CDNs and Internet Traffic Analytics, by Kam Sze Yeung. A presentation given at APNIC 42's Network Performance session on Monday, 3 October 2016.

1. CDNs and Internet Traffic Analysis
Kams Yeung
Akamai Technologies
APNIC 42, Sri Lanka
3rd Oct, 2016

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Akamai Introduction
• Who’s Akamai?
• Intelligent Platform
Basic CDN Technology
• Akamai mapping
Internet Traffic Trend
• Connection Speed, IPv6
Agenda

3. Akamai Introduction

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Akamai Overview
Who is Akamai?
Akamai is a leading provider of a Cloud platform, which delivers,
accelerates and secure content and APPLICATIONS over the
Internet. Our key differentiator is our highly distributed
(intelligent) platform, made up of more than 216,000 servers in
120 countries.
•Publicly traded: (NASDAQ: AKAM)
•Found: August 1998
•Headquarters: Cambridge, MA, USA
•30+ worldwide offices, including Europe and Asia
•6,100+ employees worldwide

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The world’s largest on-demand, distributed computing
platform delivers all forms of web content and applications
The Akamai Intelligent Platform
Typical daily traffic:
• More than 2 trillion requests served
• Delivering over 40 Terabits/second
• 15-30% of all daily web traffic
The Akamai Intelligent Platform:
216,000
Servers
2,000+
Locations
120
Countries
1,500+
Networks
700+
Cities

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Traffic Snapshot
Akamai Internet Visualization App

7. Basic CDN Technology
Akamai mapping

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How CDNs Work
When content is requested from CDNs, the user is
directed to the optimal server
•This is usually done through the DNS, especially for non-network
CDNs, e.g. Akamai
•It can be done through anycasting for network owned CDNs
Users who query DNS-based CDNs be returned
different A (and AAAA) records for the same hostname
This is called “mapping”
The better the mapping, the better the user experience.

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How Akamai CDN Work
Example of Akamai mapping
• Notice the different A records for different locations:
[Sri Lanka]% host www.dhl.com
www.dhl.com. 86400 IN CNAME ngw.dhl.com.edgesuite.net.
ngw.dhl.com.edgesuite.net. 21600 IN CNAME a1085.g.akamai.net.
a1085.g.akamai.net. 20 IN A 222.165.168.209
a1085.g.akamai.net. 20 IN A 222.165.168.202
[Singapore]% host www.dhl.com
www.dhl.com. 86400 IN CNAME ngw.dhl.com.edgesuite.net.
ngw.dhl.com.edgesuite.net. 21600 IN CNAME a1085.g.akamai.net.
a1085.g.akamai.net. 20 IN A 125.56.219.9
a1085.g.akamai.net. 20 IN A 125.56.219.8

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How Akamai CDN Work
Akamai uses multiple criteria to choose the optimal
server
•These include standard network metrics:
•Latency
•Throughput
•Packet loss
•These also include things like CPU load on the server, HD space,
network utilization, etc.

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Mapping (simplified)
1) end-user requests www.example.com from ISP NS
2) ISP NS recursively (multiple iterations) looks up www.example.com being referred to
authoritative Akamai NS (by cname)
3) ISP NS asks authoritative Akamai NS
4) Akamai NS looks up IP of requestor (ISP NS) and replies with IP of optimal cluster
to serve content (local cluster in that ISP)
5) ISP NS replies to end-user who
6) requests content from local Cluster
end-user
ISP NS
1.2.3.4
root/tld/intermediate NS
(recursive lookup until
reaching authoritative NS)
Akamai NS
Local Akamai Cluster at ISP 5.6.7.8
1
3
6
2
NS 1.2.3.4?
best cluster =
5.6.7.8
4
5

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Use of 3rd party DNS servers in Sri Lanka
ISP DNS Google OpenDNS Others
AS A 73.54% 22.786% 0.34% 3.34%
AS B 89.33% 5.379% 0.43% 4.87%
AS C 69.83% 0.263% 0.10% 29.80%
AS D 93.23% 0.483% 0.10% 6.19%
AS E 57.78% 35.369% 0.00% 6.85%
AS F 95.44% 2.114% 0.00% 2.45%
AS G 84.46% 15.543% 0.00% 0.00%

13. The Trend of Internet
State Of The Internet Report Q2 2016

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Introduction:
Akamai’s globally-distributed Intelligent Platform allows us
to gather massive amounts of information on many metrics,
including connection speeds, attack traffic, network
connectivity/availability issues, and IPv6 growth/transition
progress, as well as traffic patterns across leading Web
properties and digital media providers. Each quarter,
Akamai publishes the State of the Internet Report.
https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/
The State of the Internet Report (SOTI)

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Highlights from SOTI, Q2 2016
Global Average Connection Speeds and Global
Broadband Connectivity
• Global average connection speed decreased 2.3% from the first
quarter of 2016 to 6.1 Mbps, a 14% increase year over year.
• Global average peak connection speed increased 3.7% to 36.0 Mbps
in the second quarter, rising 2.5% year over year.
• Global 10 Mbps broadband adoption rate grew 0.7% quarter over
quarter, but 15 Mbps and 25 Mbps broadband adoption rates fell
0.8% and 2.1%, respectively.

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Highlights from SOTI, Q2 2016
IPv4 and IPv6
• The number of unique IPv4 addresses connecting to the Akamai
Intelligent Platform was just over 800 million, which is 1% less than
the first quarter of 2016.
• Belgium remained the clear global leader in IPv6 adoption with 38%
of its connections to Akamai occurring over IPv6, up 5.1% from the
previous quarter.
• Cable and wireless/mobile providers continued to drive the largest
volumes of IPv6 requests, with Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile and Sky
Broadband topping the list with 74%, 61% and 56% of their requests
to Akamai being made over IPv6 in their regions, respectively.

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Highlights from SOTI, Q2 2016
Mobile
• Average mobile connection speeds ranged from a high of 23.1 Mbps
in the United Kingdom to a low of 2.2 Mbps in Venezuela.
• Peak speeds on mobile networks will
continue to grow as networks begin
to deploy LTE-A, a newer, faster
version of LTE technology. In June,
Sri Lanka demonstrated network
speeds exceeding 1 Gbps on its
Dialog Axiata network leveraging
Huawei Technologies’ LTE
infrastructure.

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Average Peak Connection Speed
• Sri Lanka is #63 in
Global with 43.9Mbps
• Average Peak
represents an average
of the maximum
measured connection
speeds across all of the
unique IP addresses
seen by Akamai
• The average is used to
mitigate the impact of
unrepresentative
maximum measured
connection speeds.
Average Peak Connection Speed (IPv4) by APAC Country/Region

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Average Peak Connection Speed – Sri Lanka
• Sri Lanka average peak connection speed increased from 2.5Mbps from Q3
2007 to 43.9Mbps in Q2 2016
43.9 Mbps
2.5 Mbps

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Average Connection Speed
• Sri Lanka is #80 in
Global
• #11 in Asia
• 5.7Mbps
• Increased 7.2% Year-
over-Year
Average Connection Speed (IPv4) by APAC Country/Region

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Average Connection Speed – Sri Lanka
• Sri Lanka average connection speed increased from 0.5Mbps from Q3 2007
to 5.7Mbps in Q2 2016
5.7 Mbps
0.5 Mbps

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4 Mbps Broadband Adoption
• Sri Lanka is #47 in
Global
• Adoption rate is 83%
• Increased 18%
Quarter-over-Quarter
• Increased 8.9% Year-
over-Year
• Google Project Loon
launched 3 test
balloons in a trial in Feb
2016
4 Mbps Broadband Adoption (IPv4) by APAC Country/Region

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4 Mbps Broadband Adoption – Sri Lanka
• Sri Lanka 4 Mbps Broadband Adoption rate increased from almost 0% from
Q3 2007 to 83% in Q2 2016
83%
Q1 2013

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10 Mbps Broadband Adoption
• Sri Lanka is #71 in
Global
• Adoption rate is 6.2%
• Increased 37%
Quarter-over-Quarter
• Increased 95% Year-
over-Year
10 Mbps Broadband Adoption (IPv4) by APAC Country/Region

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10 Mbps Broadband Adoption – Sri Lanka
• Sri Lanka 10 Mbps Broadband Adoption rate increased from almost 0%
from Q3 2007 to 6.2% in Q2 2016
6.2%
Q2 2014

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15 Mbps Broadband Adoption
• Sri Lanka is #64-#65
in Global
• Adoption rate is 1.6%
• Increased 0.6%
Quarter-over-Quarter
• Increased 126% Year-
over-Year
15 Mbps Broadband Adoption (IPv4) by APAC Country/Region

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15 Mbps Broadband Adoption – Sri Lanka
• Sri Lanka 15 Mbps Broadband Adoption rate increased from almost 0%
from Q3 2007 to 1.6% in Q2 2016
1.6%
Q4 2014

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Unique IPv4 Addresses
• Sri Lanka has 159,963 unique IPv4 addresses

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IPv6 traffic continue to growth
steadily after World IPv6 Launch
• As of May, 2016
• 105 countries
• 550+ cities
• 700+ network providers
• Billion+ content requests per
day over IPv6
• dual-stack being the default
for client-to-edge delivery for
new sites
4 years after World IPv6 Launch Anniversary

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IPv6 Traffic Percentage (Network Providers)
• IPv6 Traffic % in Asia
• KDDI is leading with 33%
• Telstra is 6.5%
IPv6 Traffic Percentage, Top Network Providers
by IPv6 Request Volume

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IPv6 Traffic Percentage (Countries/Regions)
• IPv6 Traffic %
• Belgium is leading with
38%
• In Asia, Malaysia and
Japan is leading
IPv6 Traffic Percentage, Top Countries/Regions

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IPv6 adoption – Sri Lanka
• Sri Lanka IPv6 adoption is 0.8%
• Increased rapidly in 2016
IPv6 Adoption from 1st Jan, 2016

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Summary
•Akamai Intelligent Platform
•Highly distributed edge servers, DNS-based mapping
•DNS servers in Sri Lanka
•A lot of users use 3rd party DNS
•Internet Traffic Trend from SOTI
•Internet penetration and speed in Sri Lanka are
moderate but growing

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Questions?
Kams Yeung <kams@akamai.com>
More information:
Peering: http://as20940.peeringdb.com
SOTI Report: https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/
IPv6: http://www.akamai.com/ipv6