Comcast and Netflix now have a direct adjacency

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Comcast and Netflix now have a direct adjacency

Looked at the host serving my Netflix streams today and noticed something new.

No clue if money is changing hands or not, and the return path is what actually matters, but it appears that Comcast and Netflix have reached some sort of agreement regarding direct interconnection.

$ traceroute -a 198.45.63.164
traceroute to 198.45.63.164 (198.45.63.164), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
    (hops 1-2 redacted)
 3  [AS33651] 76.21.8.1 (76.21.8.1)  11.174 ms  14.215 ms  20.283 ms
 4  [AS33287] te-7-2-ur01.sffolsom.ca.sfba.comcast.net (68.85.103.21)  10.612 ms  12.468 ms  9.935 ms
 5  [AS33651] te-1-14-0-6-ar01.sfsutro.ca.sfba.comcast.net (68.86.143.50)  10.932 ms  14.374 ms  16.179 ms
 6  [AS7922] he-3-8-0-0-cr01.sanjose.ca.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.94.85)  24.146 ms  14.741 ms  15.096 ms
 7  [AS7922] he-0-11-0-0-pe03.11greatoaks.ca.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.85.238)  16.531 ms  16.816 ms  15.605 ms
 8  [AS7922] 173.167.57.102 (173.167.57.102)  12.722 ms  12.348 ms  13.481 ms
 9  [AS2906] ipv4_1.lagg0.c070.sjc002.ix.nflxvideo.net (198.45.63.164)  15.250 ms  17.128 ms  13.105 ms

Isn't it possible that the traffic could just be going over an MPLS backbone? If that's the case, then there could potentially be more hops that aren't seen.

It looks like this is part of Netflix's open connect project. The open connect project is a self rolled CDN by netflix. As part of this project Netflix has deployed server servers in the hundreds of terabytes size in strategic location around the would. These servers contain between 60-90% of the data that would be used for a particular country. These devices either live in the ISP like a rack at Comcast or live in a internet exchange where multiple ISPs can connect to the same switch as the Open Connect deceives.

This is beneficial in 3 ways:

1. There are less hops to the client allowing for a better stream
2. Peering is usually free and Netflix does not have to pay aws for bandwidth
3. Because the devices are inside the ISP network Netflix is less likely to be rate limited.

http://blog.netflix.com/2012/06/announcing-netflix-open-connect-network.html

There is no evidence that it's using OpenConnect Caching. It could simply be a better peering connection.

AWS offers direct connections as part of their product line and Netflix just moved there
see: https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/netflix/