|
North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Internet Backbone Index
>SAVVIS. Fortunately Our target markets are not just libraries and other >information providers, it's EVERYONE that needs a T1 and above connection >to the Internet. How many cities are you in Sean, where are DRA's POPs for >customers to access? How much bandwidth does DRA have to get these >customer to other network? Let's compare bandwidth shall we. DRA tries to do one thing well, rather than a lot of things not so well. Like all things, the correct answer is "It depends." If you are interested in the DRA network geography, a pretty picture of the DRA North American POPs is at <http://dranet.dra.com/dranet.html>. BTW, all those locations are up, operational, and have DRA owned and operated equipment in place. DRA's international offices are located in Montreal Canada, Paris France, and Melbourne Australia. The primary NOC is in St. Louis, MO and backup NOC operates out of Monterey, CA. Since DRA also has a lot of private connections (in the old NSFNET AUP days these were called 'backdoor' connections) calculating total bandwidth is a bit confusing. If you follow the AGIS bandwidth counting method, DRA has about 268 Mbps of possible bandwidth to other networks through public and private inter-connects, although DRA doesn't have any single link faster than 45 Mbps. However, bandwidth is rarely the problem. I've found a well engineered 56Kbps connection outperformed a DS3 port into a poorly engineered network. >When 80 to 90 percent of the Internet traffic is to MCI, SPRINT and UUNET >then our model is the right way to build this, not to try and see how many >peering agreements one can get. Except the model falls apart if 50% percent of the your Internet traffic isn't just to MCI, Sprint and UUNET, as in DRA's case. If you want to get anywhere off the commercial beaten path, like many of our customers do, things quickly get very bad if you stick with just those three providers. Most of our backdoor connections exist exactly for that reason. Look at the KEYNOTE test sites. Although it might appear heavly weighted towards MCI, SPRINT, and UUNET (23 out of 35 sites), the network is never so simple. It works well as long as you are in a US city going to another US city. But looking at the Bell Canada graph, things don't work as well. Hint: If you are trying to reach a Canadian audience, don't put your web server in a US city. We've had a private 'backboor' connection to the University of Toronto for years for precisely this reason. Further, about half the Keynote test sites seemed to have alternate connections. I couldn't figure out the numbers until I started doing traceroutes, and then things started making more sense. You'll discover the best route isn't always through MCI, Sprint or UUNET. Those little exchange points can make a difference. St. Louis, MO MCI 207.230.62.16 Cybercon/Internet 1st $ traceroute 207.230.62.16 traceroute to 207.230.62.16 (207.230.62.16), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets 1 StLouis22-e3.dra.net (192.65.218.2) 200 ms 10 ms 0 ms 2 stlouix.starnet.net (198.32.132.12) 10 ms 20 ms 0 ms 3 e0-1-2.starnet2.starnet.net (199.217.255.97) 70 ms 10 ms 10 ms 4 router.cybercon.com (199.217.252.58) 10 ms 20 ms 10 ms 5 207.230.62.16 (207.230.62.16) 20 ms 10 ms 10 ms It is amusing to look at AGIS's chart in the Boardwatch directory. The graph dramatically demostrates how badly AGIS's tough-line peering policy hurt it in this test. Refusing to peer with CRL or Goodnet wouldn't have changed CRL's or Goodnet's performance very much, but it does appear to hurt AGIS's performance. Maybe Sprint and MCI might want to re-think their peering policies also. On the other hand, I've never heard of CompuServe turning down an opportunity to inter-connect their network with other networks. I'm a pragmatic person. DRA has connections to several exchange points, and has many more private 'backdoor' connections to other networks. DRA even buys (gasp) service from a few other providers, and also sells service to a few other providers. All work well, customers are happy, and DRA is profitable. Let's compare balance sheets shall we? -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation
|