Kontiki

Kontiki is a peer-assisted content delivery technology company, founded in November of 2000. It was acquired by VeriSign in March 2006. VeriSign as part of a major divestiture sold Kontiki to MK Capital in May 2008. [cite web | url=http://www.kontiki.com/kontiki-video-and-content-delivery-management/press-releases/pr-080505-MK-Capital-Completes-Acquisition-of-Kontiki-from-VeriSign.html | title=MK Capital Completes Acquisition of Kontiki from VeriSign | date= 2008-05-05| accessdate=2008-06-16]

Kontiki is characterized as peer-assisted because it uses a combination of central servers and peer-to-peer communications. The Kontiki Delivery Manager provides the basis of many of the UK's video on demand services, including Sky Anytimecite web | url=http://kontiki.com/kontiki-video-and-content-delivery-management/press-releases/pr-060110-Sky-Chooses-Kontiki-For-On-Demand-Video-Channel.html | title=Sky chooses Kontiki's secure peer-to-peer delivery management system | date=2005-10-01 | accessdate=2007-05-01] , 4odcite web | url=http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=194858 | title=VeriSign Provides Peer-to-Peer Delivery Infrastructure Enable Channel 4 On-Demand | date=2006-12-14 | accessdate=2007-05-01] and the BBC iPlayercite web | url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,16749-1771573,00.html | title=BBC aims to become big in online television | date=2005-09-09 | accessdate=2007-05-01] .Kontiki works using peer-assisted technology. Rather than the user downloading the entire television program from a central server, the Kontiki client combines pieces of the file downloaded from central servers with pieces of the file downloaded from other peers downloading the same content. Using this method the number of bits delivered from the central servers can be reduced, which can reduce cost. Additionally by leveraging other peers the system scales much more efficiently, and the more popular a piece of content is the more efficiently the system works. This is generally true for all peer-to-peer based systems.

Key facts about Kontiki

* All communications are encrypted and signed using a closed public key infrastructure. This ensures that each peer is an authorized member of the p2p network, and that nobody can inject malware into the network via a man in the middle attack.
* Kontiki does not allow for individual users to publish their own content and is therefore not a file sharing network, but a managed file distribution network.
* During the publishing process all content is virus and malware checked before distribution.
* Kontiki's patented technology is network topology aware. Centralized Kontiki directory servers use a combination of statically configured network information and dynamically gathered network topology information to hand out peer connections in a way that minimizes the load on the network. This has the effect of using the most local network resources first, LAN, WAN (in the enterprise), ASN, ISP, Other.
* Kontiki can offer a guaranteed [QoS] because it can blend traffic downloaded from peers with centrally served bandwidth. If a peer is experiencing slow peer downloads it will connect with Kontiki origin servers to ensure fast downloads.

Kontiki has four parts: Network Publisher, Network Protector, Network Manager and Analyser. [cite web | url=http://kontiki.com/peer-assisted-video-delivery-technology/ | title=Kontiki Delivery Management System| date= | accessdate=2007-08-15]

How Kontiki is deployed and configured:

Kontiki operates a B2B business and allows its customers to configure the Kontiki software to suit their needs. Decisions regarding how much end-user control to expose are up to those configuring and deploying the Kontiki solution. This includes many configuration parameters, including whether or not the back end service (Kservice.exe) continues to operate when the front end (Khost.exe) is closed.

Most Kontiki client implementations allow for the back-end service (KService.exe) to continue to run when the provider's front end application (khost.exe) is closed. KService.exe continues to participate in the Kontiki network, downloading content the user has requested and possibly uploading parts of the content already downloaded to others in the Kontiki network. Each implementation can be configured individually, for example the BBC iPlayer provides an option to stop sharing when the client closes.

This can be particularly troublesome for users with broadband connections that include a capped monthly upload limit. [cite web | last=Christostomou | first=Chris | url=http://mou.me.uk/2007/05/09/kserviceexe-channel-4-and-the-stolen-bandwith/ | title=kservice.exe, Channel 4 and the stolen bandwith... (sic) | date=2007-05-09 | accessdate=2007-06-13]

Known Issues

Early versions of the Kontiki software had a few known issues that affect a small portion of the overall userbase.
* Taking up 100% of processor time when running. [cite web | url=http://mion.faireal.net/BES/ | title=Battle Encoder Shirase | date=2008-02-09 | accessdate=2008-04-29]
* KService.exe crashing at system shutdown time.To fix these issues upgrade to the latest version of the client offered by the service in question (BBC, Sky, Channel 4, etc...)

Uninstallation

Kontiki should be removed using the standard uninstallation system for your platform (Windows, Mac, Linux). When the last application using Kontiki is removed the core back-end service (KService.exe) will also be removed.

Example: If you have the Channel 4 4oD service and the BBC iPlayer installed then going to the Control Panel and uninstalling the iPlayer will not remove KService.exe. Once 4oD is uninstalled then KService.exe will also be removed.

KClean.exe is a program that eliminates all Kontiki components. However, use of this program will eliminate everything Kontiki from the system and break the functioning of applications that require it.

Discussion of Network Neutrality

(This should probably be moved to another non-Kontiki specific place)
This extra bandwidth used could make UK ISPs put up their prices or use technical measures such as blocking or traffic shaping to deal with iPlayer traffic. It is estimated that an hour of iPlayer downloads at peak time would cost them 67 pence at BT wholesale prices. [cite web | url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/14/bbc_iplayer_isp_analysis/ | title=iPlayer Politics: Behind the ISPs vs BBC row | date=2007-08-14 | accessdate=2007-08-15]

See Also The P4P Initiative.

Discussion of p2p & network load:

(this should probably be moved to another non-Kontiki specific place)
P2P does have additional overhead when compared to HTTP downloads. However, in comparison to the size of the files typically delivered over P2P networks this overhead is insignificant. Example: downloading a 500Mb TV show. HTTP overhead = approximately 350 bytes for request and response headers. Assuming that the P2P communications are 10 times larger at 3500 bytes that is still only 0.00066% overhead.

Impacts to ISPs:
Whether P2P is involved or not the number of bytes required to deliver a file remains roughly the same. Sending a 1Gb file to 1024 people means sending 1Tb of data, with our without p2p. The primary difference is in how the bits get there. This is not the case with realtime delivery. In order to guarantee realtime delivery via P2P, multiple peers have to send the same data. This parity data can be as much as 50% extra.

ISP networks historically have been optimized for sending bits from centralized servers to clients. These are the superhighways of the Internet. Most P2P networks assign peers randomly and are not network topology aware like Kontiki is. This means that many of the bits being downloaded may come from far away places. This is analogous to a bunch of people getting off the highway and using the rural and surface streets which were not designed to handle the kind of traffic that the highways were. Furthermore ISP have connections to each other called peering points that are like toll roads, when traffic goes across these links between ISPs it costs them money. So it is the nature of the traffic caused by P2P, not necessarily the volume that is the key issue.

ee also

*peer-to-peer
*Bittorrent
* The P4P Initiative.

References

External links

* [http://www.kontiki.com/ Kontiki Homepage]
* [http://www.pcdoctor-guide.com/wordpress/?p=2487/ PC Doctors Removal Tool] Removal tool for a clean uninstallation (NB link to removal tool now broken see below for new tool)
* [http://static.sky.com/kclean/KClean.exe Direct Download] of the official removal tool from Sky (found by RJ)]
* [http://blog.ipdev.net/2007/08/iplayer-technology-review.html IPDev Blog: Review of the iPlayer]