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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: multi homing pressure
On Oct 19, 2005, at 12:08 PM, Elmar K. Bins wrote: I probably used poor word choice. The "Tier" of a provider is just marketing unless you are talking about the networks in the "DFZ" ("SFI club", or whatever). When I made that statement, I was thinking more about the marketing hype, meaning a "tier two" not only has transit, but is a smaller, probably regional provider. Naturally, a "tier two" might very well be a huge company with network assets on multiple continents and 10s of Gbps (or more) of traffic.[email protected] (Patrick W. Gilmore) wrote:For the customer with an Internet "mission critical app", being tied to a Tier 2 has it's own set of problems, which might actually be worse than being tied to a Tier 1.Please elaborate. The problems with a small provider might include: * Business viability * Global reach * Capacity * Redundant architecture * Etc., etc., etc. Depends on the customer which of these are important. The guy with 10 Mbps of traffic all in Nashville, TN doesn't care about global reach or capacity, but might be VERY interested in redundant architecture & business viability. A mom-n-pop shop might not be the right choice for him. The guy with 12 datacenters in 6 states - or countries - might have different ideas of what is important. Maybe he's OK with one site going offline one day a year if he can save $10K on transit costs, so a mom-n-pop shop would be fine. Personally, I think if your application really is "mission critical", then you _must_ be multi-homed with your own space and own ASN. Anything less and you've tied your business to a vendor. I might like some networks, but I don't want my corporate life & death to be tied to any of them when I can ensure my independence for what is probably a small sum of money in the grand scheme of things. The question of which providers to use as upstreams is a business decision based on the items above, cost, and lots of other stuff. Sorry if I was unclear before. -- TTFn, patrick
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