2. @DynResearch
Global Content, Local Hosting
• Content localization is a form of
international trade – import/export
• Choices made in each country affect
enduser performance and are visible in
the operation of their ccTLDs
• Policy folks are looking for ways to
measure and understand Internet
evolution
• Zone operators have something
important to contribute here…
3. @DynResearch
Zones Are Maps, Let’s Peruse Them
• How does the “domain space” within a
given TLD (including ccTLDs) map onto
geographic space?
• Using Russia as a specific example,
let’s see where domains “live,” and
what impact that might have on
consumers
• We tried two different experiments,
one starting with published Alexa
data, the other with ccTLD zone data
5. @DynResearch
Where’s The Popular Content?
• Retrieve Alexa.com’s public list of the top
100 sites for various countries
• Resolve the apex domains to determine one
or more A records for each domain in the
zone
• Geolocate each service IP and use BGP
routing data to examine the origin and
transit providers for each domain
• Calculate the fraction of each country’s
popular content that is locally hosted
according to this metric
9. @DynResearch
Russia’s Alexa 100 Hosting: Summary
• All told, 58 of Russia’s 100 most popular domains
are hosted (at least partially) within Russia, adding
up partial percentages
• 50-60% is fairly typical for larger economies that are
the center of their own language sphere: Japan,
Korea, Poland, Germany, Turkey
• CDNs do push significant site content closer to
users – these are just the resolutions of the “front
door” domains.
11. @DynResearch
Examining .RU/.РФ (thank you CCTLD.RU)
Examined the zones in September 2015, and re-scanned
at the beginning of December 2015 – statistics are stable
• .RU: NS records for +4.7M zones, pointing at +166K
authoritative servers
• .РФ: NS records for +738K zones, pointing at +30K
authoritative servers
12. @DynResearch
Top contributors of NS authority
reg.ru.
nic.ru.
masterhost.ru.
timeweb.ru.
timeweb.org.
jino.ru.
r01.ru.
beget.ru.
salenames.ru.
spaceweb.ru.
…and a long tail of nearly 80,000 more
The authoritative nameservers for
the zones within .RU/. РФ are
familiar Russian companies …
… but the A/AAAA records they
return for the apex domains of those
zones are not always Russian.
yandex.net.
beget.pro.
nameself.com.
ihc.ru.
majordomo.ru.
privateperson.ru.
spaceweb.pro.
mchost.ru.
fastvps.ru.
hc.ru.
13. @DynResearch
Russia’s .RU Apex Hosting
65% of the apex domains within
.RU delegations are hosted (at
least partially) within Russia
14. @DynResearch
Russia’s .РФ Apex Hosting
Fully 80% of the apex domains
within .РФ are hosted (at least
partially) within Russia
This is one of the highest local
hosting rates for a ccTLD
worldwide
15. @DynResearch
Compare to Canada’s .CA Apex Hosting
18.7% of the domains within
.CA are hosted (at least
partially) within Canada
The USA still represents the most
common hosting location for .CA
apex domains
17. @DynResearch
Top Origin Providers: Russian .RU
Provider Russia% Organization Substantial domain
hosting is focused in
two major metro
locations: Moscow
and St Petersburg
1. AS197695 12.80% Domain names registrar REG.RU, Ltd
2. AS9123 7.50% TimeWeb
3. AS8342 6.50% OJSC RTComm.RU
4. AS198610 5.80% Beget Ltd
5. AS29182 4.90% ISPsystem, cjsc
6. AS25535 4.80% Autonomous Non-commercial Organization Regional Network ...
7. AS25532 4.80% .masterhost
8. AS44112 4.20% SpaceWeb CJSC
9. AS48172 2.70% Oversun Ltd
10. AS43362 2.50% Majordomo llc
18. @DynResearch
More Top Origin Providers: Russian .RU
Provider Russia% Organization
…and a very long tail of smaller hosting providers
Substantial domain
hosting is focused in
two major metro
locations: Moscow
and St Petersburg
11. AS43146 2.30% Agava Ltd.
12. AS48287 2.20% RU-SERVICE Ltd
13. AS49505 2% OOO Network of data-centers Selectel
14. AS30968 1.70% ZAO "National Telecommunications"
15. AS35278 1.70% SPRINTHOST.RU LLC
16. AS60357 1.50% Megagroup.ru LLC
17. AS62082 1.40% Hostland LTD
18. AS41126 1.40% CJSC Registrar R01
19. AS31240 1.30% Hosting Telesystems, JSC
20. AS29076 1.20% Filanco Ltd
19. @DynResearch
Metro .RU Apex Hosting in Russia
Moscow 49%
St Petersburg 12%
Yekaterinburg 2%
Novosibirsk 1%
Other/Unspecified 36%
Long tail includes 686
individual cities within
Russia containing at least
one hosted domain!
21. @DynResearch
Top Origin Providers: St Petersburg .RU
Provider St Petersburg% Organization
1. AS9123 24.90% TimeWeb
2. AS44112 18.40% SpaceWeb CJSC
3. AS43362 8.50% Majordomo llc
4. AS49505 8% OOO Network of data-centers Selectel
5. AS30968 7.50% ZAO "National Telecommunications"
6. AS60357 6.90% Megagroup.ru LLC
7. AS62082 6.20% Hostland LTD
8. AS35278 4.10% SPRINTHOST.RU LLC
9. AS49693 2.40% Best-Hoster Group Co. Ltd.
10. AS30943 2% Utransit International Carrier Limited
22. @DynResearch
How is .РФ Different from .RU?
• More strongly Russian-hosted (80% vs 65%)
• Nearly identical breakdown of city-level hosting
• .RU has 5x higher rate of DNSSEC signing
• .RU has slightly higher rate of IPv6
23. @DynResearch
Struggling DNSSEC?
• 0.010% of .РФ zones
• 0.045% of .RU zones
• …return a DNSKEY for the apex
• Neither .РФ nor .RU contain DS records –
obstacles to adoption at registrars?
• Compare to 1.5% signed in a recent .com sample
24. @DynResearch
IPv6: Making Progress
• 15% of .РФ zones
• 19% of .RU zones
• …return a AAAA record for the apex
• Diversity is still growing
• Two providers (MasterHost and TimeWeb)
originate more than 80% of the IPv6 responses
26. @DynResearch
US-based .RU Apex Hosting
8.1% of the domains within .RU
are hosted (at least partially)
within the USA.
Some are parked; others are
hosted on Cloud infrastructure in
California, Virginia, etc.
1. AS50245 51.80% Serverel Corp
2. AS15169 7.70% Google
3. AS13335 4.70% CloudFlare, Inc.
4. AS46606 4% Unified Layer
5. AS20473 2.30% Choopa, LLC
6. AS26496 2% GoDaddy.com, LLC
7. AS16509 1.90% Amazon
8. AS39111 1.20% Amazon Data Services Ireland Ltd
9. AS20013 1.20% CyrusOne LLC
10. AS8075 1.20% Microsoft Corporation
11. AS14618 1.10% Amazon.com, Inc.
12. AS40034 1% Confluence Networks Inc
13. AS36351 1% SoftLayer Technologies Inc.
27. @DynResearch
NOTE: Some cities host multiple collectors. Cable Map credit: Telegeography
Active Measurement Infrastructure
28. @DynResearch
Latencies from Moscow
250-300+ms
S America
150-250ms
US West
100-150ms
US East
50-100ms
Europe
150-300ms
Africa
200-300+
South Asia
300ms+
East Asia
Source: Dyn Internet Intelligence
50-100ms
Eastbound
31. @DynResearch
TL;DR
Russian zones are strongly localized to Russia
This is especially true for the newer .РФ domains
Russian latencies to alternative Western Europe / US
Cloud infrastructure are high
.RU and . РФ continue to evolve side by side
32. @DynResearch
Final Observations
• Interesting dynamics occur at the
growing edge of big zones, so periodic
measurement seems important
• Locality trends in the resolver audience
for authoritative data are equally
interesting – mapping regional clients
• We appreciate the help of [cc]TLD
operators who have shared their data as
part of this project!
