{"id":110543,"date":"2023-12-14T09:12:11","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T17:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/?p=110543"},"modified":"2026-01-28T13:15:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T21:15:38","slug":"backblaze-network-stats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/backblaze-network-stats\/","title":{"rendered":"Backblaze Network Stats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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At the end of Q3 2023, Backblaze was monitoring 263,992 hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs) in our data centers around the world. We\u2019ve reported on those drives for many years<\/a>. But, all the data on those drives needs to somehow get from your devices to our storage servers. You might be wondering, \u201cHow does that happen?\u201d and \u201cWhere does that happen?\u201d Or, more likely, \u201cHow fast does that happen?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are all questions we want to start to answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to our new Backblaze Network Stats<\/strong> series, where we\u2019ll explore the world of network connectivity and how we better serve our customers, partners, and the internet community at large. We hope to share our challenges, initiatives, and engineering perspective as we build the open cloud with our Partners<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this first post, we will explore two issues: how we connect our network with the internet and the distribution of our peering traffic. As we expand this series, we hope to capture and share more metrics and insights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nice to Meet You; I\u2019m Brent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Since this is the first time you\u2019re hearing from me, I thought I should introduce myself. I\u2019m a Senior Network Engineer here at Backblaze. The Network Engineering group is responsible for ensuring the reliability, capacity, and security of network traffic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My interest in computer networking began in my childhood when I first persuaded my father to upgrade our analog modem to an ISDN line by providing a financial comparison of time sink due to large download times I was conducting (nothing like using all the family dial-up time to download multi-megabyte SimCity 2000 and Doom customizations). Needless to say, I\u2019m still interested in those same types of networking metrics, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m here sharing them with you at Backblaze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, Some Networking Basics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019ve ever heard folks joke about the internet being a series of tubes, well, it may be widely mocked, but it\u2019s not entirely <\/em>wrong. The internet as we know it is fundamentally a complex network of all the computers on the planet. Whenever we\u2019re typing in an internet address into a web browser, we\u2019re basically giving our computer the address of a computer (or server, etc.) to locate, and that computer will hopefully display data to you that it\u2019s storing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, it\u2019s not a free-for-all. Internet protocols like TLS\/SSL<\/a> are the boundaries that set the rules for how computers communicate, and networks allow different levels of access to outsiders. Internet service providers (ISPs) are defined and regulated, and we\u2019ll outline some of those roles and how Backblaze interacts with them below. But, all that communication between computers has to be powered by hardware, which is why, at one point, we actually had to solve the problem of sharks attacking the internet<\/a>. Good news: since 2006, sharks have accounted for less than one percent of fiber optic cable attacks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wireless internet has largely made this connectivity invisible to consumers, but the job of Wi-Fi is to broadcast a short-range network that connects you to this series of cables and \u201ctubes.\u201d That\u2019s why when you\u2019re transmitting or storing larger amounts of data, you typically get better speeds when you use a wired connection. (A good consumer example: setting up NAS devices<\/a> works better with an ethernet cable.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you\u2019re talking about storing and serving petabytes of data for a myriad of use cases, then you have to create and use different networks to connect to the internet effectively. Think of it like water: both a fire hose and your faucet are connected to utility lines, but they have to move different amounts of water, so they have different kinds of connections to the main utility.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, that brings us to peering, the different levels of internet service providers, and many, many more things that Backblaze Network Engineers deal with from both a hardware and a software perspective on a regular basis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is Peering?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Peering on the internet is akin to building direct express lanes between neighborhoods. Instead of all data (residents) relying on crowded highways (public internet), networks (neighborhoods) establish peering connections\u2014dedicated pathways connecting them directly. This allows data to travel faster and more efficiently, reducing congestion and delays. Peering is like having exclusive lanes, streamlining communication between networks and enhancing the overall performance of the internet “transportation” system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We connect to various types of networks to help move your data. I\u2019ll explain the different types below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bit Exchange<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Every day we move multiple petabytes of traffic between our internet connectivity points and our scalable data center fabric layer<\/a> to be delivered to either our SSD caching layer<\/a> (what we call a \u201cshard stash\u201d) or spinning hard drives for storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our data centers are connected to the world in three different ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Direct Internet Access (DIA)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The most common way we reach everyone is via a DIA connection with a Tier 1 internet service provider. These connections give us access to long-haul, high-capacity fiber infrastructure that spans continents and oceans. Connecting to a Tier 1 ISP has the advantage of scale and reach, but this scale comes at a cost\u2014we may not have the best path to our customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we draw out the hierarchy of networks that we have to traverse to reach you, it would look like a series of geographic levels (Global, Regional, and Local). The Tier 1 ISPs would be positioned at the top, leasing bandwidth on their networks to smaller Tier 2 and Tier 3 networks, which are closer to our customer\u2019s home and office networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How we get from B to C (Backblaze to customer).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Since our connections to the Tier 1 ISPs are based on leased bandwidth, we pay based on how much data we transfer. The bill grows the more we transfer. There are commitments and overage charges, and the relationship is more formal since a Tier 1 ISP is a for-profit company. Sometimes you just want unlimited bandwidth, and that’s where the role of the internet exchange (IX) helps us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Internet Exchange (IX)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We always want to be as close to the client as possible and our next connectivity option allows us to join a community of peers that exchange traffic more locally. Peering with an IX means that network traffic doesn\u2019t have to bubble up to a Tier 1 National ISP to eventually reach a regional network. If we are on an advantageous IX, we transfer data locally inside a data center or within the same data center campus, thus reducing latency and improving the overall experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benefits of an IX, aka the \u201cUnlimited Plan,\u201d include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n