How much better would the world be if the Netflix engineering team tackled real-world problems instead of making sure we can all binge watch Stranger Things? Such a smart group of people.
Keeping Netflix Reliable Using Prioritized Load Shedding
31–40 of 77 posts
Re: Keeping Netflix Reliable Using Prioritized Load Shedding
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slightly unrelated but does the packet loss happen all the time or when close to maximum of the line. Used to have similar problems with an ADSL line but found if I limited the line (Both up and down) I could find a magic number where the packet loss went away. (Well most of the time :)) Though it did need to be tuned for different times of they . ie high congestion times need it to be lower. Though technically it sh…
This is normal if your router doesn’t prioritize control traffic. A rate limit allows all the ACKs to normally leave your network instead of getting queued up.
Or your router isn't responding correctly to traffic controls or the ISP isn't sending them correctly? I know with one provider I had in the deep past the allowable packet size was smaller than what most devices default to and they weren't correctly sending the maximum size their routers supported in the appropriate ICMP requests. Eventually I figured out that I could force my router to a smaller allowed packet size and that at least decreased packet loss substantially going upstream, even if whatever misconfiguration of the ISP was still confusing and eating downstream packets.
Re: Keeping Netflix Reliable Using Prioritized Load Shedding
#33How much better would the world be if the Netflix engineering team tackled real-world problems instead of making sure we can all binge watch Stranger Things? Such a smart group of people.
Specifically, what would you suggest applying this skill-set to?
Re: Keeping Netflix Reliable Using Prioritized Load Shedding
#34How much better would the world be if the Netflix engineering team tackled real-world problems instead of making sure we can all binge watch Stranger Things? Such a smart group of people.
The world’s problems are not the result of some software engineers deciding to work on a video streaming platform.
Re: Keeping Netflix Reliable Using Prioritized Load Shedding
#35Totally anecdotal evidence, but I was in a rural NY house served by DSL for the past 6 months. The DSL has consistent packet loss between 4 and 6%. The only video service that could handle this level of packet loss well was Amazon Prime. Netflix couldn't even load its browse screen until the past two weeks, where something changed, and suddenly Netflix could handle the high packet loss as well as Amazon Prime. Thank…
This sounds like an MTU issue. TCP takes care of mere (eg probabilistic) packet loss ok. MTU issues have actually crept back up because TLS exacerbates any underlying MTU problems. IPv6 doubly so (when any hops - especially yours - don’t follow path MTU detection requirements).
... no it doesn't. Like not even close.
Re: Keeping Netflix Reliable Using Prioritized Load Shedding
#36I love the phrase "Prioritized Load Shedding" as corporate-speak for "dropping the less-important traffic."
Would you actually name this feature "drop less important traffic"?
Re: Keeping Netflix Reliable Using Prioritized Load Shedding
#37So you can drop all that traffic and the users are unimpacted... So why not just always drop that traffic and don't even bother writing the code to implement those features that clearly nobody cares about?
"unimpacted" isnt the case - it makes clear that some traffic is more critical-path than others and thus the prioritization.
"Clearly nobody cares about" - what? The whole point here is "people care most about video streaming" and less about the metadata etc that they lower in priority.
Re: Keeping Netflix Reliable Using Prioritized Load Shedding
#38So you can drop all that traffic and the users are unimpacted... So why not just always drop that traffic and don't even bother writing the code to implement those features that clearly nobody cares about?
Great idea! Drop add to list, the searchbar and streaming audio in a different language! Noone cares about any of that stuff
Re: Keeping Netflix Reliable Using Prioritized Load Shedding
#39Totally anecdotal evidence, but I was in a rural NY house served by DSL for the past 6 months. The DSL has consistent packet loss between 4 and 6%. The only video service that could handle this level of packet loss well was Amazon Prime. Netflix couldn't even load its browse screen until the past two weeks, where something changed, and suddenly Netflix could handle the high packet loss as well as Amazon Prime. Thank…
Seperate annecdote - I worked on an inflight satelite wifi project and I was surprised at how well both Youtube and Netlifx worked over a medium-bandwidth/high-latency connection. Granted, we had specific QoS/traffic shaping to improve reliability without gobbling up all the bandwidth (stream Netflix was an advertised feature of the wifi service), but it still seemed like magic.
Wow! You actually stream Netflix to an airplane? I always guessed that inflight VOD services had the movies stored in a server on the plane.
Re: Keeping Netflix Reliable Using Prioritized Load Shedding
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seperate annecdote - I worked on an inflight satelite wifi project and I was surprised at how well both Youtube and Netlifx worked over a medium-bandwidth/high-latency connection. Granted, we had specific QoS/traffic shaping to improve reliability without gobbling up all the bandwidth (stream Netflix was an advertised feature of the wifi service), but it still seemed like magic.
When Plex rolled out it's auto quality/auto bandwidth adjustment it actually worked very well over airplane satellite wifi as well. I watched a few things from my own server. I'm amazed that service allowed streaming though...
For a good few years, a lot of airlines had Netflix and Hulu throttled on their free WiFi services, but not Twitch, so I’d just watch videogames on all my flights. My theory (which I really believe is true) is that they just hadn’t heard of it, and hadn’t blacklisted it!