Skype is promoting their live news conference tomorrow through a good number of channels… it will be at 10:30am PST (1:30pm US Eastern) at http://livestream.com/skype
I’m thinking it probably has something to do with… oh… video? 😉
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Want to discuss the Skype outage? What happened? What we know about it? Supernodes? Mega-supernodes? Skype’s architecture? and more?
On this Friday, January 7, 2011, I’ll be joining the VoIP Users Conference (VUC) gang to talk about Skype’s outage. As host Randy Resnick writes:
Mr. Dan York, CNN VoIP celebrity, will be with us for a more geeky explanation of what happened and hopefully what the full ramifications of this will be.
Skype has had a “monopoly” in this space for a long time. Can it continue? Are there contenders, and if so, who are they? Is the free model the key to Skype’s success? Will it always be free? Will it be passed up in quality by something different (like FaceTime (or a cross platform version of it) or Google Voice?
We’ll be talking about my post about Skype supernodes and much more. It should be an enjoyable time.
If you’d like to listen live, there are regular, SIP and Skype contact phone numbers to dial into the VUC. You can also jump on #vuc on IRC to join in the text backchannel.
If you can’t join live, a recording of the call will be posted to the episode’s web page sometime in the next few days.
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The reaction to my last post explaining how Skype’s supernodes work has been both amazing and amusing. Largely the reaction points out to me that Skype really needs to do a better job explaining their architecture… but in their absence, others of us will do so.
Anyway, one of the more fun outcomes was that I was asked to appear on a CNN UK show “Quest on Business” with host Richard Quest. Unfortunately the show was not streamed live nor was it available for viewing online later. Quite a FAIL on CNN’s part, in my opinion, because the segment certainly would have been linked to by some of us. In any event, my friend James Enck in the UK captured the segment by the super high tech method of pointing his cell phone at the TV and recording the video. 🙂
The irony, of course, is that we recorded the show entirely using Skype 😉
For those who wish to view the segment, here it is:
It was fun to do and hopefully helped some more folks out there understand a bit more about Skype. (And thanks, James, for capturing it.)
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For the first time in 3 years, Skype was down today – and as I write this is still in the process of slowly coming back online. A ton of articles were written today, mostly all pointing back to Skype’s blog post or status update, which most importantly said this (I’ve shortened it a bit):
Some of these computers are what we call ‘supernodes’ – they act a bit like phone directories for Skype. If you want to talk to someone, and your Skype app can’t find them immediately … your computer or phone will first try to find a supernode to figure out how to reach them.
Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of supernodes available. Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype. As Skype relies on being able to maintain contact with supernodes, it may appear offline for some of you.
Let’s explain this a bit more.
If you go back and read my primer on the technology behind Skype and P2P networks, I described supernodes as Skype clients that are on the public Internet and NOT behind a firewall or NAT device that broker the communication between two Skype clients. In a very simplistic view, the picture looks like this:
As I note in the update section to that post, the Skype clients acting as “supernodes”:
perform the somewhat limited functions of connecting nodes together, providing a distributed database and choosing appropriate nodes to act as “relay nodes” when necessary.
The supernodes are what connect invidividual Skype clients to each other and create the P2P “overlay network”… the “cloud”… that connects all Skype clients to each other.
These “supernodes” run the regular Skype software. The ONLY difference is that they are on the public Internet. So if you are running Skype on a computer – and you are NOT behind a firewall, there is a chance that your computer could become a supernode. That’s just how Skype works. So there are a lot of these supernodes out on the public Internet:
Here’s the thing… EVERY Skype client is connected out to a supernode. You have to be, in order to be connected to the larger directory of Skype users and for them to know how to reach you. (Note that Skype clients behind the same firewall may not be connected to the same supernode.) So it may look like this:
The supernodes are then connected to each other… creating Skype’s globally distributed directory database, which in a simplified form you could think of like this:
(Skype’s supernode connection algorithm is presumably more complex than the simple mesh I’m showing here… but the point is that they are connected to each other.)
Now, Skype’s picture is not exactly like this. We know from the explanations of the 2007 outage that Skype uses a hybrid architecture that involves some “authentication servers” that Skype clients connect to in order to first be granted access to the Skype P2P cloud. I’m not aware of anyone publishing technical details on exactly how those authentication servers connect into the Skype infrastructure, but let’s just say it looks something like this:
Skype clients need to connect to these authentication servers in order to validate their username and password, and presumably to validate their calling plan, how much money they have left in their account for calls, etc.
Now, the cool part about the “self-healing” aspect of the supernode architecture is that if a supernode goes down, Skype clients will simply attach to another supernode:
The problem with the outage today seems to be, from Skype’s explanation, that a great number of supernodes went offline, tearing apart the fabric of Skype’s P2P network overlay:
OOPS.
Something broke. We don’t know what. Skype’s blog post says only:
Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype.
What was the “problem affecting some versions of Skype“? No clue. Was it a software update that somehow affected the supernode algorithm? Did it affect the communication with clients?
No clue.
But according to Skype, that’s what happened. Hopefully they will be a bit more forthcoming soon (although perhaps NOT, given their pre-IPO status), but at the moment that’s all we have to go on.
My guess would be that there might also have been “cascading failures” in this scenario. If there was, say, a software update affecting some supernodes, as those supernodes dropped offline, the increased load of Skype clients trying to connect to online supernodes might have caused some of them to then drop offline. Or when a supernode came back online, it may have been overwhelmed by the quantity of connection requests and soon failed again. As I said, that’s purely a guess… but you could see those kind of failures happening in a situation like this.
As a solution, Skype’s blog post says this:
What are we doing to help? Our engineers are creating new ‘mega-supernodes’ as fast as they can, which should gradually return things to normal. This may take a few hours, and we sincerely apologise for the disruption to your conversations. Some features, like group video calling, may take longer to return to normal.
No details yet on what these “mega-supernodes” are, but some speculation is that instead of relying on individual Skype client computers to “become” supernodes, Skype is going out and setting up computers/servers specifically as supernodes. Rather than rely on potentially unstable computers, Skype goes out and gets some rock solid servers under their own control and sets those up as supernodes.
Maybe that’s what a “mega-supernode” is. Maybe it’s a higher level supernode… to which “regular” supernodes connect. Again under Skype’s control… but providing a tighter core P2P network that houses the overall directly.
We don’t know yet… but those are the kind of things Skype could be doing. Again, hopefully we’ll get more details soon… although we’ll have to see.
As I write this, my Skype client shows 4.5 million users online… it’s the beginning of the day in Europe and I’m sure folks there are trying to get online. Hopefully Skype will be getting their network back online soon.
And hopefully we’ll get some better technical explanations, too!
NOTE #1: It should be noted that there are other types of “servers” connected to the Skype P2P cloud beyond the authentication servers. There are also the servers and gateways used for SkypeOut and SkypeIn, gateways to mobile operators, web presence servers, etc. I left them out for the simplicity of the drawing.
NOTE #2: I am not an employee of Skype and do not have any inside information about the workings of Skype. The information in this article is based on what technical material Skype has made publicly available plus information a number of us have been gathering over the years. It may or may not be accurate.
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<shameless self-promotion>
With Christmas fast approaching, are you looking for a last-minute gift for someone you know working with telecommunications or security?
If so, may I suggest a book written by a certain someone called, oh, Seven Deadliest Unified Communications Attacks? You can order it from sites like Amazon.com and have the book delivered this week before Christmas!
The book will help whomever you give it to understand what the real threats to communications networks are today – and also what the real solutions are. Here’s a video I made to explain why I wrote the book:
</shameless self-promotion> 🙂
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It has happened twice this morning. People calling my phone number looking to talk to someone at Skype. For quite some time now (months), I have received occasional random phone calls from people looking for Skype and when I’ve asked it was usually because they searched in Google and ultimately somehow came up with my number (which I publish freely here on my blogs).
This morning, though, I asked the two gentlemen who called how they got my number, and these were there responses:
“I was calling MasterCard to report a fraud and they gave me this number for Skype.”
“Capital One told me to call this number.” (Capital One is a US credit card issuer.)
Oops.
You see, here is the fundamental problem:
SKYPE DOES NOT LIST A SINGLE PHONE NUMBER ON THEIR WEB SITE!
Don’t believe me? Visit www.skype.com and try it yourself. Find a regular PSTN phone number… I dare you to try! (And if you do, please leave a comment here!)
The closest you may get is to the “Where is Skype?” page that lists Skype’s Luxembourg address and an email address, but no phone number. Their press pages have a contact form, but no phone number. (Even Skype’s news releases don’t have contact info.)
This is not a new issue. People have been complaining about it in the forums for years (example 1, example 2). Tom Keating wrote about this issue back in 2005 on his blog – with lots of comments from people. And today people are filling up the comments on third-party sites like ContactHelp looking for a contact number.
And apparently some people are calling me.
I’ve asked people in the past and it has always seemed that: 1) because I write about Skype and show up in Google search results; and 2) because I list a phone number on my blog site… because of that people in their desperation call me to reach Skype.
Now it seems some of the largest US credit card companies are helping with that. (Probably because someone there went the search route, found my number, and entered it into some database.)
So now the question is …
what should I do?
Should I start taking the calls and invoicing Skype? How could I monetize this? Or have a bit of fun? 😉
The good news for me is that the number they are calling is my Google Voice number and so if the calls start to come frequently (there haven’t been many… but 3 now this week), I can just redirect it into an IVR application that can redirect callers looking for Skype to Skype’s email address. (Gee, I know a great platform on which to write such an app 🙂
At the moment I’m more amused than annoyed. Skype’s a rather large company these days and it’s amusing to me that they would make it so difficult for customers to interact with them that those customers wind up using the web and ultimately reaching out to little old me sitting up here in New Hampshire in my home office.
Now ask me that in a week or two if MasterCard keeps sending calls my way… 🙂
Oh, wait… there’s my phone… should I answer it “Thank you for calling Skype“?
P.S. And, oh, Skype… if you don’t want to staff up a call center to handle customer phone inquiries, there’s some really amazing technology out there that let’s you have a phone number people can call you on and you can give them “self-service” options. You know, those “IVR” thingies… with many options. Lots of companies offer this technology, including, oh, my employer, Voxeo. We even let you build those self-service portals across multiple channels, like voice, SMS, IM and Twitter- and we give you all sorts of cool analytics and other integration. In fact, we even let people call into our apps using Skype, so you could set up a self-service app that could be reached from either the PSTN or Skype… and we’re all SIP at the backend so we could interconnect with your backend as well. We’d be happy to talk to you about it… OUR phone number is prominently displayed on our web site… and you also know how to reach me on Skype 😉
P.P.S. It has been pointed out to me that Skype does offer support via live chat and email if you login to their website and visit https://support.skype.com/support_selection – No phone support, though.
Flickr credit: Phil Sexton
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If you recall, back in July Skype announced that it was leasing a gigantic 90,000 square feet of space in Palo Alto. Now it appears that they have moved into the space and Skype’s Jason Fischl posted some photos of the new digs to his Flickr account:
Looks like a fun office space to work in!
UPDATE: In an amusing bit of synchronicity, no sooner had I published this post then I saw in my Twitter feed that Skype’s Peter Parkes just published a similar post (only with the full photos). Too funny…
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Very cool to see that the Android 2.3 release includes a SIP stack:
The platform now includes a SIP protocol stack and framework API that lets developers build internet telephony applications. Using the API, applications can offer voice calling features without having to manage sessions, transport-level communication, or audio — these are handled transparently by the platform’s SIP API and services.
The SIP API is available in the android.net.sip package. The key class is SipManager, which applications use to set up and manage SIP profiles, then initiate audio calls and receive audio calls. Once an audio call is established, applications can mute calls, turn on speaker mode, send DTMF tones, and more. Applications can also use the SipManager to create generic SIP connections.
Naturally this SIP stack is only available if the carrier and manufacturer allow it:
The platform’s underlying SIP stack and services are available on devices at the discretion of the manufacturer and associated carrier. For this reason, applications should use the isApiSupported() method to check whether SIP support is available, before exposing calling functionality to users.
Call me cynical, but I could see a number of carriers NOT allowing the SIP stack.
The Android team has also very helpfully provided a SIP demo application.
I also am intrigued by the “Near Field Communications” addition (if you don’t know what NFC is, the Wikipedia entry is a good start). Looking forward to seeing what people do with that!
All in all Android 2.3 looks like a decent evolution of the platform… I’m definitely interested to see what people do with with SIP / VoIP capability. If you are an Android developer working with communications, what are you planning to do with it?
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Skype today rolled out a very cool initiative with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) where a new “low-bandwidth version” has been made available to UNHCR field staff so that they can communicate at no cost with family and friends. My immediate question on reading about it was:
Wouldn’t many enterprises want this capability? Or a similar version?
More on that in a moment, but first this is a great example to me of where VoIP can be used to enable communication in very difficult locations. In this case, the UNHCR already has Internet connectivity going into its locations through various means – this now allows the staff to use that connectivity for real-time communications. Consider where the UNHCR is using this software:
The new software has been tested successfully in Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan and is now available to 1,010 staff stationed in remote locations in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Chad, Congo, Iraq, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Uganda.
By the end of 2010, we plan for that to grow to more than 2,072 members of staff across 60 UNHCR locations including Kenya, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan. By the end of 2011, the aim is for Skype to be in at least 80% of UNHCR hardship locations and available to more than 3,000 staff members.
All of those are locations where the traditional communication infrastructure may be minimal or in the case of some refugee camps may not even exist.
In reading Skype’s blog post and watching their video (embedded below), the technology in the custom version seems to be this:
I can immediately think of other areas where people might want to use a minimal Skype version like this, and indeed the first comment to Skype’s post is for someone looking to use it for medical relief efforts in the Congo. Skype’s already being used by many crisis organizations… but a low-bandwidth version might only help them use Skype more efficiently. As Skype’s Peter Parkes notes in a response, this is an exclusive trial with UNHCR right now… but I do hope Skype will move quickly to make it available to others.
As I listened to the video, it definitely occurred to me that there are businesses and organizations out there who could also benefit from a low-bandwidth version of Skype. I think, for instance, of shipping companies with limited Internet connectivity to vehicles or ships. Or to companies with distributed offices with very small branch offices with very small Internet connections.
More so, my last bullet about a “network-security-friendly” version… the ability to restrict Skype usage to just this custom version would seem to be of use in certain business settings. Sure, you have some control today with Windows Active Directory settings… but it sounds like this offers more control.
I could see some companies, too, liking the ability to restrict the Skype usage to certain hours… although granted this is just a firewall configuration issue once you have a way to firmly restrict the Skype usage to the one version.
Of course, I was less thrilled to see that this version is Windows-only. I’ll save you my standard rant about Skype’s fragmented product strategy since I’ve ranted about that many times before… and in this case Skype is going a closed trial with a single organization, the UNHCR. If UNHCR uses only Windows systems, then it obviously makes sense for Skype to only develop it for Windows for UNHCR.
However, I know from some limited interaction with people involved with crisis relief and development in remote areas that there is a good bit of work going on with Linux-based solutions. For that reason, it would be good to see this low-bandwidth version available for Linux.
In any event, it’s great to see this initiative between Skype and UNHCR. The UNHCR folks do some great work under really difficult situations – and anything that can help aid their communication, even if it is just in helping them stay connected to friends and family – is a wonderful gift. I’m looking forward to hearing more about this initiative in the time ahead.
P.S. And purely FYI to either Tony Bates or whomever wrote the blog post, I think probably more people globally would be familiar with the term “custom” versus “bespoke”… but then again that’s the fun of the English language. 🙂
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Kudos to my friends up at Mitel for posting a customer profile to YouTube, this one of Starwood Hotels & Resorts:
Sure, it’s a very professionally-produced video that focuses on marketing messages… and yes, many other companies are already doing this… but having spent six years at Mitel (2001-2007) and having been a strong advocate of the company moving into social media, I just admit that I’m personally pleased to see them doing this.
Looking forward to seeing more…
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