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Killa200
Premium Member
join:2005-12-02
TN

Killa200

Premium Member

Netflix CDN Server

I'm sure some of you have seen this link before talking about Netflix's caching appliance:

»signup.netflix.com/openc ··· hardware

I'm also sure some of you have seen the front page news article about Netflix introducing "Super HD' and 3D content recently:

»Netflix Starts Offering 'Super HD' and 3D Streams [166] comments

Well I've taken a snippet of the article to heart, specifically...

"These new Super HD and 3D formats are more challenging to deliver than our other video streams, which is why we will deliver them through Open Connect," said Ken Florance , vice president of content delivery at Netflix. "Any ISP that wants to be able to deliver our new formats can do so easily and for free."

... and decided to sign up for one of these servers to see just how far and just how small "Any ISP" really is. I've gotten confirmation of contact and a response time of roughly 5 business days for them to review my application. I'll keep this thread updated with what I find out.

Inssomniak
The Glitch
Premium Member
join:2005-04-06
Cayuga, ON

Inssomniak

Premium Member

I think the last thread about Netflix content servers mentioned at least 5.5 gigabits per second towards Netflix.

Killa200
Premium Member
join:2005-12-02
TN

Killa200

Premium Member

That is for the peering side of things, and you needed 2gb/s measures 95th percentile ongoing in order to partake in that. We are far from even meeting that requirement, so we are going for the much small recommended option of the caching box alone. According the the VP of Content Delivery at netflix, any working ISP should qualify for one of these servers, especially with the new caching box only content they are pushing. Time will tell weather that is a lie or not.

This entire adventure is mostly to see "how low will they go", as while one of these would help with our upstream traffic since a fair bit is netflix related, its not going to kill me if they say no.

Inssomniak
The Glitch
Premium Member
join:2005-04-06
Cayuga, ON

Inssomniak

Premium Member

Ok cool well let us know how it works out. Not sure how many customers you have but it be interesting to know where they say "no" or "yes" at.
kaila
join:2000-10-11
Lincolnshire, IL

kaila to Killa200

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Is the caching box only for the new formats?

Killa200
Premium Member
join:2005-12-02
TN

Killa200

Premium Member

It is supposedly for the entire catalog of the country your system resides in.
prairiesky
join:2008-12-08
canada

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how small are you guys? I'm sure my customers would LOVE this feature and my new infrastructure could easily handle it, but with 100 subs, i doubt i'd qualify.

Inssomniak
The Glitch
Premium Member
join:2005-04-06
Cayuga, ON

Inssomniak

Premium Member

Im figuring there is not a lot of point to this box directly on your network unless you were in the 5 digits range worth of subs.
prairiesky
join:2008-12-08
canada

prairiesky to Killa200

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I'd disagree. I'd love to have a cache box. Most of my traffic is made up of netflix and people are wanting HD more and more. With the fiber infrastructure in place and operating, my last mile has plenty of capacity to provide to the subs, but it's my connection to the web that's lacking. If i can take that on net, all the better for my subs. That being said, i'm sure there's a minimum to even connect to obtain new content to the server.
jcremin
join:2009-12-22
Siren, WI

jcremin

Member

said by prairiesky:

i'm sure there's a minimum to even connect to obtain new content to the server.

Yeah, I wonder how much BW it would take just to keep in sync with every video added to Netflix. I'm assuming it would also have to download a copy of every video in every format, which I'm guessing would make for a lot of downloading.
raytaylor
join:2009-07-28

raytaylor

Member

said by jcremin:

Yeah, I wonder how much BW it would take just to keep in sync with every video added to Netflix. I'm assuming it would also have to download a copy of every video in every format, which I'm guessing would make for a lot of downloading.

I think they could schedule it to run between 1am and 6am.
Im not sure exactly how it works but i imagine three streams of 200mb, 700mb and 1200mb for each show x 10 shows per day is only 21 gigabytes.
Even 30 gigabytes a day would still be good i guess. 2 megabytes a second of pre-caching between 1am and 6am. Even if it was spread out through the day it wouldnt be too bad.

Rhaas
Premium Member
join:2005-12-19
Bernie, MO

Rhaas

Premium Member

I'm interested to see how it turns out for you.

From their documentation:
--
Appliance Fill
For the US Netflix catalog, a fill rate of approximately 5 Gbps for approximately 2 hours
(or equivalent) is currently required. A lower speed link will require a longer fill window.
When multiple appliances are present in a single location, appliances can fill from one
another, reducing the upstream network load.
An appliance updates its cached content nightly with the appropriate content.

The exact
time window is determined for each appliance during the planning process, and is
generally chosen by the ISP as an off-peak period, such as early morning hours in the
local time zone.
--
jcremin
join:2009-12-22
Siren, WI

jcremin

Member

said by Rhaas:

For the US Netflix catalog, a fill rate of approximately 5 Gbps for approximately 2 hours (or equivalent) is currently required.

So doing a little quick math means that even if you spread it out over 10 hours, that's still a full gigabit for that 10 hour period. Or if you had it update constantly, it would be a non-stop stream of around 415 mbps.
BlueC
join:2009-11-26
Minneapolis, MN

BlueC

Member

said by jcremin:

So doing a little quick math means that even if you spread it out over 10 hours, that's still a full gigabit for that 10 hour period. Or if you had it update constantly, it would be a non-stop stream of around 415 mbps.

Is that daily though? They don't seem to indicate how often there is a content fill.
raytaylor
join:2009-07-28

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Yeah i take that fill rate as an initial fill rate.
5 gigabits for two hours is aprox
- 625 megabytes per second
- 2,250 gigabytes per hour
- 4.5 terrabytes per two hours

So i guess its reasonable to expect that the unit has a raid array capable of holding 4.5 terrabytes of data.

I doubt that could possibly need refreshing daily, but they must send the unit out blank and remotely program it onsite based on your country and popular programmes at the time.
prairiesky
join:2008-12-08
canada

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The data sheet says it has 100 tB of space and comes pre loaded....

Rhaas
Premium Member
join:2005-12-19
Bernie, MO

Rhaas

Premium Member

said by prairiesky:

The data sheet says it has 100 tB of space and comes pre loaded....

Yep, that is what I read too.. Plus it says nightly..

Inssomniak
The Glitch
Premium Member
join:2005-04-06
Cayuga, ON

Inssomniak to raytaylor

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So if I understand correctly:
It needs 415 megabits of BW Running non stop MINIMUM just to keep up with content. Who has that kind of capacity outside of a data enter for their wisp?
prairiesky
join:2008-12-08
canada

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I don't think that's correct. It comes preloaded, then updates with the most popular content.....

Killa200
Premium Member
join:2005-12-02
TN

Killa200

Premium Member

Got an email today from the guys at netflix:

"Typical deployments for the caching appliance serve ~5Gbps of traffic at peak to
viewers and require a nightly off-peak fill window, where new content is
downloaded, that allows ~5TB of data transfer. For example, 5Gbps of
transfer for 2 hours. Keeping new content at the edge is critical to
caching efficiency."

So in order for this appliance to work, you need to be able to provide a window for 5TB to be downloaded DAILY.

That pretty much rules out its use for us, as that exceeds our upstream transit. Going to see how they plan to rectify our ability to get "Super HD" and 3D content since their box isn't capable of running here. They want to suggest a peering arrangement, but that is impossible at our location.

Inssomniak
The Glitch
Premium Member
join:2005-04-06
Cayuga, ON

Inssomniak

Premium Member

Yea thats kinda what I thought.
Most of us dont have that kind of pipe
prairiesky
join:2008-12-08
canada

prairiesky to Killa200

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thanks for the update. I think a lot of us would love some sort of cache box.... maybe something better than squid. I'd love to see something for top netflix stuff, ios updates, windows updates and similar stuff. I'm sure it would save us all a ton of bandwidth.

TomS_
Git-r-done
MVM
join:2002-07-19
London, UK

TomS_

MVM

said by prairiesky:

ios updates, windows updates and similar stuff

I reckon you'd get that with an Akamai cluster.
asaenzd
join:2012-01-06

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One idea is to get the Netflix CDN Server and that Netflix sends every week a hot swap harddrive full with the most with the current movies and you loaded in the Server and return one harddrive.
Similar to their service but for ISPs.
It dosent have to be for free, I would be happy to pay a monthly fee for that.

Just and idea.