Google and other Content providers report
This document contains some traffic graphs generated by the GARR homemade software named
AsTracker. This tool generates Autonomous System traffic information by means of IP flows data
analysis.
Google is one of the major bandwidth-consuming content providers in the Internet world. The IP
traffic volume flowing through GARR and Google networks is about 130TByte/month while the
average daily traffic peaks around 1 Gb/s. Weekly Google AS aggregate traffic is reported in figure
1: green graph represents the incoming traffic (from Google to GARR) and blue line represents the
outgoing traffic (from GARR to Google) .
Figure 1 Weekly Google aggregate traffic
Traffic amount generated by Google AS is related to all services that Google offers on the Internet:
such as search engine, electronic mail service, map service and video service. Google Web
crawlers, exploring World Wide Web to provide up-to-date data to search engine, generate a
significant amount of traffic too.
Google traffic has an increasingly rate and its growing is constant: during last year it has doubled.
Yearly Google AS aggregate traffic is reported in figure 2.
Figure 2 Yearly Google aggregate Traffic
When GARR established the peering with Google AS, its traffic was around 4% of all its Internet
traffic and it burdened Upstream transit provider (fee-paying) links.
Google-GARR peering was configured in June 2009: almost all the traffic that before was coming
through Transit connections (Level3, Telia and Globalcrossing), now flows through new direct
links. Transit connections , in figure 3, and direct peering , in figure 4 , traffic aggregated graphs are
reported.
Author: Nino Ciurleo – GARR Operations team
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Figure 3 Yearly IP commodity Google traffic
Figure 4 Yearly direct links Google traffic
Google Web crawlers' traffic continues to be collected in the Transit connections graphs. Some
specific nets (as some /24 and /23) are announced only through Upstream Transit providers,
probably for load balancing purpose. Figure 5 shows the Google Web crawler traffic that flows
through Transit connections.
Figure 5 Weekly IP commodity Google traffic
Another Google related case is YOUTUBE-EU AS traffic: Google, probably for load balancing
purpose, uses some European server farms, hosted in a different network (AS43515), in order to
distribute video contents for European customers. Traffic volume is around 8.5TB/month and it
burdens on Upstream Transit providers. Weekly Youtube-EU traffic over Transit connections is
reported in figure 6.
Author: Nino Ciurleo – GARR Operations team
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Figura 6 Youtube-EU aggregate traffic
In the nearest future GARR would be able to establish some other BGP peer relationships with
majors Content providers.
GARR is now investigating about Akamai servers traffic. Today Akamai – GARR traffic amount is
around 1 Gb/s. GARR uses both Upstream Transit providers (Telia and Globalcrossing) and
Internet eXchange Points (TOPIX and VSIX) to reach Akamai servers. Akamai peculiarity is that
their servers, even if Akamai has its own network and AS number, are hosted by other Autonomous
System networks. Monitoring and controlling activities are very difficult in this scenario. Trying to
solve this problem, we are generating our graphs using Ripe DB networks' registration data and IP
flows data: network operators that hosts Akamai servers use to indicate Akamai name in RIR
registration data. Figure 7 shows Akamai servers' traffic: any color is referred to a different eBGP
peer. Positive values are referred to incoming traffic, negative values to outgoing one.
Figure 7 Weekly Akamai “stacked“ traffic
Microsoft is another of major content providers. Its average traffic volume is around 15TB/month,
corresponding to a 1/10 of Google traffic volume only. At the moment GARR does not have any
peering relationship with Microsoft, mainly because physical interconnection is not effortless.
Figure 8 shows Microsoft ASes “stacked” traffic on Transit connections.
Author: Nino Ciurleo – GARR Operations team
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Figure 8 Monthly Microsoft "stacked" traffic
Same of the other major bandwidth-consuming traffics are generated by big file server
infrastructures, i.e. rapidshare.com and hotfile.com. Upstream Transit providers often use to host
content providers on their links to add fee-paying traffic. Rapidshare and Hotfile, for example, are
hosted respectively by Level3 and Lemuria Communications Inc.
Figure 9 and figure 10 show weekly traffic graph for GARR AS and Level3 (AS3356) and Lemuria
Communications (AS7366) Autonomous Systems respectively.
Figura 9 Level3 weekly traffic
Figura 10 Lemuria Communications Inc. weekly traffic
Author: Nino Ciurleo – GARR Operations team
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