Network
Connection
The OnTimeHost Network
Operations Center in Phoenix, Arizona is "OnNet" with Frontier Global Center
(FGC), which means that we have a direct fiber optic connection between
our Cisco 7200 router and theirs. Being OnNet with a Tier-1 provider means
that we don't link to a backbone, we are actually on a backbone. We have
no phone circuit, and do not use a Telecom link to get to the Internet;
instead, we have an in-house connection directly to FGC's ATM fiber node,
located a few floors below our servers in the same building. This fiber
optic line can handle the bandwidth of a T3 or an OC12, and with FGC's
Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology, it can handle several
times the bandwidth of an OC3.
Multiple Backbones:
We share the digital
distribution architecture of FGC, which is comprised of more than 25 high-speed
private peering connections to major Internet carriers such as MCI, Sprint,
UUNET, AT&T, AOL, Best, Erols, and others. FGC also has high-speed
links to 8 public exchanges including both MAE East and West and several
NAPS. To use an analogy, the private peering connections allow data
to travel from New York to LA on a non-stop flight, while the public exchanges
require a stop over.
Route Optimization:
We have a large
investment in BGP (Border Gate Protocol) technology, which allows the traffic
to your site to travel more efficiently by finding the best route for data
to travel. On a typical server the traffic always takes the same route
from client to server. For them, if there is a bad node, traffic does not
get through at all. Because we use BGP protocol, different and more efficient
routes are taken between client and server depending on traffic loads and
broken nodes. This means our servers automatically look for the fastest
route available.
Low Latency/High
Throughput:
Often providers
operate their networks at three to four times responsible capacity, and
as a result the corresponding transfer times reach over 300ms for each
hop along the net. Our network daily average is 6.5% of its capacity, with
mid-day peak spikes reaching only 15.5% capacity. Our transfer times range
from 15 to 80ms routinely.
Hardware and
System Information:
Each of our servers
is configured with the following hardware and software configurations.
|
CPU
|
Ethernet
Connection
|
Web Server
|
Operating
System
|
2.4 GHZ
1.0 GB Ram
|
100 Base T
|
Apache Version
1.3.33
|
Linux Redhat
Version 9.0 (Cartman), Kernel 2.8.0
|
|
