An Internet for Bulk Delivery

… not communication

Pablo Rodriguez
Telefonica Research, Barcelona
Is the Internet the preferred
medium for distributing bulk
(delay tolerant) digital
content?
Not beyond a certain size…

e.g. movies, home videos, data

backups, scientific data

Currently, served by:

-Dedicated networks
-Parcel delivery
10M+ users

1.5 Million DVDs per

day: 2.5 PB/day!

All US P2P traffic:

14 PB/day(cisco)

Postal still carries

vast amount of
multimedia traffic
Data Centres Replication

Akamai ships 1 Tbyte/day logs via

postal mail
CERN: 20 TB/day scientific data.
Private network
How well is the current
Internet dealing with
bulk transfers...?
Current bulk data demand is
higher than what the
Internet can handle
 Existing solutions...
Existing solutions
2. Congestion-based pricing

 Block all P2P

 Use capped “day-time” volume

9
Try moving 1 Tbyte data of
non-P2P data on today’s
internet...

Happy hours in one place are

unhappy in another place

Postal network is a breeze

the REAL Problem

Internet well suited for

communications not delivery

bulk vs shot bursts

instantaneous vs delay tolerant
Redesign the Internet as a
Cargo network not a
Telecommunications one...
Today’s Internet
Internet Postal Service
Transit Storage
Warehouses

Internet Post
Offices
How many storage warehouses/post offices?
where? how big?

Routing and Scheduling,

when? for how long? through where?

Reliability

Minimize Cost

Maximize Speeds
 So what is wrong with E2E transfers?
Impact of cargo data on
network economics

load

95-percentile

Cargo
Data

time
day of week
 Water filling

95-percentile

Cargo
Data
Cargo Data today can be seen as
creating Fat in the Internet

Need to move Fat to times with more

spare capacity

load

Cargo
Data

time
Does simple scheduling at the sender solve the problem?

21
that is not enough…
 Non-overlapping valleys

Sender in LAT Receiver in EU or China

uvalley(LAT)

8am
available

rate

sender 1pm
U

receiver
ε 8pm
 Minimize Cost or
Maximize Cargo delivered

C(b) Deadline : T C(b)

b b
bandwidth price Data: D
Sender Link bandwidth price
Receiver link

load Sender Link load Receiver link

Dynamic Programming
Data Collected…

-Load in 440 interconnection points from

large wholesale ISP

-Peering with 140+ ISPs

-Carries traffic from 12M+ users

-3 month period

-Pricing charges at each interconnection

point
 2 transfer policies

SnF:
Internet
Postal
E2E Service

26
 Crossing the Atlantic from LAT to EU

E2E

SnF

E2E

SnF

B=100 Tbits, T=2 days B=250 Tbits, T=2 days B=250 Tbits, T=3 days
 Cargo
Crossing Data
the Atlantic Cost
from LAT to EU 2/2
D=25 D=25
D=100
0 0
T=2
T=2 T=3
LAT 53 130 46
Today
EU 8 14 9

E2E Total 61 144 55

Intern LAT 0 0 0
et EU 0 7 0
postal
service Total 0 7 0

SnF Cost (x $1000)

28
 SnF vs E2E-Sched

SnF
E2E-Sched

29
 E2E-Sched vs. SnF

 E2E-Sched
— Simple (+)
— Suffers from non-coinciding valleys (-)

 SnF
— More complicated (-)
— Can handle non-coinciding valleys (+)
 E2E-Sched vs. SnF

T=1 day

31
 Cost of E2E-Sched to match SnF-free

32
 Ongoing Work
• Can optimize bulk delivery of point to point
residential traffic which is being shaped at
different times of the day?

• What about point to multipoint?

33
 Conclusions
Communications and bulk delivery are
very different beasts: Internet not
yet ready

Storage increases capacity or

decreases cost

Many opportunities to
mix digital and
physical delivery
solutions: FedEx
for bits
Thanks.

questions…?
 E2E-Sched vs. SnF vs. FedEx for CERN

37
Rushing cargo data is either
very expensive or impossible

-Volume based charging

-Throttling (under flat rate)
 Real FedEx?
250 Tbits; 31 disks ; 38 kilos
Argentina => Spain
Deliver within 2-3 days
$600 (one shipment), $9000 (continuous)

$9000 (fedex)
€7000 (internet postal service)
 E2E-Sched vs. SnF vs. FedEx for CERN

40
27 Tbytes per day (54 Tb/2 days) over one month
3D Printer
3D Printer
Brain back up
retina:10 Mbits per second

28 Tbytes/day
Not all bits cost the same
and not all bits are
equally important

Today the network treats

interactive and cargo data
traffic indiscriminately
 The cost of delivering data

ISPs dimension their networks

based on peak hour load or
manage traffic accordingly
And as more and more
things become digital
the demand will grow
Post mail is fine, but
the Internet is a lot
more convenient