On Wed, 9 Jul 1997, Gary Zimmerman wrote:
Sean did not know that Peering is what makes you a National Backbone Provider.
It doesn't, but having a national backbone that your customers can use sure does. Peering, in my opinion, only make that network better.
It may make you what has been coined as a tier 1 provider, but I do not see that this can scale as more companies access the net. If you remember at the Nanog meeting, Randy address this model of 2 to 5 peers/transits if I remember the discuss and that is what we are doing at 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?
Sean can obviously speak for himself, but I beleive they are in 27 countries and several cities in the US. I have spoken with many of the fine folks at DRA and have seen first hand how their network functions and am quite impressed.
How much bandwidth does DRA have to get these customer to other network? Let's compare bandwidth shall we.
Let's not, let's compare how well that bandwidth is managed. I can hear DRA routes through all my various connections in all the cities I'm located, through all the various peering and/or transit connections. Now, Savvis on the other hand selectivly announces their routes to their various NSP's, and those are not equal announcments as I travel one backbone to get to customer A, and yet a totally different backbone to get to customer B, and even so far as to goto a different city to get to customer C of yours. So if I cannot get to customer C in St Louis unless I travel UUnet to Chicago to get into your network, makes me think you DO NOT have a national backbone, but rather are no more than a reseller of transit such as myself. Actually, not as myself because my customers can travel my backbone between cities without heading out to a transit provider when staying within my customer connections on my network. And I garantee the same can be said for any true national backbone provider.
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.
You are right about our model, IT WORKS.
On good days I imagine it might, but I've seen so many problems with your routing it scares me. ============================================================== Tim Flavin Internet Access for St Louis & Chicago Internet 1st, Inc Toll Free Sales & Support 800-875-3173 http://www.i1.net For more information email info@i1.net ==============================================================
Gary Zimmerman V.P. of Network Engineering Savvis Communications Corp. email: garyz@savvis.com http://www.savvis.com Office: 314.719.2423 Address: 7777 Bonhomme Suite 1000 St. Louis, MO 63105
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From: Sean Donelan <SEAN@SDG.DRA.COM> To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Internet Backbone Index Date: Tuesday, July 08, 1997 3:55 PM
I would really like to know how Boardwatch can continually say Savvis is a national backbone provider when they peer with nobody, and that is part of their business plan, and only buy transit from the big 5. Then they neglect to list DRA as a backbone provider, when DRA appears at many major exchanges and peers with damn near everyone under the sun from what I can
Publisher's perogative.
I'm always amused when the latest edition of the Boardwatch ISP directory comes out. Fortunately, DRA's target markets are libraries and other information providers, not ISPs, although we have a few ISPs as customers. Even though DRA tried to provide accurate information to Boardwatch, it always seems to get mangled in the Boardwatch editorial process. For example, in the latest issue DRA's listing says we have a 0.099 Mbps connection with Sprint. I don't know how to even order a 0.099 Mbps connection. In a previous issue Boardwatch said DRA sold dialup connections for $19.95/month, even though we had told Boardwatch DRA didn't offer any dialup services. At least Boardwatch no longer lists Sean Doran as the chief engineer for InternetMCI.
After awhile one gets tired of trying to correct other people's mistakes over and over again. Maybe I should start following the InternetMCI model, and claim everything is a big secret. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation