Traffic ratio of an ISP

Thu Jun 20 21:03:07 UTC 2019

Hi Keith,
Honestly? I don’t! I have never worked with an ISP or similar. If I ever get the chance, that would be exciting. Until then, I think this platform is one of the best places where I can get the answer from the people who has first-hand experience in this field.
Your classification is also interesting. I’d love to know if this is how people classify their networks.
Thanks for sharing your observations.

-
Prasun

Regards,
Prasun Kanti Dey
Ph.D. Candidate,
Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Central Florida
web: https://prasunkantidey.github.io/portfolio/

> On Jun 20, 2019, at 12:21 PM, Keith Medcalf <kmedcalf at dessus.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Why would you think that "Heavy Inbound" signifies a greater inbound:oubound ratio compared to "Mostly Inbound"?
> 
> To me "Heavy Inbound" means that there is more inbound than outbound and "Mostly Inbound" means exactly that -- mostly/usually/exclusively inbound with the occasional outbound byte or two.
> 
> ---
> The fact that there's a Highway to Hell but only a Stairway to Heaven says a lot about anticipated traffic volume.
> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces at nanog.org] On Behalf Of Prasun Dey
>> Sent: Wednesday, 19 June, 2019 15:33
>> To: Mike Hammett
>> Cc: nanog at nanog.org
>> Subject: Re: Traffic ratio of an ISP
>> 
>> Thank you, Mike.
>> From an outsider, I don’t have any information of an ISP’s traffic
>> numbers. And this may be confidential unless we are using any
>> measurement platform, which CAIDA is doing. To get a rough idea about
>> any ISP’s traffic outbound:inbound ratio I can only see it's
>> PeeringDB label. But, the question is whether there is any community
>> decided values against these labels?
>> Like,
>> 1:2 = Balanced
>> 1:5 = Mostly Inbound
>> 1:10 = Heavy Inbound
>> 10:1 = Heavy Outbound
>> I just came up with these values. They don’t mean anything. I don’t
>> have any solid evidence or source to support them. So, my question
>> is, what people actually use? Or, it totally depends on the ISPs and
>> they vary.
>> 
>> -
>> Prasun
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Prasun Kanti Dey
>> Ph.D. Candidate,
>> Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
>> University of Central Florida
>> web: https://prasunkantidey.github.io/portfolio/
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>    On Jun 19, 2019, at 5:18 PM, Mike Hammett <nanog at ics-il.net>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>    Yes, you seem to misunderstand (at least of what I understand).
>> PeeringDB has categories of ratios to choose from. What has the
>> community decided is acceptable ratios for each category? It's fairly
>> trivial for any network to determine what their ratio is as a number,
>> but not necessarily as a PeeringDB label.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>    -----
>>    Mike Hammett
>>    Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/>
>>     <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL>
>> <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb>
>> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions>
>> <https://twitter.com/ICSIL>
>>    Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/>
>>     <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix>
>> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange>
>> <https://twitter.com/mdwestix>
>>    The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/>
>>     <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp>
>> <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg>
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> 
>>    From: "Josh Luthman" <josh at imaginenetworksllc.com>
>>    To: "Prasun Dey" <prasun at nevada.unr.edu>
>>    Cc: nanog at nanog.org
>>    Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2019 3:23:33 PM
>>    Subject: Re: Traffic ratio of an ISP
>> 
>> 
>>    >my question was more like to understand when an ISP decides to
>> claim itself as any of these (Heavy Outbound/ Inbound or Balanced)
>> 
>>    Maybe I'm missing something but it's as simple as looking at the
>> interface graphs.  We see a whole lot of green for inbound and a
>> little little blue line for outbound.  We are an ISP with residential
>> and commercial customers.
>> 
>> 
>>    Josh Luthman
>>    Office: 937-552-2340
>>    Direct: 937-552-2343
>>    1100 Wayne St
>>    Suite 1337
>>    Troy, OH 45373
>> 
>> 
>>    On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 4:20 PM Prasun Dey
>> <prasun at nevada.unr.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>        Hi Martijn and Josh,
>>        Thank you for your detailed explanation. Let me explain my
>> requirement so that you may help me better.
>>        According to PeeringDB, Charter (Access), Sprint
>> (Transit), Amazon (Content) all three of them are ‘Balanced’. While,
>> Cable One, an Access ISP says it is Heavy Inbound, while Akamai,
>> Netflix (Content) are Heavy Outbound. On the other hand, Cox, another
>> access ISP, it says that it is Mostly Inbound.
>>        So, my question was more like to understand when an ISP
>> decides to claim itself as any of these (Heavy Outbound/ Inbound or
>> Balanced)? From an ISP’s own point of view, at what point, it says,
>> my outbound:inbound is something, so I’m Heavy Outbound.
>>        Please ignore my lack of knowledge in this area. I’m sorry
>> I should’ve done a better job in formulating my question earlier.
>>        Thank you.
>> 
>> 
>>        -
>>        Prasun
>> 
>>        Regards,
>>        Prasun Kanti Dey
>>        Ph.D. Candidate,
>>        Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
>>        University of Central Florida
>>        web: https://prasunkantidey.github.io/portfolio/
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>            On Jun 19, 2019, at 2:13 PM, i3D.net
>> <http://i3d.net/>  - Martijn Schmidt <martijnschmidt at i3d.net> wrote:
>> 
>>            It kinda depends on the application that's being
>> used. For example, videogaming has a ratio somewhere around 1:2.5
>> since you're only transmitting metadata about the players environment
>> across the wire. The actual video is typically rendered at the end
>> user's side. So it's not very bandwidth heavy.
>> 
>>            Compare that with a videostream (watching a movie or
>> TV series) and you're pumping the rendered video across the wire, so
>> there's a very different ratio. Your return path traffic would pretty
>> much consist of control stuff only (like pushing the pause button).
>> 
>>            Some networks are dedicated to serving one type of
>> content, whereas others might have a blend of different kinds of
>> content. Same story for an access network geared to business users
>> which want to use emails and such, vs residential end users looking
>> for the evening's entertainment.
>> 
>>            Best regards,
>>            Martijn
>> 
>> 
>>            On 19 June 2019 19:54:45 CEST, Josh Luthman
>> <josh at imaginenetworksllc.com> wrote:
>> 
>>                If you're asking an ISP, consumers will always
>> be inbound.  It's the end user.  The outbound would be where the
>> information is coming from, like data centers.
>> 
>>                I'm not sure you're going to get any better
>> answer without a more specific question.
>> 
>>                Josh Luthman
>>                Office: 937-552-2340
>>                Direct: 937-552-2343
>>                1100 Wayne St
>>                Suite 1337
>>                Troy, OH 45373
>> 
>> 
>>                On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 12:50 PM Prasun Dey
>> <prasun at nevada.unr.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>                    Hello,
>>                    Good morning.
>>                    I’m a Ph.D. candidate from University of
>> Central Florida. I have a query, I hope you can help me with it or at
>> least point me to the right direction.
>>                    I’ve seen from PeeringDB that every ISP
>> reveals its traffic ratio as Heavy/ Mostly Inbound or Balanced or
>> Heavy/ Mostly Outbound.
>>                    I’m wondering if there is any specific
>> ratio numbers for them. In Norton’s Internet Peering Playbook or some
>> other literary work, they mention the outbound:inbound traffic ratio
>> as 1:1.2 to up to 1:3 for Balanced. But, I couldn’t find the other
>> values.
>>                    I’d really appreciate your help if you can
>> please mention what Outbound:Inbound ratios that network admins use
>> frequently to represent their traffic ratios for
>>                    1. Heavy Inbound:
>>                    2. Mostly Inbound:
>>                    3. Mostly Outbound:
>>                    4. Heavy Outbound:
>> 
>>                    Thank you.
>>                    -
>>                    Prasun
>>                    --
>> 
>>                    Sincerely,
>>                    Prasun Kanti Dey,
>>                    Ph.D. candidate,
>>                    Dept. of Electrical and Computer
>> Engineering,
>>                    University of Central Florida.
>> 
>> 
>>            --
>>            Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please
>> excuse my brevity.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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