Why is your internet broken today? A thread from an @oii dr. of Internet infrastructure:
TL;DR--bc the #internet has material limits & business and consumers want their content ASAP, which means it needs to be physically close. 1/9
#internetdown #internet #cdn
TL;DR--bc the #internet has material limits & business and consumers want their content ASAP, which means it needs to be physically close. 1/9
#internetdown #internet #cdn
The internet was built as a peer-to-peer network enabling each user to request and access content on a peer’s computer, which acts as a server hosting that particular content.
2/9
2/9
But, the size of the world and the physical limits of the cables and wires that make up the internet mean that content requested on a hosting server that is far away will take longer to load. 3/9
Which people find annoying & costs companies money.
Which people find annoying & costs companies money.
Enter companies like Fastly (and @Cloudflare and @Akamai and other cloud computing companies that provide "content delivery networks" or CDNs).
Companies like Fastly provide websites with servers ("clouds") that will host their content where it is likely to be requested. 4/9
Companies like Fastly provide websites with servers ("clouds") that will host their content where it is likely to be requested. 4/9
If a website is owned and hosted by someone in rural Belgium, but primarily offers content New Yorkers tend to request, a content delivery network will reroute their requests for that content: instead of having to travel all the way to BE, data servers close to NY will deliver it
And, as you have experienced today:
Almost all internet websites use content delivery networks and cloud services, which normally help their content pop up on your screen in seconds. 6/9
Almost all internet websites use content delivery networks and cloud services, which normally help their content pop up on your screen in seconds. 6/9
So when those @fastly services fail or falter-- it has major ramifications for everyone's internet experience.
Keep in mind that this market is relatively small and each company serves a large number of clients. 7/9
Keep in mind that this market is relatively small and each company serves a large number of clients. 7/9
This means that a technical hiccup in a single company can have huge ramifications.
This in turn--raises major questions about the dangers of (power) consolidation in the cloud market & the unquestioned influence these often invisible actors have over access to information. 8/9
This in turn--raises major questions about the dangers of (power) consolidation in the cloud market & the unquestioned influence these often invisible actors have over access to information. 8/9
Let's see how this situation evolves, in the meantime here are some further resources for the infrastructurally curious:
brookings.edu/techstream/how…
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
catnip.article19.org 9/9
brookings.edu/techstream/how…
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
catnip.article19.org 9/9
Footnote: I also wanted to put in a link to my PhD research on the topic of the politics of Internet infrastructure, but it's unavailable bc guess who is the CDN provider for the website my work is hosted on?!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Please also see this wonderful thread by @ashwinjm
https://twitter.com/ashwinjm/status/1402585295036506112?s=20
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