|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The fully redundant core network and backbone connectivity is
unsurpassed in its efficiency and performance. With nine separate
sites, located in six different states on both coasts and central
US, our network offers extremely low latency, no packet loss, and,
best of all, direct connectivity to all major global tier 1
backbones and other major networks & ISPs. This unique combination
provides a superior network infrastructure with an unmatched
quality of service.
Our core network consists of seven sites, located at five states,
coast-to-coast.
- DCA1 - Arvin Singh Memorial Network Operations & Data Centre,
providing top-quality, premium service since 1999; located in
distinguished Georgetown, Washington, DC
- DCA2 - state-of-the-art data centre, including advanced
features such as premium and value transit services, US military /
NSA standards compliant "tempest room," Looking Glass Networks,
AboveNet (MFN), MCI, Verizon, and others' fibre POPs on site,
multiple Gigabit transit & peering capacity, and numerous advanced
geographically dispersed hosting options; located in prestigious
Tyson's Corner, McLean, Virginia
- IAD1 - network presence for peering with major networks/backbones,
ISPs, cable and DSL providers; also for transit sales and direct
commercial transit connections; located at Equinix in Ashburn,
Virginia
- NYC1 - network presence at NYIIX, for peering with major
networks/backbones, ISPs, cable and DSL providers; especially many
European networks are located at NYIIX; located at Telehouse in
New York, New York
- NYC2 - further network presence in New York for peering; located
at 111 8th Ave. in New York, New York
- CHI1 - network presence for peering with major networks/backbones,
ISPs, cable and DSL providers; especially many Canadian networks
are located at Equinix Chicago; located at Equinix in Chicago,
Illinois
- PAO1 - network presence at PAIX, for peering with major
networks/backbones, ISPs, cable and DSL providers; especially many
Asian networks are located at PAIX; also for transit sales and
direct commercial transit connections; located at Switch & Data in
Palo Alto, California
- SEA1 - network presence at SIX & PAIX, for peering with major
networks/backbones, ISPs, cable and DSL providers; also for
transit sales and direct commercial transit connections; located
at the Westin Building in Seattle, Washington
- SEA2 - state-of-the-art data centre, offering premium
and value transit services, OnFiber, ELI, Level 3 and AboveNet
(MFN) PoPs on site, and many others nearby, multiple Gigabit
transit & peering capacity, and numerous advanced geographically
dispersed hosting options; located in high-tech Tukwila,
Washington
The network is legacy-free and only utilizes the latest in Cisco
internetworking equipment. The network is fully redundant at each
and every level possible, there being no single point of failure.
The network is fully fault tolerant and able to withstand a major
disaster.
|
|
|
| |
Physical Network Infrastructure:
The physical layer of the network consists of a number of
interconnected private OC-12 & OC-48 SONET rings. The Washington, DC
private IDSR (IntelliLight Dedicated Sonet Ring) is provided by
Verizon, the Virginia - DC multiple OC-48 SONET rings are operated by
Looking Glass Networks, and in Seattle both OnFiber and ELI redundant
SONET rings are used. The transport between Ashburn, VA, Chicago, IL,
Palo Alto, CA and Seattle, WA is provided over redundant Level 3 SONET
rings, while to New York Looking Glass Networks are used. All of the
fibre carriers are financially healthy and highly respectable, well
known organizations with proven 100% uptime and reliability (Verizon,
Looking Glass Networks, Level 3, OnFiber and ELI).
The OC-12 & OC-48 SONET rings consist of two redundant OC-12s or
OC-48s 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 SONET
ring is still operational, with less than 50 ms (0.05 second)
self-healing restoration time.
The multiple private SONET rings provide 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 carriers).
Click to enlarge
|
|
| |
Physical Connect Locations for
Tier 1 Backbone Providers:
- DCA1 - UUNet (MCI): NE Washington, DC
- DCA1 - QWest: NE Washington, DC
- DCA2 - Level 3: McLean, Virginia
- DCA2 - Savvis: NW Washington, DC
- DCA2 - ELI: McLean, Virginia
- IAD1 - France Telecom OpenTransit: Ashburn, Virginia
- SEA1 - UUNet (MCI): Seattle, Washington
- SEA2 - Level 3: Seattle, Washington
- SEA2 - Savvis: Tukwila, Washington (pending install)
- SEA2 - ELI: Tukwila, Washington
|
|
| |
Network Maps of Tier 1 Backbone
Providers:
- UUNet (MCI): Global Network / U.S. Network
- QWest: Global Network / U.S. Network
- Level 3: Global Network / U.S. Network
- Savvis: Global Network / U.S. Network
- ELI: Global Network / U.S. Network
- France Telecom OpenTransit: Global Network / U.S. Network
Traffic from each one of the sites 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 at
that particular site. The network is fully inter-connected and meshed.
|
|
| |
Extensive Peering:
In addition to buying commercial transit from the world's major tier 1
backbones, there is also an extensive peering network established.
Peering is the process whereby one network provider, such as us,
connects to another one directly -- bypassing the "middlemen"
(intermediary networks). Peering provides a more direct, faster, and
shorter route than transit by bypassing other third-party networks,
resulting in considerable performance gains.
We have a large number of peer sessions (over 500), composed of major
national & international backbones, ISPs and content providers, at the
Equinix Exchanges (IBX'es) in Ashburn, VA and Chicago, IL, at NYIIX in
New York, NY, at PAIX in Palo Alto, CA and Seattle, WA and at the SIX
in Seattle, WA, in addition to a large number of private peering
inter-connects. A partial list of our peers follows, below. Note that
new peers are added on a regular basis, so, the list below may not be
complete and up-to-date. For redundancy and optimal performance, we
peer with most peers at multiple locations (if the peer can meet us as
more than one location).
|
|
| |
Partial Peer List (last updated February 25, 2006): |
|
| |
|
|
| |
All
customers and independent tests find our network to be better
performing than any competitor. Our
industry-leading SLA guarantees that.
|
|
| |
Further Advantages of the Network:
The northern Virginia / DC area is an ideal location for a data
centre. 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 have two data centres in that
area, and a West Coast data centre in Seattle, WA, being able to
provide the ultimate in multi-site, geographically-dispersed,
mission-critical hosting services.
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 located right beside a great number of
of private and public peering points, in one of the most densely and
best connected areas in the world, including directly peering at the
Equinix Exchanges (IBX'es) in Ashburn, Virginia and Chicago, Illinois,
at the NYIIX in NYC, New York, at PAIX in Palo Alto, CA and Seattle,
WA and at the SIX in Seattle, WA. All providers have multiple,
redundant routes into the DC/VA area. This is further built upon by
the redundant connectivity to multiple Tier 1 providers via separate
circuits, terminating at diverse locations in Virginia and the
District of Columbia. 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-12 &
OC-48 SONET rings with multiple financially-healthy fibre providers,
taking different physical paths.
Likewise in Seattle, 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 and ELI. Seattle is one of America's
best connected high-tech cities, and is an excellent base for
high-performance, reliable Internet connectivity, and provides some of
the most reliable power found anywhere.
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 fully
autonomous 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. With the new
Seattle data centre (September, 2005), we can now offer geographically
dispersed hosting out of three data centres wholly operated by us:
both from two nearby data centres in the DC metro area, as well as
from data centres on both North American coasts.
To ensure the best routing of our customers' data, in addition to
peering, we also 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 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.
|
|
| |
Network & Backbone Connectivity in
summary:
- nine (9) sites with network presence in DC, Virginia, New York,
Illinois, California, and Washington state
- two major Data Centres at the heart of the Internet - in DC & Northern
Virginia, one of the most naturally safe and best connected areas in
North America
- an extremely well-connected and reliable Data Centre on the West Coast
- in Seattle, WA
- fully redundant AC & power at all sites
- physical fibre redundancy through multiple private OC-12 & OC-48 SONET
rings with seven (7) separate financially strong and highly competent
fibre carriers
- redundant network architecture using legacy-free, top-of-the-line
Cisco equipment at Fast Ethernet, OC-3, OC-12 and Gigabit Ethernet
speeds
- redundant, geographically dispersed, direct connectivity to all of the
world's major tier 1 backbones
- over 500 peering sessions - most traffic goes directly to the
destination network, bypassing any intermediary transit carriers
|
|
 |
|
