Content Deployment and Caching Techniques in Africa

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1 Content Deployment and Caching Techniques in Africa Presentation to the AfPIF Peering Coordinators Day Dar Es Salaam 2011 Mike Blanche 1

2 Agenda Current Content Hosting Situation Content Hosting Content Hosting Market Technical Requirements Caching and CDNs Proprietary vs Generalised Benefits Expanding Content Availability and Usage Conclusions 2

3 Current Content Hosting Situation Very small percentage of content hosted within Africa... e.g. From Tanzania: USA USA USA USA USA USA Europe! 3

4 Current Content Situation in Africa Even locally relevant content is not usually hosted locally... UK USA USA USA USA Tanzania! On a machine called server.tanzaniawebhosting.com in Chicago! South Africa (via UK) Tanzania! 4

African Internet Challenges Causes Limited

High Internet access costs Limited bandwidth

5 African Internet Challenges Causes Limited international Internet capacity Limited national and regional fibre networks Lack of local peering and interconnection Effects High Internet access costs Limited bandwidth available High latency connections Lack of local content 5

6 But...Africa is not the first place to face this challenge... 6

7 European Internet Circa

8 European Internet Circa 1995 Then came the foundation of Internet Exchanges in Europe... 8

9 Development of the European Internet Ecosystem As the local Internet ecosystem developed, local content emerged... Locally hosted Locally exchanged Locally delivered Deregulation encouraged building of multiple affordable European fibre networks, removing hairpinning problems So US networks and trans- Atlantic links became less important... Result: Now > 50% of European traffic peered at European exchange points (with the rest delivered on European transit providers) 9

Traditional Economics of Internet Connectivity

infrastructure Advertisers Content Providers

10 Traditional Economics of Internet Connectivity The Internet is a Two Sided Market Money flows towards the middle - the international carriers with the biggest investment in infrastructure Advertisers Content Providers Internet Transit & Backbone Providers ISPs $ $ $ $$$ $ Users 10

11 The New Economics of Internet Connectivity The Internet is still a Two-Sided Market And the money still flows towards the middle Advertisers Content Providers ISPs Users $ $ Settlement-Free Peering Why is peering free? Peering is a mutually beneficial relationship Content Providers need Eyeball Networks Eyeball Networks need Content Providers 11

12 How Do You Acquire Content? Host locally relevant content Encourage existing local major web site operators to host near their user bases Build platforms for development and delivery of new locallyrelevant content Deliver hosting services to the world >>> need to build local hosting and content creation platforms Cache globally delivered content Bring global content closer to users, using caches and CDNs Expand content availability and usage 12

13 Content Hosting Services Colocation Managed Hosting Virtual Private Servers Virtual Hosting Co-location market in UK, France, Germany and Netherlands > $3bn / year market by 2013! 13

14 Content Hosting - Requirements (the basics!) A Facility A Server Bandwidth and Interconnectivity 14

15 Content Hosting - Requirements A Facility Secure Well-connected to various operators Power backup (UPS, generator) Air Conditioning Ideally carrier neutral 15

16 Content Hosting - Requirements A Server Running web server software (Apache, IIS, etc) For Virtual hosting or Virtual Private Servers you need a management layer (e.g. Plesk/CPanel, VMWare) 16

17 Content Hosting - Requirements More complex hosting platforms can be developed... 17

18 Content Hosting - Requirements Bandwidth and Interconnectivity This is the easy bit Easy??! Plenty of outbound international bandwidth available on most African networks Also connect to a local Internet Exchange Points with all operators present to exchange local traffic locally Transit Provider Your Network Peer Networks 18

19 Caching and CDNs Google, Facebook, Akamai, Yahoo, Microsoft are >50% of fixed network traffic Google, Facebook, Twitter are >40% of all mobile network traffic Wouldn t it be great to have this content close to your users, rather than in the US and Europe? 19

20 What is a CDN? Content Distribution (or Delivery) Network Distributed delivery platform for content Content Network Internet Serves content closer to endusers Two key functions: Caching Eyeball Network Eyeball Network Connection proxying CDN CDN 20

21 CDN Function #1: Caching Content Network One copy sent to cache Each request for content is sent across international capacity Internet CDN Frees up backbone capacity Savings for ISPs on international bandwidth required Savings for ISPs on network opex and capex Improved performance for users Eyeball Network Multiple copies sent to users 21

22 CDN Function #2: TCP Termination Content Network Persistent back-end TCP connection RTT Tanzania Europe = 300ms Internet CDN Termination of user TCP sessions on CDN reduces perceived latency for user Reduced latency for TCP handshake (SYN, SYN/ACK, ACK) Reduced latency for HTTP request and response Eyeball Network RTT Tanzania local CDN = 30ms 22

23 Caching and CDNs Examples Proprietary Google Global Cache, Akamai Generic Squid, Bluecoat, Neology Cost Free Ranges from free to expensive Coverage Bandwidth Savings Specific (popular) content High (for that content) Most content Low to Medium Bluecoat saves me 60% of my traffic. But it only works 70% of the time. And it costs $60,000! African network operator Best solution deploy both types of CDN alongside each other? 23

24 CDN Deployment Requirements What are content providers looking for to expand their presence to a particular location? National or regional aggregation of traffic (IXPs are great for this!) Carrier neutral datacentre facilities with many networks present Open access cable landing stations Multiple, competitive national fibre networks Friendly regulation...all the above also helps develop a competitive, open hosting market. 24

25 Applying a CDN in a shared IX Environment ISP ISP CDN Node Internet Exchange ISP Hosting ISP Cache-Fill over IP (~10-20% of delivered traffic) Content Provider Datacentres Hosting ISP shares CDN with other operators over the IX by peering Agree with other operators as to how to share the international bandwidth cost CDN requires international IP transit for cache-fill and management Content Provider POP 25

26 Typical Bandwidth Savings from a CDN/Cache Difference between red and blue lines = international bandwidth savings 26

27 Effects on Internet Exchanges More traffic More peers Peers upgrade their connections to the IXP Helps develop Internet Ecosystem in a country KIXP UIXP 27

28 Expanding Content Availability and Usage Once you have content hosted locally, how do you encourage people to use it? Exclude local traffic from usage caps and throttling Make high-bandwidth content only available to locally peered users (where the alternative is the content isn t available at all) Creates a virtuous circle, encouraging further locally hosted content 28

29 Expanding Content Availability and Usage e.g. BBC iplayer Video on Demand service Initially only available to BBC peers over the London Internet Exchange 29

30 Conclusions Currently there is little locally-hosted content in Africa Increased content hosting will help to increase local interconnectivity and reduce dependence on international links Can be achieved through: local content hosting distribution of global content through CDNs and caching Encouraging usage of locally hosted content helps create a virtuous circle of increasing local content, leading to higher usage... 30

Overview of recent changes in the International IP interconnection ecosystem

Presentation for ITU Overview of recent changes in the International IP interconnection ecosystem 23 January 2012 Michael Kende Introduction 2 The Internet is characterized by two underlying trends in