Re: Candidate re-charter/new WG

["Phil Rzewski" <philr@inktomi.com>]

As long as we're on the topic, I have similar concerns about the 
interchangeable use of the terms "CDN Peering" and "Content Peering", which 
seem to imply they're equivalent.

It therefore comes down to the use of the term "CDN". There's once again a 
"crowd" that has been using the term in a particular way, in this case the 
crowd being industry. Outside of the IETF/draft communities, there's 
reasonably well-defined differences between what's been called CDNs, 
Hosters, and Access Providers. Now, doing a meticulous reading of 
[draft-day-cdnp-model-02], I get the impression that perhaps there's an 
attempt to categorize Access Provider cache deployments as being a 
degenerate form of CDN, but I think this might be a mistake because it 
would create a disconnect between industry terminology (which was 
established first) and standards terminology.

For example, say a cable modem provider (CMP) puts caching proxies in each 
of several cable head ends. CMP informs their subscribers in each area of 
their local cache, and all subscribers explicitly configure their browsers. 
The CMP then creates a peering relationship with several CDNs to have 
content distributed into these caching proxies, and to provide logging 
information to those CDNs in return. This means there is distribution and 
accounting happening between the CMP and the peer CDNs. Therefore, the 
caching proxies take on a partial role as a "surrogates". So far, CMP's 
cache deployment has some traits of a CDN. However, there is "null" 
redirection (the cache in a subscriber's head end is defined as "good" for 
any content request).  Also, the CMP is not operating a "relatively complex 
system encompassing multiple points of presence around the world" 
[draft-day-cdnp-model-02]. Each cable head end is an isolated and 
tightly-coupled relationship between the subscribers in that area and the 
cache.

Anyway, without splitting hairs any further, I'd like to offer the thought 
that "Content Peering" as a general concept could safely be defined in 
terms of things like direction/distribution/accounting between entities 
(need a term... "Content Peering Entities"?). Then "CDN Peering" would be a 
specific type of Content Peering. That would allow for other types of 
Content Peering, such as that between an Access Provider and a CDN, as 
shown above.

--
Phil


At 09:01 AM 11/6/00 -0800, hardie@equinix.com wrote:
> > I don't see mirrors being something CDNP is likely to work on.  CDNP is
> > focused on the peering (interconnection) of CDNs,
>
>I am a little uneasy with our use of the term "peering", because I
>think we run the risk of implying something about settlements we don't
>mean.  There is a big chunk of the BGP crowd that still thinks of
>peering as meaning "traffic exchange without settlement".  I think we
>want to talk about CDN traffic exchange and interworking, but I don't
>think we want to imply "without settlement".
>
>I don't want to start a big "rethink the name" effort, but I think it
>may be something that we should cover early in the BOF, just to
>eliminate any peering vs. transit discussions.
>
>
>                         regards,
>                                 Ted

--
Phil Rzewski - Senior Architect - Inktomi Corporation
650-653-2487 (office) - 650-303-3790 (cell) - 650-653-1848 (fax)