[q3k]

GCP is pretty good though. Cold-potato, very fat backbone, and very good presence at a ton of PoPs. When using GCP you basically have the same global, high-bandwidth direct connectivity presence that Google uses for its products, and that is very difficult to match by traditional T1 ISPs.

[heleninboodler]

Ok, help me out: "cold-potato"? :D

[lokar]

Vs "hot potato"

Hold onto the packet for as long as you can vs hand it off to your peer as quickly as possible.

Most networks do "hot", Google does "cold" since their network is almost always better than that of the peer.

[Jarwain]

The origin of which, for those who aren't familiar, is a game called "hot potato" where you try to pass a ball around as quickly as possible as if it was a hot potato

[Havoc]

Weird terminology. Thanks for explaining though

[techsupporter]

It is the inverse of “hot potato” routing where the network tries to get rid of a packet as soon as possible (that is, drop a hot potato). Cold potato means the network keeps the packet on-network as long as it can.

[codexon]

Cold potato is not necessarily better, actually its often times worse than hot potato and usually used to lower costs so you don't have to pay other people for transit.

For example, a cold potato network may have a link from Dallas to Chicago to New York, while a hot potato network could have a direct link from Dallas to New York.

Cogent uses cold potato and is frequently worse than other transit providers.

[gcommer]

Google's cold potato is very good though.

(Also, they offer the option to use hot potato and pay them less: https://cloud.google.com/network-tiers/docs/overview )

[achiang]

Thanks, you made my day.

I'm a Google network SRE, but perhaps I'll get new business cards saying "cold potato engineer".

[Dylan16807]

So it's hard to value the premium for google cold potato specifically, if it outclasses everything else.

But their hot potato still costs $65+ per TB at medium volumes and $45+ per TB at high volumes. That is still extremely high compared to normal peering costs.

[tyingq]

It does have advantages, but it's not always worth the difference of "several cents per GB" versus "fractions of a cent per GB".

[ikiris]

Walmart is generally cheaper than a steak restaurant. YMMV, and they both have their uses. Its worth going to both.

[tyingq]

That's a very odd analogy, and overstating the difference.