From: Sean Donelan <SEAN@SDG.DRA.COM> To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Internet Backbone Index Date: Wednesday, July 09, 1997 5:45 PM
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? How much bandwidth does DRA have to get these customer to other network? Let's compare bandwidth shall we.
DRA tries to do one thing well, rather than a lot of things not so well.
Like all things, the correct answer is "It depends." If you are interested in the DRA network geography, a pretty picture of the DRA North American POPs is at <http://dranet.dra.com/dranet.html>. BTW, all those locations are up, operational, and have DRA owned and operated equipment in place. DRA's international offices are located in Montreal Canada, Paris France, and Melbourne Australia. The primary NOC is in St. Louis, MO and backup NOC operates out of Monterey, CA.
Since DRA also has a lot of private connections (in the old NSFNET AUP days these were called 'backdoor' connections) calculating total bandwidth is a bit confusing. If you follow the AGIS bandwidth counting method, DRA has about 268 Mbps of possible bandwidth to other networks through public and private inter-connects, although DRA doesn't have any single link faster than 45 Mbps. However, bandwidth is rarely the problem. I've found a well engineered 56Kbps connection outperformed a DS3 port into a poorly engineered network.
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.
Except the model falls apart if 50% percent of the your Internet traffic isn't just to MCI, Sprint and UUNET, as in DRA's case. If you want to get anywhere off the commercial beaten path, like many of our customers do, things quickly get very bad if you stick with just those three providers. Most of our backdoor connections exist exactly for that reason.
Look at the KEYNOTE test sites. Although it might appear heavly weighted towards MCI, SPRINT, and UUNET (23 out of 35 sites), the network is never so simple. It works well as long as you are in a US city going to another US city. But looking at the Bell Canada graph, things don't work as well. Hint: If you are trying to reach a Canadian audience, don't put your web server in a US city. We've had a private 'backboor' connection to the University of Toronto for years for precisely this reason.
Further, about half the Keynote test sites seemed to have alternate connections. I couldn't figure out the numbers until I started doing traceroutes, and then things started making more sense. You'll discover
best route isn't always through MCI, Sprint or UUNET. Those little exchange points can make a difference.
St. Louis, MO MCI 207.230.62.16 Cybercon/Internet 1st $ traceroute 207.230.62.16 traceroute to 207.230.62.16 (207.230.62.16), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets 1 StLouis22-e3.dra.net (192.65.218.2) 200 ms 10 ms 0 ms 2 stlouix.starnet.net (198.32.132.12) 10 ms 20 ms 0 ms 3 e0-1-2.starnet2.starnet.net (199.217.255.97) 70 ms 10 ms 10 ms 4 router.cybercon.com (199.217.252.58) 10 ms 20 ms 10 ms 5 207.230.62.16 (207.230.62.16) 20 ms 10 ms 10 ms
It is amusing to look at AGIS's chart in the Boardwatch directory. The graph dramatically demostrates how badly AGIS's tough-line peering policy hurt it in this test. Refusing to peer with CRL or Goodnet wouldn't have changed CRL's or Goodnet's performance very much, but it does appear to hurt AGIS's performance. Maybe Sprint and MCI might want to re-think
Sean, we only have 805 Mbps of possible bandwidth to other networks. I not sure what you mean by a better engineered network. If you only have a routed network, not sure this is the best way to engineer a network today. Switch technology can do alot of good things. The model does fall apart if you say you are only going to buy from these three to five, but it does not fall apart if you watch your traffic and you buy from whom your traffic is going to. The idea is not to engineer poor peering in the MAEs and NAPs with a bunch of networks. Buy and manage from the networks you are going to and you will engineer a better product. I still think that if you really looked at a normal NSP traffic that the bulk of it is with 5 to 8 networks. I some what agree with some of what you say, that a peer could be a good thing if it is private and not in a shared peering in the MAEs and NAPs. You talk about engineering good networks, why then use something that is unmanaged and uses poor technology and poor engineer designs in a MAE or NAP? Where is most of the packet lost on the internet? MAEs and NAPs. Where does most of the latency come from? Routers. MAEs and NAPs are yesterdays ideas that everyone who has bought into the concept now has to live with it, they did not build the business around the fact they had to pay and manage to provide good service. The time is almost upon us that you pay for what you get on the internet and you must pay for the bandwidth that you use, not what you can over subscribe until your customer begin to leave. This is a tough model, few will make it. Some day the internet will use measurements, such as QOS and customer will be willing to pay for those who have engineered their networks to provide QOS. I only have one more question for you; how many router hops, on your network, from New York to Los Angeles? If it is more than 1, then tell me what your latency is from end to end. Let's compare, shall we. 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 ---------- the their
peering policies also. On the other hand, I've never heard of CompuServe turning down an opportunity to inter-connect their network with other networks.
I'm a pragmatic person. DRA has connections to several exchange points, and has many more private 'backdoor' connections to other networks. DRA even buys (gasp) service from a few other providers, and also sells service to a few other providers. All work well, customers are happy, and DRA is profitable. Let's compare balance sheets shall we? -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation