Internap Premium .....

[eusriso]

From a NFO web page ....

"Our Value locations uses a cocktail of InterNAP bandwidth and other providers that are subject to change at any time. These providers will be other backbones such as Level3. The combination of InterNAP and the other providers is designed to provide a higher level of redundancy and better latency properties than the other provider alone, although not quite up to the standard InterNAP level of super-low pings.

It is important to note that the properties of the Value bandwidth may fluctuate over time as we choose different providers and alter the mix with InterNAP. Sometimes we may make a change required to keep the price point low that would increase the ping for a segment of the players.

Our Premium locations are based on a strong foundation of InterNAP bandwidth, but through the use of special routing rules and other bandwidth providers, we enhance it even further so that latencies are the lowest we can make them for all customers. "Premium" locations should offer the best possible latencies in their respective cities. Not just lower than InterNAP alone, but lower than anyone else out there."

I am new to NFO. Are you using Internap as a Carrier or are you using there routing equipment/protocol that aggregates multiple carriers at a data center to give you the best route .....

What are the value locations - is Seattle the only premium location? Same cost?

Please elaborate on this. My interest in NFO is strictly due to Internap and your sales pitch for quality carriers/network. Your cost for dedicated servers are somewhat pricey, VPS good but I will pay the "premium" (pun intended) for a 1st class network.

Please explain in detail your network. Thanks!

[soja]

I would wait for John to give an official answer, but from a customer perspective, and being a customer here for over a year:

All Internap locations employ the MIRO(http://www.internap.com/business-intern ... tion-miro/) technology, which provides some of the best latencies to an end user.

Internap buys bandwidth from a variety of carriers, and uses those links in combination with their MIRO technology to get the best possible routes to people. (So an answer to

I am new to NFO. Are you using Internap as a Carrier or are you using there routing equipment/protocol that aggregates multiple carriers at a data center to give you the best route .....

Internap itself is not really a carrier, it is a datacenter, it uses its technology over carriers like Level3, Cogent, etc)

I don't see any Value options currently, I think that is just an outdated page, or it is left there in case NFO brings back this option.

Premium isn't available for VDS's, it is in the same physical location as regular Internap bandwidth. Personally I usually see about a 5-10ms difference between Premium and regular Internap servers in Seattle. Seattle is the only premium location.

At the end of the day, NFOs bandwidth is the best available, yes their dedis are expensive compared to others, but you do get a lot for your money(10-12TB of internap bandwidth is very good for the price if you can use it all(we do!)). I preach NFO all day, their platform allowed us to grow, and continue to provide an excellent service.

[eusriso]

I may not have the logic right - but my understanding is this. You can buy bandwidth from Internap in there data centers (as you said) which Internap is aggregating/routing - or you can buy Internap's technology and aggregate/route using there solution in your own data center.

I want to understand exactly what NFO is doing with Internap. The hosting company I am with now is decent - but they are not are gaming focused. DDOS attacks cause problems and they are only using 2 carriers, aggregated/routed using BG4 (I think this is the Cisco protocol for routing). Performance is excellent for 60% but for 20% of the players it is poor - and it shouldn't be - distance is not that great for most of them.

[soja]

I may not have the logic right - but my understanding is this. You can buy bandwidth from Internap in there data centers (as you said) which Internap is aggregating/routing - or you can buy Internap's technology and aggregate/route using there solution in your own data center.

I want to understand exactly what NFO is doing with Internap. The hosting company I am with now is decent - but they are not are gaming focused. DDOS attacks cause problems and they are only using 2 carriers, aggregated/routed using BG4 (I think this is the Cisco protocol for routing). Performance is excellent for 60% but for 20% of the players it is poor - and it shouldn't be - distance is not that great for most of them.

NFO uses Internaps datacenter, and in non-premium locations(most of them) allows Internap to determine routing/aggregate the bandwidth. NFO owns in most locations single or multiple 10Gb links to Internaps network.

NFO has the ability to mitigate DDOS attacks using their own routers installed in (most of)Internaps datacenters, with the most common being automatically filtered by NFO, and they alert you when this happens. Most single attacks can be up to 10Gb in supported locations before they will effect you.

[kraze]

I am new to NFO. Are you using Internap as a Carrier or are you using there routing equipment/protocol that aggregates multiple carriers at a data center to give you the best route .....

We use 100% Internap bandwidth. We buy directly from them and not from a reseller. This allows us to offer the cocktail of providers which provides the best latency/route for our clients.

What are the value locations - is Seattle the only premium location? Same cost?

Don't let the term "Value" and "Premium" confuse you here. Premium is just a location which is based off of a strong Internap foundation. This allows us to provide the best possible latency to that location for customers. The only premium location is Seattle, but that doesn't necessarily make it better than the other ones. I would encourage you test both IPs for Seattle and see which one works better for you.

Please elaborate on this. My interest in NFO is strictly due to Internap and your sales pitch for quality carriers/network. Your cost for dedicated servers are somewhat pricey, VPS good but I will pay the "premium" (pun intended) for a 1st class network.

Our cost of dedicated servers is primarily due to a few things. 1) Internap bandwidth is high quality bandwidth and it's not cheap. 2) We only sell fast machines, which are also pretty expensive. Most companies which sell dedicated servers don't offer 1270's or later versions.

There are other cost as well. The large amount of bandwidth we provide in each package, gigabit ports, 24/7 support and our guarantees all play a factor in our pricing.
https://www.nfoservers.com/sla.php
https://www.nfoservers.com/performanceguarantee.php (Managed services only)

[eusriso]

Ok so you sold me. The middle of this month I will try your VPS solution (my current contract doesn't run out until first of march).

So two questions -

1. I was flagged some time ago by your security - I think I have to submit a copy of my CC. Can you send me the instructions so I can resolve this?

2. I am looking at Atlanta and NY. My first preference is NY due to the lower pings from Europe. From my location in Virginia it takes 10 hops once I leave my ISP to hit your New York server via cogentco. That is too many hops and I have had bad experience with congentco with my current hosting provider. The ping is not bad - mid 30's. Is there a way to change the carrier preference/path - at least on the return trip back to my client?

To get to Atlanta it takes five hops once I leave my ISP on NTT -much better.

What if anything can be done to improve the route and/or ping to NY?

[kraze]

1. I was flagged some time ago by your security - I think I have to submit a copy of my CC. Can you send me the instructions so I can resolve this?

You should contact us via the "help" tab in your control panel with the exact error you're seeing so we can help you with that.

2. I am looking at Atlanta and NY. My first preference is NY due to the lower pings from Europe. From my location in Virginia it takes 10 hops once I leave my ISP to hit your New York server via cogentco. That is too many hops and I have had bad experience with congentco with my current hosting provider. The ping is not bad - mid 30's. Is there a way to change the carrier preference/path - at least on the return trip back to my client?

Hops aren't really important. As long as you aren't seeing an increased latency I wouldn't be worried about it. If you're seeing higher than normal latency we can take a look.

[soja]

Cogent has a bad name, but if Internap chooses that path for you, it is probably the best available option. The other NSPs Internap uses might have a farther away peering location with your ISP network. As Kraze said, latencies are really what count. If the cogent path ends up having packet loss, or any other issue, Internap should choose a different route until it is resolved.

[Edge100x]

Just to chime in here and confirm: We use the Internap "Performance IP" bandwidth product, buying bandwidth directly from them. We also run our own routers and have our own DDoS mitigation systems, as DDoS mitigation is not a service that Internap provides.

The hop count is not useful as a metric, as many providers intentionally hide most of their hops in order to make the traces look better. Global Crossing has historically been the worst offender for this, sometimes showing no hops at all between endpoint cities, but others NSPs all do it to some degree as well. I noticed today that Verizon has begun hiding all intermediary hops in some cases, for instance. Cogent shows more hops than most, and that's actually a good thing, because it helps us to understand their network topology and to pinpoint where problems are occurring.

The metrics that matter most are latency, packet loss, and jitter (jitter is variation in latency over time). If all of these are within an acceptable range, then you're set. If not, please send us your tracert/MTR data, along with your client IP address, and we can investigate further. An advantage of Internap is that they have many "tier 1" providers (NSPs) available to choose from for the outbound path -- as many as eleven -- and can select a different one if there is a problem in that direction.

[eusriso]

My problem Cogent is 2 fold. One is that you will get a good ping, good game play and then it goes to crap. You run a tracert and you can see its one of there routers. 2nd it seems that it is difficult for users on other carriers to connect to cognet - some of the tracert's from other people are horrible.

Hopefully Internap will resolve the 2nd problem by having multiple carriers and efficient routing.

I did not know that the carriers were hiding the routers from tracert - that is bad from a troubleshooting standpoint, I guess good from a security standpoint.

Thanks for all of the replies/help.

[Edge100x]

Most of the time, we don't see problems with Cogent itself, and it's a necessary part of any good bandwidth mix now because all major ISPs use it themselves -- whether we like it or not. In the past, when Cogent was the only bargain provider and had little peering and few customers, circumstances were much different.

Recently, when it comes to NSPs, I see problems mainly with Tata and Verizon, as both have been badly overloading many of their peerings with other NSPs. Internap does not buy from Tata, so we only see them come into play when another provider hands off to them.