|
Internet Backbones Having multiple Internet backbone connections will not only provide the redundancy of your Internet connections, but it also improves the performance of your webpage or application serving. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) efficiently routes traffic by choosing the shortest path available to deliver your webpages to end users. What this means is data will be sent to the user, say on ATT network, through the ATT backbone, and data will be sent to the user, say on Sprint network, through the Sprint backbone. If one backbone fails, BGP will automatically reroute your traffic to other working backbone connections. It is important for you to find out what Internet backbone providers your hosting center is using, and how reliable and scalable these backbones are. You shouldn't be surprised if you find hosting centers claiming Internet backbone connections they don't have. Some hosting centers use second tier and third tier backbone providers that have limited capacity (such as DS3, or OC3) in their intra-city backbone links. It is important for you to check out these backbone providers' network maps. Most backbone providers put their network maps on their web sites. With a little research, you can find a hosting center's direct Internet backbone connections. Public network tools, such as looking glasses or traceroute from a BGP enabled router, allow you to check a hosting center's direct Internet backbone connections. Here is how: Disclaimer: All the tools and sites used here are not hosted at Cybercon data centers. These are third party independent tools. Step One: Find out the hosting center's AS number AS Numbers (Autonomous System Numbers) are assigned by ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers) to each major ISP or hosting center in North America. With an AS number, a hosting center can route traffic via the shortest path utilizing BGP. Each hosting company, regardless how many data centers they have, should only have one AS number. Here are two ways you can find out a hosting center's AS number: Method one: Using Sprint's Looking Glass:
* Go to Sprint's Looking Glass at http://oxide.sprintlink.net/cgi-bin/glass.pl; Here is a sample result for www.cybercon.com Query Results: sl-bb20-ana>trace www.cybercon.com Type escape sequence to abort. Tracing the route to www.cybercon.com (216.15.129.5) 1 sl-bb23-fw-10-2.sprintlink.net (144.232.18.241) 24 msec 24 msec 24 msec 2 sl-bb22-kc-12-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.18.230) 36 msec 32 msec 36 msec 3 sl-gw10-kc-6-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.23.82) 32 msec 36 msec 32 msec 4 sl-cybercon-inc-1-0.sprintlink.net (160.81.107.10) 52 msec 48 msec 48 msec 5 sprint.cybercon.com (66.201.123.34) [AS 7393] 52 msec 48 msec 52 msec 6 www.cybercon.com (216.15.129.5) [AS 7393] 52 msec 48 msec 52 msecThis shows that www.cybercon.com is using AS number: 7393 Method two: Using ATT's Router:
* Telnet into ATT's router at
telnet://route-server.ip.att.net/; Here is a sample result for www.cybercon.com Type escape sequence to abort. Tracing the route to www.cybercon.com (216.15.129.5) 1 white_dwarf.cbbtier3.att.net (12.0.1.1) [AS 7018] 4 msec 0 msec 0 msec 2 ar3.n54ny.ip.att.net (12.126.0.30) [AS 7018] 4 msec 4 msec 0 msec 3 gbr2-a31s11.n54ny.ip.att.net (12.127.5.158) [AS 7018] 4 msec 4 msec 4 msec 4 gbr3-p00.n54ny.ip.att.net (12.122.5.246) [AS 7018] 0 msec 0 msec 4 msec 5 gbr3-p30.wswdc.ip.att.net (12.122.2.166) [AS 7018] 8 msec 8 msec 12 msec 6 gbr3-p40.sl9mo.ip.att.net (12.122.2.82) [AS 7018] 28 msec 28 msec 28 msec 7 gbr6-p60.sl9mo.ip.att.net (12.122.5.185) [AS 7018] 28 msec 24 msec 28 msec 8 ar6-p3110.sl9mo.ip.att.net (12.123.24.125) [AS 7018] 28 msec 28 msec 24 msec 9 att.cybercon.com (12.125.64.6) [AS 7018] 32 msec 40 msec 28 msec 10 www.cybercon.com (216.15.129.5) [AS 7393] 28 msec 28 msec 24 msecThis shows that www.cybercon.com is using AS number: 7393 Now check out who owns AS number 7393:
Go to ARIN's WHOIS server;
Search results for: a 7393 OrgName: CYBERCON, INC. OrgID: CBCN Address: 210 N. Tucker Blvd. Address: Suite 700 City: Saint Louis StateProv: MO PostalCode: 63101 Country: US ASNumber: 7393 ASName: CYBERCON ASHandle: AS7393 Comment: RegDate: 1996-12-02 Updated: 2000-12-13It shows the AS number 7393 is owned by Cybercon and is created in 1996. So Cybercon is a major hosting center provider since 1996. Step two: find out the direct Internet backbone connections of a hosting center Go to RIS (Routing Information Service) looking glasss: http://www.ris.ripe.net/cgi-bin/lg/index.cgi; Here is a sample result for Cybercon AS number: 7393 BGP table version is 0, local router ID is 193.0.4.28 Status codes: s suppressed, d damped, h history, * valid, > best, i - internal Origin codes: i - IGP, e - EGP, ? - incomplete Network Next Hop Metric LocPrf Weight Path * 64.37.64.0/19 212.47.190.1 0 9177 3320 3356 7393 i *> 192.205.31.33 0 7018 7393 i * 129.250.0.232 7 0 2914 209 7393 i * 193.148.15.85 0 0 3257 209 7393 i * 64.211.147.146 0 3549 1239 7393 i * 202.12.28.190 0 4777 2497 1 7393 i * 193.0.0.56 0 3333 3356 7393 i * 192.65.184.3 0 513 3320 3356 7393 i * 193.148.15.34 0 1103 3356 7393 i * 212.20.151.234 0 0 13129 6461 3356 7393 iThe right column shows many ways to reach the Cybercon IP block: 64.37.64.0/19. It is displayed as AS paths (paths by AS numbers). e.g. 9177 --> 3320 --> 3356 --> 7393. From the bold typeface AS paths, you can see there are five ways to reach Cybercon AS number: 7393 3356 7393 (means 3356 --> 7393) 7018 7393 (means 7018 --> 7393) 209 7393 (means 209 --> 7393) 1239 7393 (means 1239 --> 7393) 1 7393 (means 1 --> 7393) This means Cybercon has five direct Internet backbone providers whose AS numbers are: 3356, 7018, 209, 1239, and 1. Now you can lookup who are these backbones from their AS numbers at ARIN's WHOIS server. For example, when you enter: a 3356, you will see 3356 is the AS number for: Level 3 Communications. Here are the AS numbers of top seven Internet backbones: AS 7018: AT&T AS 701: UUNET AS 1239: Sprint AS 3561: Cable & Wireless AS 209: Qwest AS 3356: Level 3 Communications AS 1: Genuity (formally BBNPlanet)Many backbone providers call themselves a tier one Internet backbone. The top seven backbone providers do not consider themselves equal to other providers, so they established a "Big 7 Peering Club". This club consists of the best and largest backbones on the Internet: AT&T, UUNET(Worldcom), Sprint, Cable & Wireless, Qwest, Level 3 and Genuity. These top tier backbones only trade peering traffic among themselves. Cybercon's data center has direct connections to five of the top seven backbones. Cybercon only uses top-seven backbones to route its traffic, to ensure our customers receive the best network performance for servers hosted in Cybercon's data center.
mocha@cybercon.com |
