ago in the Internet as a peering
candidate discriminator, but appear to have their roots in the PSTN world.
Ratios reflect the telephony settlement model of buying and selling minutes,
where the traffic difference between in and out is used for settling at the
end of the month. However, the Peering Traffic Ratio discriminator model for
the Internet interconnection fails because traffic ratios are a poor
indicator of relative value derived from the interconnect.

If you have time to review the paper (about 6 pages), please send me a note.

Thanks!

Bill
--
//------------------------------------------------
// William B. Norton <[email protected]>
// Co-Founder and Chief Technical Liaison, Equinix
// GSM Mobile: 650-315-8635
// Skype, Y!IM: williambnorton


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