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DCA2 Network Infrastructure & Architecture
Summary:
The DCA2 advanced Network Operations Centre (NOC) in McLean, Virginia
is an essential part of the core network. The DCA2 NOC is staffed by
highly experienced Systems & Network Administrators 24 hours a day,
365 days a year, and features heavy-duty UPS (uninterrupted power),
diesel generator, and AC systems. DCA2 offers both premium and value
transit services.
The local network is arranged in four logical segments:
- Core - redundant Cisco 12012 GSR routers connected to the Internet and
the rest of our national coast-to-coast network via 155 Mb/s OC-3c and
1 Gb/s Gigabit Ethernet lines; running the full BGP4 protocol, thus
ensuring route optimization and redundancy.
- Distribution A - redundant Catalyst 4912G master switches that ensure
a fully redundant switching fabric between the core routers and the
DistB distribution switches.
- Distribution B - redundant high-end Cisco Catalyst 6509 MSFC2 /
Supervisor 2 master routing switches that distribute access to the
physical and virtual LANs and route internal traffic.
- Access - redundantly connected Catalyst 2924XL EE switches to which
all servers are connected. Each and every server gets a full 100Mb/s
full duplex port to the access layer.
The network does not use any 10Mb/s switches, or any hubs - at all. It
is completely Fast Ethernet (100 Mb/s, for access) and Gigabit
Ethernet (1000 Mb/s, for core and distribution) based. Both internal
and external network provides multiple, redundant, paths. Each and
every piece of the network is fully redundant: there is no single
point of failure. The network also includes a number of multi-terbyte
tape and RAID-based backup systems.
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Physical Network Infrastructure:
Looking Glass Networks, one of the most financially healthy fibre
carriers, provides our private fibre-optics through multiple OC-192
SONET rings throughout northern Virginia and DC.
The OC-192 SONET rings consist of two redundant OC-192s traversing two
separate paths and having two diverse routes to our facilities, thus
providing the ultimate in reliability and performance. Even if both of
the lines are cut at any point, the OC-192 ring is still operational,
with less than 50 ms (0.05 second) self-healing restoration time.
The multiple private SONET rings provide us the ultimate in
reliability: no downtime even in the case of a major fibre cut in the
area (due to separate paths and multiple fibres).
This DCA2 Looking Glass' SONET rings inter-connect with our DCA1
Verizon private SONET ring, thus providing fully redundant SONET data
path between the two local NOCs.
A number of other fibre carriers are on site, too: AboveNet (MFN),
Verizon, MCI, just to name a few.
Furthermore, we do not only connect within Virginia. The DCA2 site has
lines run within northern Virginia, DC and New York. The
directly-connected DCA1, IAD1, NYC1 & NYC2 sites further augment that
by additional Virginia, DC, Maryland, New York, Illinois, California
and Washington state based connectivity. This fully redundant physical
connectivity -- lines traversing from us in all directions -- ensures
that we will remain up and running even in case of a major disaster in
the area, due to this fully redundant physical network architecture.
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Logical Network Architecture:
Click to enlarge
Traffic from DCA2 considers all the outgoing routes - be it at the
same site or at one of the many other sites - equally, and picks the
most direct, lowest latency route available to the destination. That
is, all the packets take the most direct, fastest, way out and have a
full BGP selection of all the transit providers and peers at all the
sites, not just the transit/peering lines present locally. The network
is fully inter-connected and meshed.
For more details on our core network, such as a full backbone
connectivity and peering diagram and network maps of our transit Tier
1 backbone connectivity providers,
please review details on our core
network.
All customers and independent tests find our network to be better
performing than any single competitor.
Our industry-leading SLA
guarantees that.
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Further Advantages of The Network:
The northern Virginia area is an ideal location for a NOC. A very
large portion of the world's Internet traffic passes through here, and
the area is not subject to earthquakes, tornadoes, floods or other
natural disasters.
We are located at the true heart of the Internet, and in a very safe
and secure area. This central location ensures optimal connectivity,
speed, and routing, minimizing the number of hops - and thus the
chance of any problems. We are just a few blocks from MAE-East, the
original Internet peering exchange, and also very close to a great
number of private peering points. All providers have multiple,
redundant routes into the DC metro area. This is further built upon by
our redundant connectivity to multiple Tier 1 providers via separate
circuits, terminating at diverse locations in Virginia, DC, Maryland,
New York, Illinois, California and Washington state. We are
redundantly set-up Internet connectivity wise (multiple backbone
connectivity providers), as well as physically. In terms of fibre
optics, we have multiple private OC-192 SONET rings with multiple
financially-healthy fibre providers, taking different physical paths.
We have built our facilities in the best possible area for Internet
connectivity, and then further reinforced it with redundancy in all
possible forms and factors. For example, due to two nearby yet
separate NOCs (DCA1 & DCA2), we are able to offer two-location hosting
with the advantages, such as low latency (essential for redundant
database servers) of a single site, yet the redundancy and security of
two separate NOCs in two different states. We operate a high-capacity
APC UPS system and a second high-capacity Liebert UPS system, able to
power all the DCA2 servers for over 30 minutes in case of a power
outage. In case of a more extensive outage, the diesel power
generator, - that can keep running idefinitely, if need be -, would
kick into effect. Multiple 15 through 25 ton Liebert AC units - over
200 tons all together - are in use, too, maintaining a consistent
temperature of 18C and a dust-free environment at our NOC.
One of the most unique features of our DCA2 NOC is its US military /
NSA (National Security Agency) standard compliant "tempest room." Any
customer servers located in this room (upon request) will be fully
secure from eletrical or magnetic interference, as well as safe upon a
physical attack on the facilities. The "tempest room" is similar to a
bank vault, except that it has been built and designed to be used for
physically secure server hosting specifically.
To ensure the best routing of our customers' data, we pay for
commercial top-priority transit network capacity to our tier 1
backbone providers and have full burst capacity available at all times
on all circuits. Thus we receive the highest level of service,
including 99.99% or 100% uptime and no packet-loss guarantees, from
all our connectivity providers. 90%+ of traffic from us to end users
only passes over one or two backbones on its way to reaching the end
destination. In addition, we are committed to under 50% network
capacity utilization at all times; we ensure that our network always
has double the capacity it needs, even at peak hours.
The network design and operations ensure the very best connectivity,
speed, and reliability possible: 100% network uptime, no packet loss,
and under 3 ms low latency connection to Tier 1 backbones -
guaranteed
by our industry-leading SLA.
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DCA2 network & site in summary:
- located in McLean, VA - "the centre of the Internet" and a natural
disaster free zone
- UPS & diesel generator power backup & redundancy
- 200+ tons of AC power
- fibre redundancy through multiple private OC-192 SONET rings
- redundant architecture Gigabit Ethernet-based internal network, using
Cisco backbone-grade equipment
- redundant, geographically dispersed, connectivity to all of the
world's major backbones
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