4 ms·

It is common for ISP to host instances of the Google Global Cache (GGC, see https://peering.google.com/ https://peering.google.com/) which are used for many Goo

by mino 9y ago

It is common for ISP to host instances of the Google Global Cache (GGC, see https://peering.google.com/ https://peering.google.com/) which are used for many Google services, most importantly YouTube. In fact, in many cases Google itself "suggests" to ISP that they host a few GGC servers. They are directly monitored by Google, and the ISP has basically no say in how they are run. Capacity is managed by Google directly.

danpalmer 9y ago
Yep, Virgin Media did this in the UK and messed it up badly. Every day at 6pm YouTube would stop working until the following morning. It appeared to work by inspecting DNS packets and replying with overrides if necessary. I didn’t like it but I could understand that. What I did not agree with was the fact that this also happened for other DNS services. Google DNS and OpenDNS both experienced the same issue, as did a few other “famous” DNS providers. Random little ones wouldn’t return the caching servers, and also enabling encrypted DNS for Google/OpenDNS would stop it happening too. I’m fairly sure it was some badly thought out deep packet inspection.
- mino 9y ago
  Again, it's probably _not_ Virgin's fault or responsibility. Capacity planning is handled by Google directly. Also, I think that virtually every ISP with more than a few tens of thousands users is hosting a GGC instance nowadays (and a Netflix OpenCache, etc. etc.). Nowadays, the vast majority of the transit&peering of ISPs is not going to the Internet, but to a few racks of local caching servers managed by OTT operators. Bandwidth-wise, at least in prime time, the Internet is much less connected/realtime than people think :)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - danpalmer 9y ago
    I would suggest that the deep packet inspection is Virgin's fault. Perhaps it was Google under provisioning the CDN inside VM's network, but I would suggest that's also probably Virgin's fault in part, as they will likely have more network information available to them that may have suggested network congestion, but that was not acted upon.

by mino 9y ago

danpalmer 9y ago

Yep, Virgin Media did this in the UK and messed it up badly. Every day at 6pm YouTube would stop working until the following morning. It appeared to work by inspecting DNS packets and replying with overrides if necessary. I didn’t like it but I could understand that. What I did not agree with was the fact that this also happened for other DNS services. Google DNS and OpenDNS both experienced the same issue, as did a few other “famous” DNS providers. Random little ones wouldn’t return the caching servers, and also enabling encrypted DNS for Google/OpenDNS would stop it happening too. I’m fairly sure it was some badly thought out deep packet inspection.

mino 9y ago
Again, it's probably _not_ Virgin's fault or responsibility. Capacity planning is handled by Google directly. Also, I think that virtually every ISP with more than a few tens of thousands users is hosting a GGC instance nowadays (and a Netflix OpenCache, etc. etc.). Nowadays, the vast majority of the transit&peering of ISPs is not going to the Internet, but to a few racks of local caching servers managed by OTT operators. Bandwidth-wise, at least in prime time, the Internet is much less connected/realtime than people think :)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- danpalmer 9y ago
  I would suggest that the deep packet inspection is Virgin's fault. Perhaps it was Google under provisioning the CDN inside VM's network, but I would suggest that's also probably Virgin's fault in part, as they will likely have more network information available to them that may have suggested network congestion, but that was not acted upon.