Google's Peering and Caching Strategy

This is a followup on yesterday's post about how little Google/YouTube pays for bandwidth. Google wants to promote peering with ISPs, so they give presentations at ISP meetings.  After reading yesterday's post, Alex Benik of Battery Ventures sent me a link to this presentation given by Google at a 2008 meeting of the Latin America and Carribean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC).

As expected, Google peers with as many relevant ISPs as possible.  For the ISP, peering with Google eliminates their upstream costs for traffic to Google.  Since Google represents a substantial volume of traffic for most ISPs, this is a big saving.   As of May 2008, Google was present in 33 public Internet exchanges around the globe, so major ISPs already have connections in places where they can peer with Google.  The minimum qualifications are 5 Mbps of Google traffic and the ability to interconnect using Gigabit Ethernet at one of these 33 major Internet exchange points.

Google Global Cache

What's interesting is Google's caching strategy.  Just as Akamai puts servers in ISP's local facilities, Google is providing a distributed cache for their content.  This available to larger ISPs and allows them to serve Google content directly at the edge of their networks, thus reducing traffic on the ISP's backbone network.  Here's a representative rack that Google provides to the ISP.

Comments

[Brett Glass]

And, as you might expect, Google will only place these caches with LARGE ISPs, thus giving them an advantage over smaller ones and potentially creating a monopoly or duopoly situation in which the little guys are squeezed out.

[Rudolf]

Brett,

Oh come on. The fact that they peer with everyone that does 5 mbit already shows they are helping even the little guy. This box only gets used once peering is becoming too much.

Really, the amount of savings a small ISP has because of this box are minute as their peering with Google should be able to handle all.

[brough]

Brett, have you tried talking to Google? If your traffic levels don't justify Google investing in equipment to run at your site, perhaps your bandwidth cost savings would justify an investment on your part. Google may be a lot more flexible than your local incumbent phone company.

Rudolf, Given his location in Laramie Wyoming, I assume Brett's problem is limited access to middle mile fiber, resulting in a steep effective cost for Internet transit. Thus caching popular Google content locally might save him a lot of money.

[pkansara]

These is good idea.

[Brett Glass]

Our ISP has more than 5 Mbps of Google traffic -- mostly video. And Google's video, which often comprises a full 20% of our HTTP traffic, is all marked as non-cacheable. So, even though we run a 100% standards-conforming Web cache, Google will not allow that cache to cache its voluminous video.

However, we do not peer directly at a major peering point, because we are a small, rural ISP without a backbone POP in our city. "Middle mile" connectivity is extremely expensive here, because Level3, which owns three backbones that run through this area, has not been willing to open up its pipes at any reasonable price and Qwest is likewise price gouging on the "middle mile."

Caching is most needed when ISPs do NOT peer at major peering points and therefore have very high bandwidth costs. So, Google's policies are effectively designed to favor the big guy and leave small, independent, rural, and competitive providers out in the cold. "Don't be evil," eh?