From Stealth To Spin
Newly announced Skyrider has come out of stealth mode with a interesting spin on the current Internet Data Center (IDC) architectures used by Amazon, Google and Yahoo: the p2p IDC.
A Word About P2P
Peer-To-Peer (p2p) network architectures are decades old. Early on it was in opposition to the IBM/SNA central mainframe hierarchical model. Today the competition is the client-server model, where the server provides the data and the client displays it. It is difficult to scale servers – the commotion about IDC’s is around how they scale so much more effectively than Enterprise Data Centers – and p2p solves the problem by dispensing with centralized (core) network resources in favor of distributed (edge) resources. Storage(content), processing and bandwidth are all spread across the network using low-cost consumer technology rather than centralized high-cost enterprise products or radical IDC models.
So p2p networks are older than BitTorrent and LimeWire, and more respectable. Skyrider apparently plans to build a general-purpose p2p network platform.
The Next Level of Scalability?
In development for the last two years, and planning to announce later this year, Skyrider has a tantalizing vision:
The basic peer-to-peer networks that we are seeing today will rapidly evolve in the coming months and years and merge with the web. When YouTube serves over 100 million videos a day and when tens of millions of MySpace users can not communicate directly with tens of millions of Facebook users, there is simply no other option: p2p and the web architectures will merge.
The combination is zero distribution costs, availability of vast amount of edge-knowledge and the ability to connect to anyone without prior knowledge about a community location (web site), will result in a wave of innovation – we should expect to see applications that combine some or all of these in the near future.
So imagine building a virtual data center, with capacity exceeding those new football field-sized glass houses in Washington and Oregon, in cyberspace. SETI at Home crossed with YouTube, MySpace and Google data centers. That seems to be what Skyrider is promising.
So WTF Do They Do!
Ah, patience, young Padawan. That is for the p2p Jedi to know and you to strive for. Beyond vague hints of “monetizing p2p networks” and “accessing information for business opportunities” and a technology consisting of “very high speed and scalable network protocol stacks with very high speed and scalable distributed architectures” they say little beyond this tidbit:
The Skyrider platform ultimately will enable software services that include search services, business and ecommerce services, and community and consumer services.
Oh, It’s An OEM Play
Meaning they sell stuff to the people who sell us stuff. And they are taking on – or selling to – Google, Amazon, MySpace and Ebay. Which is cool: folks who have the time and money to test it will take the arrows. I wish Skyrider luck.
I love it! I love it!
I may live long enough to see some of the Strategy that should have been in use for obvious reasons actually in use.
Now if it were only Wireless P2P?
Thoughts about BitTorrent, MLPPP and the Speed Limit of the Information Universe in P2P:
BitTorrent Article and Comments—
FYI… an excellent article on BitTorrent use, traffic-shaping and the coming
bandwidth battles…
>
Quote from the article—
“Broadband ‘hogs’
BitTorrent’s efficient use of broadband connections has hugely increased
the amount of traffic going across the net, because it runs all users’ net
connections flat out to deliver huge files. ”
[rdp comment]
Duh? Just wait until P2P has widespread acceptance and deployment.
Is this like, “If you have disc brakes on your car your insurance rates
have to increase because the number of accidents increases.
According to the insurance companies, this is because you drive faster
knowing you can stop faster?
Duh! What about the 300 HP engine that will do 0-60 MPH in under 5 seconds?
I had 4-wheel disc brakes on all my little 4 banger sports cars that went from
0-60 MPH in nearly 20 seconds. I paid a premium because I had a foreign car
and that meant the parts were more expensive? Go figure.
Many IT shops are struggling with this problem internally.
It is known as the Access Density problem. It will only get worse.
Networks have always been step-children to other IT expenditures.
Strategies to prevent, and tools to deal with, “swarming” and the resultant
“hot-spotting” in P2P will be hot items.
Interesting Comment From Article—
“runs all users’ net connections flat out”
My AT&T DSL is 3mbps promised and delivered 2.4-2.8 mbps. Let’s use the
promised value of 3mbps for ease of computation. My neighbor has
the Comcast Cable Broadband of 8mbps. How much bandwidth are we
entitled to each month for our monthly fee.
It apparently is much less than we think—
AT&T DSL
3mbps * 3600secondsperhour * 24hoursperday * 30-31dayspermonth
Comcast Cable Broadband
8mbps * 3600secondsperhour * 24hoursperday * 30-31dayspermonth
Calculating the Gigabytes per hour—
3mbps * 3600secondsperhour = 10,800,000,000 mbphour, 10.8 gbph
Let’s use 10 bits per byte for ease of computation
10.8 gbph / 10 bits per byte = 1.08 GBph (Gigabytes per hour)
Using 1.08 GBph—
1.08 GBph * 24 hoursperday = 25.92 GBpday
Let’s use a standard 30 day month for ease of computation.
25.92 GBpday * 30 days = 777.6 GBpmonth
Quote from article—
“Some internet service providers think this is unacceptable.
Recently BT began clamping down on so-called “broadband hogs”,
by starting to enforce a 40GB monthly limit.”
40GB? I’m entitled to one day’s bandwidth per month?
What is wrong with this picture?
Who knows how much bandwidth I will need if I have a business
that uses P2P and BitTorrent to update constantly the information
my customers pay me for? The product could be almost anything
including video.
I might like to build a “virtual” video store if the RIAA could get their
head out of where-ever-it-is and define licensing and a fee schedule.
MLPPP:
Multi-link PPP (Point to Point Protocol)
This is what FC SANs were dying for. But not having it sold a ton more hardware for vendors because of the excess capacity you had to design in for the “static” SAN.
This protocol simply adds a chunk of bandwidth as the transmission requires up it to the limit of the network. I can’t find my notes but BitTorrent doesn’t work this way. It simply grabs as much as it can in the first pass and never looks back. Sort of like Microsoft and memory.