In only a few years, the Internet has experienced an astronomical increase in the use of specialized content-delivery systems, such as content-delivery networks (e.g., Akamai) and peer-to-peer file-sharing systems (e.g., Kazaa).   Understanding the Internet therefore requires an understanding of these delivery systems and their behaviors.    Unfortunately, very little data is available on the latest content-delivery systems.

 In this talk, I’ll present results from a study of Internet traffic that we’ve conducted at the University of Washington over the last two years.    Using passive monitoring of all ingoing and outgoing UW network traffic, we have tried to understand the Internet from the “telescope” of UW’s population of 60,000 students, faculty, and staff.  In the first part of the talk, I will provide a high-level characterization of UW Web traffic from a content-delivery viewpoint,.  In particular, I will look at the impact of new peer-to-peer systems and how they differ from traditional Web workloads.   In the second part of the talk, I will look specifically at Kazaa multi-media peer-to-peer traffic, examining the forces that drive the Kazaa workload and the implications of those forces for Internet traffic in the future.