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SEA2 Network Infrastructure & Architecture
Summary:
The SEA2 advanced Network Operations
Centre (NOC) in Tukwila, Washington is an essential part of the
core network. The SEA2 NOC is
staffed by highly experienced Systems & Network Administrators 24
hours a day, 365 days a year, and features three (3) parallel N+1
500KVA UPS systems with maximum battery life, a 1.5MW diesel
generator, and 100s of tons of AC capacity. SEA2 offers both premium
and value transit services.
The local network is arranged in four logical segments:
- Core - redundant Cisco 12008/12012 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.
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Physical Network Infrastructure:
OnFiber, ELI, and Sabey, three of the most financially healthy fibre
carriers, provide our local private, redundant, SONET-ring based fibre
transport circuits.
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 fibre transport providers).
A number of other fibre carriers are on site, too: AboveNet (MFN) and
Level 3 just to name a few, and more are nearby.
Furthermore, we do not only connect within the Seattle metro area. The
Seattle portion of our network is fully tied in with our national
coast-to-coast IP backbone, and connects to Palo Alto, CA (PAO1) and
Ashburn, VA (IAD1) directly via our Seattle, WA site (SEA1).
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Logical Network Architecture:
Click to enlarge
Traffic from SEA2 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 Our Network:
Seattle is one of the best connected high-tech cities in the US (all
major networks peer locally in Seattle, and it is under 30ms to
California, under 75ms to the East Coast), and has some of the most
reliable power anywhere. Furthermore, we are located in a stable and
level area (ground level of a well-built single story facility),
providing the best resistance to earthquakes, and have multiple
diverse-path fibre transport circuits with OnFiber, ELI, and Sabey.
In Seattle we peer both at the SIX (Seattle Internet Exchange) and
PAIX Seattle, thus reaching almost all the major networks locally.
This is further built upon by our redundant connectivity to multiple
Tier 1 providers via separate circuits, terminating at diverse
locations in Tukwila (south of Seattle) and Seattle downtown. 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 SONET rings with multiple
financially-healthy fibre providers (OnFiber, ELI, and Sabey), 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. The big 1.5MW generator can keep well over
5000 servers up and running indefinitely (though with the very
reliable and abundant electricity in Seattle, power there is not
typically an issue). The three (3) N+1 redundant 500KVA UPS systems
(with maximum battery life each) ensure that even if one UPS fails,
there is no noticeable impact whatsoever. There is currently 180 tons
of Air Conditioning within the data centre, with easy ability to
triple it to 540 tons using the existing dry coolers. The entire data
centre has been built out with no expense being spared, and with
further future expansion in mind. As it stands now, it is already able
to accommodate 5,000 - 8,000 total servers.
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.
Our 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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Our SEA2 network & site in summary:
- located in Tukwila, WA - south of Seattle solid, level area
- 3 x 500KVA N+1 redundant UPS & 1.5MW diesel generator power backup &
redundancy
- 180 tons of AC power, with easy expandability up to 540 tons
- fibre redundancy through multiple private SONET rings via multiple
carriers
- 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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