North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Comcast blocking p2p uploads

  • From: Eric Spaeth
  • Date: Fri Oct 19 19:43:09 2007

Sean Figgins wrote:
Eric Spaeth wrote:

> With rate-shaping they would need to have the P2P identification widget
> in-line with the data path to be able to classify and mark traffic so
> that it can be queued/throttled appropriately.

The Sandvine, in particular, is designed to be placed in-line like this. It does, however, deploy a technology to shunt the traffic through the device in the event that the server craters. Many network devices do this now.
I have previous experience with Sitara QoS devices that sported that same feature. The problem was that the relay would only shut if the box lost power or if it received a software command to disengage. We had numerous problems where the packet processing engine would become overwhelmed and lock up; the relay stayed engaged because the box retained power and the software driver was rendered useless once the whole OS locked up.

Maybe it's just me, but when a vendor is concerned enough about their box failing that they work out these elaborate bypass options it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in the stability of the product. IMHO, wedging a 99.5% available piece of hardware between your 99.99+% available network hardware is just bad karma.

-Eric