iCloud - Is it going to hurt access providers?

Sat Sep 3 19:57:46 UTC 2011

If you're worried about the problem of tens of thousands of users
simultaneously trying to upload files to a "central point" then I'm
not the slightest bit concerned about the network as a whole. In this
circumstance, one of two things will happen and possibly both,
depending: either a) the users will screw themselves by flooding their
uplinks in which case they will know what they've done to themselves
and will largely accept the problems for the durration or b) (and far
more likely) the links apple is using will become flooded or the
systems overloaded in some way or another in which case the customers
will say, "MAN, this *SUCKS*" and likely whine at apple. Because the
nature of the traffic isn't much different than, say, a windows patch
release, the traffic won't be *all of a sudden* but will be spread out
over hours and days. The probability of it causing disruptions
anywhere but at the immediate source or within the near vicinity of
the desination is low, as I see it. IMO, the only ones who really need
be concerned are Apple's bandwidth prodivers because traffic will be
concentrating within their networks and especially in the nodes apple
connects to.

-Wayne

On Sat, Sep 03, 2011 at 11:20:13AM +0000, Skeeve Stevens wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> I've been thinking about the impact that iCloud (by Apple) will have on the Internet.
> 
> My guess is that 99% of consumer internet access is Asymmetrical (DSL, Cable, wireless, etc) and iCloud when launched will 'upload' obscene amounts of gigs of music, tv, backups, email, photos, documents/data and so on to their data centres.
> 
> Now, don't misunderstand me, I love the concept of iCloud, as I do DropBox, but from an Access Providers perspective, I'm thinking this might be a 'bad thing'.
> 
> >From what I can see there are some key issues:
> 
>   *   Users with plans that count upload and download together.
>   *   The speed of Asymmetric tail technology such as DSL
>   *   The design of access provider backhaul (from DSLAM to core) metrics
>   *   The design of some transit metrics
> 
> So basically the potential issue is that a large residential provider could have thousands of users connect to iCloud, their connections slowed because of uploading data, burning their included bandwidth caps, slowing down the backhaul segment of the network, and as residential providers are mostly download, some purchase transit from their upstreams in an symmetric fashion.
> 
> This post is really just to prompt discussion if people think there is anything to actually worry about, or there are other implications that I've not really thought of yet.
> 
> ?Skeeve
> 
> --
> 
> Skeeve Stevens, CEO - eintellego Pty Ltd - The Networking Specialists
> 
> skeeve at eintellego.net<mailto:skeeve at eintellego.net> ; www.eintellego.net
> 
> Phone: 1300 753 383 ; Fax: (+612) 8572 9954
> 
> Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; skype://skeeve
> 
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> 
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> 
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> 
> 
> --
> 
> eintellego - The Experts that the Experts call
> 
> - Juniper - HP Networking - Cisco - Brocade

---
Wayne Bouchard
web at typo.org
Network Dude
http://www.typo.org/~web/