Over the past decade, IXPs have been playing a key role in enabling interdomain connectivity. The... more Over the past decade, IXPs have been playing a key role in enabling interdomain connectivity. Their traffic volumes have grown dramatically and their physical presence has spread throughout the world. While the relevance of IXPs is undeniable, their long-term contribution to the shaping of the current Internet is not fully understood yet. In this paper, we look into the impact on Internet routes of the intense IXP growth over the last decade. We observe that while in general IXPs only have a small effect in path shortening, very large networks do enjoy a clear IXP-enabled path reduction. We also observe a diversion of the routes, away from the central Tier-1 ASes supported by IXPs. Interestingly, we also find that whereas IXP membership has grown, large and central ASes have steadily moved away from public IXP peerings, whereas smaller ones have embraced them. Despite all this changes, we find though that a clear hierarchy remains, with a small group of highly central networks
Hypergiants, such as Google or Netflix, are important organisations in the Internet ecosystem, du... more Hypergiants, such as Google or Netflix, are important organisations in the Internet ecosystem, due to their sheer impact in terms of traffic volume exchanged. However, the research community still lacks a sufficiently crisp definition for them, beyond naming specific instances of them. In this paper we analyse PeeringDB data and identify features that differentiate hypergiants from the other organisations. To this end, we first characterise the organisations present in PeeringDB, allowing us to identify discriminating properties of the these organisations. We then use these properties to separate the data in two clusters, differentiating hypergiants from other organisations. We conclude this paper by investigating how hypergiants and other organisations exploit the IXP ecosystem to reach the global IPv4 space.
Over the past decade, Internet eXchange Points (IXPs) have been playing a key role in enabling in... more Over the past decade, Internet eXchange Points (IXPs) have been playing a key role in enabling interdomain connectivity. Their traffic volumes have quickly become similar to those of Tier-1 ASes and their physical presence has spread across the world. While the relevance of IXPs is undeniable, their contribution to the shaping of the current Internet is not fully understood yet, especially on the so-called "flattening" phenomenon. In this paper, we disentangle "flattening" from "path-shortening": we show that the impact of IXPs on path length is limited. Surprisingly, Internet path-lengths have globally barely decreased over the last decade, regardless of whether they cross IXPs or not. Instead of a "path-shortening", we observe a diversion of the routes away from the central Tier-1 ASes, supported by IXPs. This diversion has however not fundamentally changed the existence of a hierarchy, but rather replaced the central Tier-1s with a new set ...
The importance of IXPs to interconnect di↵erent networks and exchange tra c locally has been well... more The importance of IXPs to interconnect di↵erent networks and exchange tra c locally has been well studied over the last few years. However, far less is known about the role IXPs play as a platform to enable large-scale content delivery and to reach a world-wide customer base. In this paper, we study the infrastructure deployment of a content hypergiant, Netflix, and show that the combined worldwide IXP substrate is the major corner stone of its Content Delivery Network. This highlights the additional role that IXPs play in the Internet ecosystem, not just in terms of interconnection, but also allowing players such as Netflix to deliver significant amounts of tra c.
Social Web 2.0 features have become a vital component in a variety of multimedia systems, e.g., L... more Social Web 2.0 features have become a vital component in a variety of multimedia systems, e.g., Last.fm, Flickr and Spotify. Interestingly, adult video websites are also starting to adopt these Web 2.0 principles, giving rise to the term ``Porn 2.0''. This paper examines a large Porn 2.0 social network, through data covering 563k users. We explore a number of unusual behavioural aspects that set this apart from more traditional multimedia social networks, including differences in browsing activity, social communications and relationship creation. We also analyse the nature and behaviour of content sharing, highlighting the role it plays in the Porn 2.0 community, as well as the preferences that users have when deciding what to consume. We particularly explore the impact that gender and sexuality have on these issues, showing their vital importance for aspects such as profile popularity.
2017 Network Traffic Measurement and Analysis Conference (TMA), 2017
Middleboxes are widely used in today's Internet, especially for security and performance. Mid... more Middleboxes are widely used in today's Internet, especially for security and performance. Middleboxes classify, filter and shape traffic, therefore interfering with application performance and performing new network functions for end hosts. Recent studies have uncovered and studied middleboxes in different types of networks. In this paper, we exploit a large-scale proxy infrastructure, provided by Laminati, to detect HTTP-interacting middleboxes across the Internet. Our methodology relies on a client and server side, to be able to observe both directions of the middlebox interaction. Our results provide evidence for middleboxes deployed across more than 1000 ASes. We observe various middlebox interference in both directions of traffic flows, and across a wide range networks, including mobile operators and data center networks.
1Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA 2Indian Institute of T... more 1Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA 2Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, India 3Krea University, Sri City, India 4Department of Systemics, School of Computer Science, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India 5School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Rd, Bethnal Green, London E1 4NS, UK
Congestion control algorithms are crucial in achieving high utilization while preventing overload... more Congestion control algorithms are crucial in achieving high utilization while preventing overloading the network. Over the years, many different congestion control algorithms have been developed, each trying to improve in specific situations. However, their interactions and co-existence has, to date, not been thoroughly evaluated, which is the focus of this paper. Through head-to-head comparisons of representatives from loss-based, delay-based and hybrid types of congestion control algorithms, we reveal that fairness in resources claimed is often not attained, especially when flows sharing a link have different RTTs.
Hypergiants, such as Google or Netflix, are important organisations in the Internet ecosystem, du... more Hypergiants, such as Google or Netflix, are important organisations in the Internet ecosystem, due to their sheer impact in terms of traffic volume exchanged. However, beyond naming specific instances, the research community still lacks a sufficiently crisp understanding of them. In this paper we analyse PeeringDB data and identify features that differentiate hypergiants from the other organisations. To this end, we first characterise the organisations present in PeeringDB, allowing us to identify discriminating properties of these organisations. We then use these properties to separate the data in two clusters, differentiating hypergiants from other organisations. We conclude this paper by investigating how hypergiants and other organisations exploit the IXP ecosystem to reach the global IPv4 space.
The importance of IXPs to interconnect different networks and exchange traffic locally has been w... more The importance of IXPs to interconnect different networks and exchange traffic locally has been well studied over the last few years. However, far less is known about the role IXPs play as a platform to enable large-scale content delivery and to reach a world-wide customer base. In this paper, we study the infrastructure deployment of a content hypergiant, Netflix, and show that the combined worldwide IXP substrate is the major corner stone of its Content Delivery Network. This highlights the additional role that IXPs play in the Internet ecosystem, not just in terms of interconnection, but also allowing players such as Netflix to deliver significant amounts of traffic.
Over the past decade, IXPs have been playing a key role in enabling interdomain connectivity. The... more Over the past decade, IXPs have been playing a key role in enabling interdomain connectivity. Their traffic volumes have grown dramatically and their physical presence has spread throughout the world. While the relevance of IXPs is undeniable, their long-term contribution to the shaping of the current Internet is not fully understood yet. In this paper, we look into the impact on Internet routes of the intense IXP growth over the last decade. We observe that while in general IXPs only have a small effect in path shortening, very large networks do enjoy a clear IXP-enabled path reduction. We also observe a diversion of the routes, away from the central Tier-1 ASes supported by IXPs. Interestingly, we also find that whereas IXP membership has grown, large and central ASes have steadily moved away from public IXP peerings, whereas smaller ones have embraced them. Despite all this changes, we find though that a clear hierarchy remains, with a small group of highly central networks
Hypergiants, such as Google or Netflix, are important organisations in the Internet ecosystem, du... more Hypergiants, such as Google or Netflix, are important organisations in the Internet ecosystem, due to their sheer impact in terms of traffic volume exchanged. However, the research community still lacks a sufficiently crisp definition for them, beyond naming specific instances of them. In this paper we analyse PeeringDB data and identify features that differentiate hypergiants from the other organisations. To this end, we first characterise the organisations present in PeeringDB, allowing us to identify discriminating properties of the these organisations. We then use these properties to separate the data in two clusters, differentiating hypergiants from other organisations. We conclude this paper by investigating how hypergiants and other organisations exploit the IXP ecosystem to reach the global IPv4 space.
Over the past decade, Internet eXchange Points (IXPs) have been playing a key role in enabling in... more Over the past decade, Internet eXchange Points (IXPs) have been playing a key role in enabling interdomain connectivity. Their traffic volumes have quickly become similar to those of Tier-1 ASes and their physical presence has spread across the world. While the relevance of IXPs is undeniable, their contribution to the shaping of the current Internet is not fully understood yet, especially on the so-called "flattening" phenomenon. In this paper, we disentangle "flattening" from "path-shortening": we show that the impact of IXPs on path length is limited. Surprisingly, Internet path-lengths have globally barely decreased over the last decade, regardless of whether they cross IXPs or not. Instead of a "path-shortening", we observe a diversion of the routes away from the central Tier-1 ASes, supported by IXPs. This diversion has however not fundamentally changed the existence of a hierarchy, but rather replaced the central Tier-1s with a new set ...
The importance of IXPs to interconnect di↵erent networks and exchange tra c locally has been well... more The importance of IXPs to interconnect di↵erent networks and exchange tra c locally has been well studied over the last few years. However, far less is known about the role IXPs play as a platform to enable large-scale content delivery and to reach a world-wide customer base. In this paper, we study the infrastructure deployment of a content hypergiant, Netflix, and show that the combined worldwide IXP substrate is the major corner stone of its Content Delivery Network. This highlights the additional role that IXPs play in the Internet ecosystem, not just in terms of interconnection, but also allowing players such as Netflix to deliver significant amounts of tra c.
Social Web 2.0 features have become a vital component in a variety of multimedia systems, e.g., L... more Social Web 2.0 features have become a vital component in a variety of multimedia systems, e.g., Last.fm, Flickr and Spotify. Interestingly, adult video websites are also starting to adopt these Web 2.0 principles, giving rise to the term ``Porn 2.0''. This paper examines a large Porn 2.0 social network, through data covering 563k users. We explore a number of unusual behavioural aspects that set this apart from more traditional multimedia social networks, including differences in browsing activity, social communications and relationship creation. We also analyse the nature and behaviour of content sharing, highlighting the role it plays in the Porn 2.0 community, as well as the preferences that users have when deciding what to consume. We particularly explore the impact that gender and sexuality have on these issues, showing their vital importance for aspects such as profile popularity.
2017 Network Traffic Measurement and Analysis Conference (TMA), 2017
Middleboxes are widely used in today's Internet, especially for security and performance. Mid... more Middleboxes are widely used in today's Internet, especially for security and performance. Middleboxes classify, filter and shape traffic, therefore interfering with application performance and performing new network functions for end hosts. Recent studies have uncovered and studied middleboxes in different types of networks. In this paper, we exploit a large-scale proxy infrastructure, provided by Laminati, to detect HTTP-interacting middleboxes across the Internet. Our methodology relies on a client and server side, to be able to observe both directions of the middlebox interaction. Our results provide evidence for middleboxes deployed across more than 1000 ASes. We observe various middlebox interference in both directions of traffic flows, and across a wide range networks, including mobile operators and data center networks.
1Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA 2Indian Institute of T... more 1Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA 2Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, India 3Krea University, Sri City, India 4Department of Systemics, School of Computer Science, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India 5School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Rd, Bethnal Green, London E1 4NS, UK
Congestion control algorithms are crucial in achieving high utilization while preventing overload... more Congestion control algorithms are crucial in achieving high utilization while preventing overloading the network. Over the years, many different congestion control algorithms have been developed, each trying to improve in specific situations. However, their interactions and co-existence has, to date, not been thoroughly evaluated, which is the focus of this paper. Through head-to-head comparisons of representatives from loss-based, delay-based and hybrid types of congestion control algorithms, we reveal that fairness in resources claimed is often not attained, especially when flows sharing a link have different RTTs.
Hypergiants, such as Google or Netflix, are important organisations in the Internet ecosystem, du... more Hypergiants, such as Google or Netflix, are important organisations in the Internet ecosystem, due to their sheer impact in terms of traffic volume exchanged. However, beyond naming specific instances, the research community still lacks a sufficiently crisp understanding of them. In this paper we analyse PeeringDB data and identify features that differentiate hypergiants from the other organisations. To this end, we first characterise the organisations present in PeeringDB, allowing us to identify discriminating properties of these organisations. We then use these properties to separate the data in two clusters, differentiating hypergiants from other organisations. We conclude this paper by investigating how hypergiants and other organisations exploit the IXP ecosystem to reach the global IPv4 space.
The importance of IXPs to interconnect different networks and exchange traffic locally has been w... more The importance of IXPs to interconnect different networks and exchange traffic locally has been well studied over the last few years. However, far less is known about the role IXPs play as a platform to enable large-scale content delivery and to reach a world-wide customer base. In this paper, we study the infrastructure deployment of a content hypergiant, Netflix, and show that the combined worldwide IXP substrate is the major corner stone of its Content Delivery Network. This highlights the additional role that IXPs play in the Internet ecosystem, not just in terms of interconnection, but also allowing players such as Netflix to deliver significant amounts of traffic.
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Papers by Steve Uhlig