Network Working Group J. Arkko Internet-Draft Ericsson Intended status: Best Current Practice S. Farrell Expires: 10 July 2021 M. Kühlewind Ericsson 6 January 2021 Report from the IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts Workshop 2020 draft-iab-covid19-workshop-00 Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic caused changes in Internet traffic, particularly during the introduction of the initial quarantine and work-from-home arrangements. The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) held a work to discuss Network Impacts of the pandemic, on November 9-13, 2020. The meeting was held online given the on-going travel and contact restrictions at that time. Discussion Venues This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC. Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at https://github.com/intarchboard/covid19-workshop. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 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Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Scope 3. Discussion Topics 3.1. Measurement-based Observation on Network Traffic Dynamics 3.1.1. Overall traffic growth 3.1.2. Changes in traffic patterns 3.1.3. A deeper look at interconnections 3.1.4. CDN networks 3.1.5. Last mile congestion 3.1.6. User Behaviour 3.2. Operational Practices and Changes 3.3. Architectural Consideration and Conclusion for Future 3.4. Conclusions 4. Position Papers 5. Workshop participants 6. Program Committee 7. Acknowledgments 8. Informative References Authors' Addresses 1. Introduction The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) held a workshop to discuss Network Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, on November 9-13, 2020. The meeting was held online given the on-going travel and contact restrictions at that time. COVID-19 has caused changes in Internet traffic. These changes appeared rather abruptly, in particular during the introduction of the initial quarantine and work-from-home arrangements. The changes relate to traffic volumes, location of traffic, as well as the types of traffic and applications used. Announcement for the workshop was sent out in July 2020, requesting interested parties to submit position papers for the workshop program committee. A total of 15 position papers were received from altogether 33 authors. The papers are listed in Section 4. In addition, several other types of contributions and pointers to existing work were provided. A number of position papers referred to parallel work being published in measurement-related academic conferences. Invitations for the workshop were sent out based on the position papers and other expressions of interest. On the workshop conference calls were 45 participants, listed in Section 5. The workshop was held over one week hosting three sessions covering measuremnets and observations, operational issue, and final future consideration and conclusions. As these three session were scheduled Monday, Wednesday, and Friday a positive side effect was that the time in between could be used foor mailing list discusion and compilation of additional workshop material. 2. Scope The COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on people's lives and the societies and economies around the globe. But it also had big impact on networking. With large numbers of people working from home or otherwise depending on the network for their daily lives, network traffic has surged. Internet service providers and operators have reported 20% traffic growth or more in a matter of weeks. Traffic in Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) is similarly on the rise. Most forms of network traffic have seen an increase, with conversational multimedia traffic growing in some cases more than 200%. And user time spent on conferencing services has risen by an order of magnitude on some conferencing platforms. In general, the Internet has coped relatively well with this traffic growth, albeit not without some issues. For instance, some outages, video quality reduction, and other issues were reported. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see how the technology, operators and service providers have been able to respond to large changes in traffic patterns. Understanding what actually happened with Internet traffic is of course interesting by its own right. How that impacted user experience, or the intended function of the services is equally interesting. Measurements and reports of traffic situation from 2020 are therefore valuable. But it would also be interesting to understand what types of network management and capacity expansion actions were taken in general. Anecdotal evidence points to Internet and service providers tracking how their services are used, and in many cases adjusting services to accommodate the new traffic patterns, from dynamic allocation of compute resources to more complex changes. The impacts of this crisis are also a potential opportunity to understand the impact of traffic shifts and growth more generally, or to prepare for future situations -- crisis or otherwise - that impact networking. Or even allow us to adjust the technology to be even better suited to respond to changes. The workshop was held to convene interested researchers, network operators, and network management experts, and Internet technologists to share their experiences. The scope included: * measurements about traffic changes, user experience, service performance, and other relevant aspects * discussion about the behind the scenes network management and expansion activities * experiences in the fields of general Internet connectivity, conferencing, media/entertainment, and Internet infrastructure * lessons learned for preparedness and operations * lessons learned for Internet technology and architecture 3. Discussion Topics 3.1. Measurement-based Observation on Network Traffic Dynamics The workshop started with a focus on measurements. A larger portion of the submitted papers presented and discussed measurement data and these submissions provided a good basis get a better understanding of the situation, covering different angles and aspects of network traffic and kind of networks. 3.1.1. Overall traffic growth Based on the measuremenst data of one ISP, three IXPs, a metropolitan educational network, and a mobile operator it was observed at the beginning of the workshop that overall the network was able to handle the situation well despite an significant increase in traffic growth rate in March/April. 3.1.2. Changes in traffic patterns Changes in the traffic patterns: Traffic in mobile network decreased and traffic from home network increased. Strong increase in video conferencing (incl remote schooling) 3.1.2.1. Example campus network TBD... 3.1.2.2. Example mobile networks TBD... 3.1.3. A deeper look at interconnections Network load noticeably increased but most operators reacted quickly by adding new capacity (earlier?) 3.1.4. CDN networks 3.1.5. Last mile congestion Last mile congestion/higher latency on legacy network (PPPoE) 3.1.6. User Behaviour The type of traffic needed by the users also changed in 2020. Upstream traffic increased due the use of video conferences, remote schooling, and similar applications. The NCTA and Comcast reported that while downstream traffic grew 20%, upstream traffic grew as much as 30% to 37% [NCTA2020] [Comcast2020]. Vodafone reported that upstream traffic grew 100% in some markets [Vodafone2020]. Ericsson's Consumer Lab surveyed users for their usage and experiences during the crisis). Some of the key findings in [ConsumerlabReport2020] were: * 9 in 10 users increased Internet activities, and time spent connected increased. In addition, 1 in 5 started new online activities, many in the older generation felt that they were helped by video calling, parents felt that their children's education was helped, and so on. * Network performance was in general found satisfactory. 6 in 10 were very satisfied with fixed broadband, and 3 in 4 felt that mobile broadband was same or better as before the crisis. Consumers valued resilience and quality of service as the most important task for network operators. * Smartphone application usage changed, with fastest growth was in COVID-19, remote working, e-learning, wellness, education, remote health consulation, and social shared experience applications. Biggest decreases were in travel and booking, ride hailing, location, and parking applications. Some of the behaviours are likely permanent changes [ConsumerlabReport2020]. The adoption of video calls and other new services by many consumers, such as the older generation, is likely going to have a long-lasting effect. Surveys in various organizations point to a likely long-term increase in the number of people interested in remote work [WorkplaceAnalytics2020] [McKinsey2020]. 3.2. Operational Practices and Changes TBD... 3.3. Architectural Consideration and Conclusion for Future TBD... 3.4. Conclusions There is a wealth of data about the performance of the Internet during the criss. The main conclusion from the various measurements is that fairly large shifts occurred. And those shifts were not merely about changing one application for another, they actually impacted traffic flows and directions, and caused in many cases a significant traffic increase. Early reports also seem to indicate that the shifts have went relatively smoothly from the point of view overall consumer experience. An important but not so visible factor that lead to this was that many people and organizations where highly motivated to ensure good experience. A lot of collaboration happened in the background, problems were corrected, many providers significantly increased their capacity, and so on. In general, the Internet also seems inherently well suited for adapting to a new situation, at least within some bounds. The Internet is designed for any application and situation, rather than optimized for today's particular traffic. This makes it possible to use it for many applications, in many deployment situations, and make changes as needed. The generality is present in many parts of the overall system, from basic Internet technology to browsers, from name servers to content delivery networks and cloud platforms. When needs change, what is needed is often merely different services, perhaps some re-allocation of resources, but not fundamental technology or hardware changes. On the other hand, this is not to say that no improvements are needed: * Better understanding of the health of the Internet: Going forward, the critical nature that Internet plays in our lives means that the health of the Internet needs to receive significant attention. Understanding how well networks work is not just a technical matter, it is also of crucial importance to the people and economy of the societies using it. Projects and research that monitor Internet and services performance in a broad scale and across different networks are therefore important. * The pandemic has shown how the effects of the digital divide can be amplified during a crisis. More attention is needed to ensure that broadband is available to all, and that Internet services equally serve different groups. * We need to continue work on all the other improvements that are seen necessary anyway, such as further improvements in security, ability for networks and applications to collaborate better, etc. * Informal collaboration between different parties needs to continue and be strengthened. 4. Position Papers The following position papers were received, in alphabetical order: * Afxanasyev, A., Wang, L., Yeh, E., Zhang, B., and Zhang, L.: Identifying the Disease from the Symptoms: Lessons for Networking in the COVID-19 Era [Afxanasyev2020] * Arkko, Jari: Observations on Network User Behaviour During COVID-19 {{Arkko2020} * Bronzino, F., Culley, E., Feamster, N. Liu. S., Livingood. J., and Schmitt, P.: IAB COVID-19 Workshop: Interconnection Changes in the United States [Bronzino2020] * Campling, Andrew and Lazanski, Dominique: Will the Internet Still Be Resilient During the Next Black Swan Event? [Campling2020] * Cho, Kenjiro: On the COVID-19 Impact to broadband traffic in Japan [Cho2020] * Clark, D.: Measurement of congestion on ISP interconnection links [Clark2020] * Favale, T., Soro, F., Trevisan, M., Drago, I., and Mellia, M.: Campus traffic and e-Learning during COVID-19 pandemic [Favale2020] * Feldmann, A., Gasser, O., Lichtblau, F., Pujol, E., Poese, I., Dietzel, C., Wagner, D., Wichtlhuber, M., Tapiador, J., Vallina- Rodriguez, N., Hohlfeld, O., and Smaragdakis, G.: A view of Internet Traffic Shifts at ISP and IXPs during the COVID-19 Pandemic [Feldmann2020] * Fontugne, R., Shah, A., and Cho, K.: The Impact of COVID-19 on Last-mile Latency [Fontugne2020] * Gillmor, D.: Vaccines, Privacy, Software Updates, and Trust [Gillmor2020] * Gu, Y. and Li, Z. Covid 19 Impact on China ISP's Network Traffic Pattern and Solution Discussion [Gu2020] * Jennings, C. and Kozanian, P.: WebEx Scaling During Covid [Jennings2020] * Lutu, A., Perino, D., Bagnulo, M., Frias-Martinez, E., and Khangosstar, J.: A Characterization of the COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on a Mobile Network Operator Traffic [Lutu2020] * Mok, Ricky, and claffy, kc: Measuring the impact of COVID-19 on cloud network performance [Mok2020] * Kirsty P: IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts [Kirsty2020] 5. Workshop participants The following is an alphabetical list of participants in the workshop. * Jari Arkko (Ericsson/IAB) * Ben Campbell (Independent/IAB) * Andrew Campling (419 Consulting) * Kenjiro Cho (IIJ) * kc Claffy (CAIDA) * David Clark (MIT CSAIL) * Chris Dietzel (DE-CIX) * Idilio Drago (University of Turin) * Stephen Farrell (Trinity College Dublin/IAB) * Anja Feldmann (Max Planck Institute for Informatics) * Romain Fontugne (IIJ Research Lab) * Oliver Gasser (Max Planck Institute for Informatics) * Daniel Kahn Gillmor (ACLU) * Yunan Gu (Huawei) * Oliver Hohlfeld (Brandenburg University of Technology, BTU) * Jana Iyengar (Fastly) * Cullen Jennings (Cisco/IAB) * Mirja Kuhlewind (Ericsson/IAB) * Franziska Lichtblau (Max Planck Institute for Informatics) * Dominique Lazanski * Zhenbin Li (Huawei/IAB) * Jason Livingood (Comcast) * Andra Lutu (Telefonica Research) * Vesna Manojlovic (RIPE NCC) * R Martin EC (?) * Matt Matthis (Google) * Larry Masinter (Retired) * Jared Mauch (Akamai/IAB) * Deep Medhi (NSF) * Marco Mellia (Politecnico di Torino) * Ricky Mok (CAIDA) * Karen O'Donoghue (Internet Society) * Kirsty P (NCSC) * Diego Perino (Telefonica Research) * Colin Perkins (University of Glasgow/IRTF/IAB) * Enric Pujol (Benocs) * Anant Shah (Verizon Media Platform) * Francesca Soro (Politecnico di Torino) * Brian Trammell (Google) * Gergios Tselentis (European Commission) * Martino Trevisan * Lan Wang (University of Memphis) * Rob Wilton (Cisco) * Jiankang Yao (CNNIC) * Lixia Zhang (UCLA) 6. Program Committee The workshop Program Committee members were Jari Arkko, Stephen Farrell, Cullen Jennings, Colin Perkins, Ben Campbell, and Mirja Kuehlewind. 7. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the workshop participants, the members of the IAB, the program committee, the participants in the architecture discussion list for interesting discussions, and Cindy Morgan for the practical arrangements. 8. Informative References [Afxanasyev2020] Afxanasyev, A, ., Wang, L, ., Yeh, E, ., Zhang, B, ., and . Zhang, L, "Identifying the Disease from the Symptoms: Lessons for Networking in the COVID-19 Era", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [Arkko2020]Arkko, Jari, ., "Observations on Network User Behaviour During COVID-19", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [Bronzino2020] Bronzino, F, ., Culley, E, ., Feamster, N, ., S, Liu., J, Livingood., and . Schmitt, P, "IAB COVID-19 Workshop: Interconnection Changes in the United States", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [Campling2020] Campling, Andrew, . and . Lazanski, Dominique, "Will the Internet Still Be Resilient During the Next Black Swan Event?", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [Cho2020] Cho, Kenjiro, ., "On the COVID-19 Impact to broadband traffic in Japan", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [Clark2020]Clark, D, ., "Measurement of congestion on ISP interconnection links", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [Comcast2020] Comcast, ., "COVID-19 Network Update", https://corporate.comcast.com/covid-19/network/ may-20-2020 , May 2020. [ConsumerlabReport2020] Ericsson Consumer & IndustryLab, ., "Keeping consumers connected in a COVID-19 context", https://www.ericsson.com/en/reports-and- papers/consumerlab/reports/ keeping-consumers-connected-during-the-covid-19-crisis , June 2020. [Favale2020] Favale, T, ., Soro, F, ., Trevisan, M, ., Drago, I, ., and . Mellia, M, "Campus traffic and e-Learning during COVID-19 pandemic", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [Feldmann2020] Feldmann, A, ., Gasser, O, ., Lichtblau, F, ., Pujol, E, ., Poese, I, ., Dietzel, C, ., Wagner, D, ., Wichtlhuber, M, ., Tapiador, J, ., Vallina-Rodriguez, N, ., Hohlfeld, O, ., and . Smaragdakis, G, "A view of Internet Traffic Shifts at ISP and IXPs during the COVID-19 Pandemic", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [Fontugne2020] Fontugne, R, ., Shah, A, ., and . Cho, K, "The Impact of COVID-19 on Last-mile Latency", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [Gillmor2020] Gillmor, D, ., "Vaccines, Privacy, Software Updates, and Trust", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [Gu2020] Gu, Y, . and . Li, Z, "Covid 19 Impact on China ISP's Network Traffic Pattern and Solution Discussion", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [Jennings2020] Jennings, C, . and . Kozanian, P, "WebEx Scaling During Covidb", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [Kirsty2020] Kirsty P, ., "IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [Lutu2020] Lutu, A, ., Perino, D, ., Bagnulo, M, ., Frias-Martinez, E, ., and . Khangosstar, J, "A Characterization of the COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on a Mobile Network Operator Traffic", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [McKinsey2020] Brodie Boland, ., Aaron De Smet, ., Rob Palter, ., and . Aditya Sanghvi, "Reimagining the office and work life after COVID-19", https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey /Business%20Functions/Organization/Our%20Insights/Reimagin ing%20the%20office%20and%20work%20life%20after%20COVID%201 9/Reimagining-the-office-and-work-life-after-COVID- 19-final.pdf , June 2020. [Mok2020] Mok, Ricky, . and . claffy, kc, "Measuring the impact of COVID-19 on cloud network performance", Position paper in the 2020 IAB COVID-19 Network Impacts workshop. , October 2020. [NCTA2020] NCTA, ., "COVID-19: How Cable's Internet Networks Are Performing: Metrics, Trends & Observations", https://www.ncta.com/COVIDdashboard , 2020. [Vodafone2020] Vodafone, ., "An update on Vodafone's networks", https://www.vodafone.com/covid19/news/ update-on-vodafone-networks , April 2020. [WorkplaceAnalytics2020] Kate Lister, ., "Work-At-Home After Covid-19—Our Forecast", https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/ work-at-home-after-covid-19-our-forecast , 2020. Authors' Addresses Email: jari.arkko@ericsson.com Email: stephen.farrell@cs.tcd.ie Email: mirja.kuehlewind@ericsson.com