Hi Folks, I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research? The challenges: 1. Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files). 2. Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time. 3. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa 4. We can initially only have one POP This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different. Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region? "Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa. Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa. I hope this is the right place to ask. Thanks! Ken
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps. Just just use the South Africa AWS region. On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 3:35 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Folks,
I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research?
The challenges:
1. Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files). 2. Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time. 3. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa 4. We can initially only have one POP
This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different.
Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region?
"Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa.
Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa.
I hope this is the right place to ask.
Thanks!
Ken
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 4:57 PM Akshay Kumar via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
Just just use the South Africa AWS region.
^^ You had me for a second there. AWS ain't operational yet in South Africa. Sometime 2020/2021 only.
My bad. They announced that Oct 2018 so I figured they'd be close to it now. Yeah turns out it's mid 2020 :-( https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/in-the-works-aws-region-in-south-africa/ On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 4:02 PM Chris Knipe <savage@savage.za.org> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 4:57 PM Akshay Kumar via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
Just just use the South Africa AWS region.
^^ You had me for a second there. AWS ain't operational yet in South Africa. Sometime 2020/2021 only.
On 16/07/2019 16:08, Akshay Kumar via NANOG wrote:
My bad. They announced that Oct 2018 so I figured they'd be close to it now. Yeah turns out it's mid 2020 :-(
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/in-the-works-aws-region-in-south-africa/
Azure does have regions in operation in South Africa [1] 1 - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/global-infrastructure/services/?products=k...
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 4:02 PM Chris Knipe <savage@savage.za.org <mailto:savage@savage.za.org>> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 4:57 PM Akshay Kumar via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org <mailto:nanog@nanog.org>> wrote:
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
Just just use the South Africa AWS region.
^^ You had me for a second there. AWS ain't operational yet in South Africa. Sometime 2020/2021 only.
Isn't the OP really asking here (not to have their selection of platform wrangled..): "Where should I target my search: ZA only? is there anywhere else worth dropping my request?" and: "Are there likely providers of solid colo aside from seacom/tinka-net or workonline/ben-net ?" On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 11:12 AM Akshay Kumar via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
My bad. They announced that Oct 2018 so I figured they'd be close to it now. Yeah turns out it's mid 2020 :-(
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/in-the-works-aws-region-in-south-africa/
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 4:02 PM Chris Knipe <savage@savage.za.org> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 4:57 PM Akshay Kumar via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
Just just use the South Africa AWS region.
^^ You had me for a second there. AWS ain't operational yet in South Africa. Sometime 2020/2021 only.
Bingo On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 09:30, Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists@gmail.com> wrote:
Isn't the OP really asking here (not to have their selection of platform wrangled..): "Where should I target my search: ZA only? is there anywhere else worth dropping my request?"
and: "Are there likely providers of solid colo aside from seacom/tinka-net or workonline/ben-net ?"
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 11:12 AM Akshay Kumar via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
My bad. They announced that Oct 2018 so I figured they'd be close to it
now. Yeah turns out it's mid 2020 :-(
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/in-the-works-aws-region-in-south-africa/
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 4:02 PM Chris Knipe <savage@savage.za.org>
wrote:
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 4:57 PM Akshay Kumar via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
wrote:
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a
long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
Just just use the South Africa AWS region.
^^ You had me for a second there. AWS ain't operational yet in South Africa. Sometime 2020/2021 only.
On 16/Jul/19 17:28, Christopher Morrow wrote:
Isn't the OP really asking here (not to have their selection of platform wrangled..): "Where should I target my search: ZA only? is there anywhere else worth dropping my request?"
The easiest regions will be East (Kenya) and South (South Africa).
and: "Are there likely providers of solid colo aside from seacom/tinka-net or workonline/ben-net ?"
SEACOM and Workonline just do network. For co-lo, we have solid operators in East and South: * Teraco - https://www.teraco.co.za/ - who will give you excellent co-lo in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. * iColo - https://www.icolo.io/ - who will give you excellent co-lo in Mombasa. Nairobi is due to open by September this year. * Raxio - https://www.raxio.co.ug/ - who will give you excellent co-lo in Kampala. Door open in December this year. Teraco run NAPAfrica, which is Africa's largest exchange point by traffic switched - https://www.napafrica.net/. They also have instances of the INX-ZA exchange points, which are JINX (Johannesburg), DINX (Durban) and CINX (Cape Town). iColo will be deploying an instance of KIXP (Kenya IXP) - https://www.tespok.co.ke/?page_id=11648 - and Asteroid - https://www.asteroidhq.com/. Raxio will also host an instance of the UIXP - https://www.uixp.co.ug/. From a network standpoint, you have a few options: * SEACOM - AS37100 * Workonline - AS37271 * Liquid - AS30844 * WIOCC - AS37662 These are the main network operators that run a good deal of network between Europe, Eastern Africa, Southern Africa and parts of Asia-Pac. Hope this helps. Mark.
On 16/Jul/19 17:08, Akshay Kumar via NANOG wrote:
My bad. They announced that Oct 2018 so I figured they'd be close to it now. Yeah turns out it's mid 2020 :-(
I'd take all targets with a very large grain of salt. Experience has shown that these things always take longer than planned... and then take longer again, after that. There other folk offering servers (bare and virtual) in the region. So if you're not gung-ho on a name brand, you're in luck. Mark.
On 7/16/19 10:55 AM, Akshay Kumar via NANOG wrote:
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
Well the man wants bare metal, and while there's arguments for and against it, it's what he wants to buy :) That said, I'm one of those guys that likes owing my own hypervisor, don't need to worry about the side channel/memory/OOO execution attacks from rogue VM's if it's only my VM's on it. Plus AWS ain't cheap either. -- Bryan Fields 727-409-1194 - Voice http://bryanfields.net
Thanks for chiming in but his reason for can't be cloud was, "We use the full capacity of each server, all the time." That ain't good reason. They do have baremetal servers like I pointed out. We use them when for cases where we need access to perf counters. On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 4:10 PM Bryan Fields <Bryan@bryanfields.net> wrote:
On 7/16/19 10:55 AM, Akshay Kumar via NANOG wrote:
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
Well the man wants bare metal, and while there's arguments for and against it, it's what he wants to buy :)
That said, I'm one of those guys that likes owing my own hypervisor, don't need to worry about the side channel/memory/OOO execution attacks from rogue VM's if it's only my VM's on it. Plus AWS ain't cheap either.
-- Bryan Fields
727-409-1194 - Voice http://bryanfields.net
Thanks for all the replies! (really fast!) The requirement for Bare Metal is very specific. Dealing with high speed large files is very different to dealing with high volume small files. We regularly encounter bottlenecks at the FSB and at the IO level. Even things like RAID slows us down, so we have to squeeze every iota of power out of the servers that we can. Plus, most of our customers in Africa use our free version so cost savings are also important, and so is accessibility. On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 09:10, Bryan Fields <Bryan@bryanfields.net> wrote:
On 7/16/19 10:55 AM, Akshay Kumar via NANOG wrote:
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
Well the man wants bare metal, and while there's arguments for and against it, it's what he wants to buy :)
That said, I'm one of those guys that likes owing my own hypervisor, don't need to worry about the side channel/memory/OOO execution attacks from rogue VM's if it's only my VM's on it. Plus AWS ain't cheap either.
-- Bryan Fields
727-409-1194 - Voice http://bryanfields.net
The cloud isn't always the right decision for the end customer. In many cases, it's the worst decision. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions Midwest Internet Exchange The Brothers WISP ----- Original Message ----- From: "Akshay Kumar via NANOG" <nanog@nanog.org> To: "Ken Gilmour" <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> Cc: "North Group" <nanog@nanog.org> Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2019 9:55:12 AM Subject: Re: Colo in Africa The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps. Just just use the South Africa AWS region. On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 3:35 PM Ken Gilmour < ken.gilmour@gmail.com > wrote: Hi Folks, I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research? The challenges: 1. Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files). 2. Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time. 3. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa 4. We can initially only have one POP This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different. Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region? "Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa. Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa. I hope this is the right place to ask. Thanks! Ken
Speed is not the issue, it's IO. Also streaming 100Gbps of video is very different to streaming 100Gbps of files smaller than 100kb (average of about 30kb) the issue on the network level is the number of connections and CPU, on the server side it's IO and FSB On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 08:55, Akshay Kumar <akshay@mongodb.com> wrote:
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
Just just use the South Africa AWS region.
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 3:35 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Folks,
I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research?
The challenges:
1. Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files). 2. Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time. 3. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa 4. We can initially only have one POP
This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different.
Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region?
"Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa.
Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa.
I hope this is the right place to ask.
Thanks!
Ken
Go look at the actual specifications for one of the metal boxes - you are not going to come close to maxing anything out with the workload you describe. FSB hasn't been a thing in over a decade. If you really wanted to go crazy you could do some build a custom solution in FPGA on the F1s. It's a moot point since none of this is going to be available in time but perf is a bogus reason and a lot of the times price is too. On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 5:12 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
Speed is not the issue, it's IO. Also streaming 100Gbps of video is very different to streaming 100Gbps of files smaller than 100kb (average of about 30kb) the issue on the network level is the number of connections and CPU, on the server side it's IO and FSB
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 08:55, Akshay Kumar <akshay@mongodb.com> wrote:
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
Just just use the South Africa AWS region.
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 3:35 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Folks,
I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research?
The challenges:
1. Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files). 2. Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time. 3. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa 4. We can initially only have one POP
This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different.
Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region?
"Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa.
Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa.
I hope this is the right place to ask.
Thanks!
Ken
Have you priced F1 solutions? -Ben Cannon CEO 6x7 Networks & 6x7 Telecom, LLC ben@6by7.net <mailto:ben@6by7.net>
On Jul 16, 2019, at 9:33 AM, Akshay Kumar via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
Go look at the actual specifications for one of the metal boxes - you are not going to come close to maxing anything out with the workload you describe. FSB hasn't been a thing in over a decade. If you really wanted to go crazy you could do some build a custom solution in FPGA on the F1s.
It's a moot point since none of this is going to be available in time but perf is a bogus reason and a lot of the times price is too.
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 5:12 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com <mailto:ken.gilmour@gmail.com>> wrote: Speed is not the issue, it's IO. Also streaming 100Gbps of video is very different to streaming 100Gbps of files smaller than 100kb (average of about 30kb) the issue on the network level is the number of connections and CPU, on the server side it's IO and FSB
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 08:55, Akshay Kumar <akshay@mongodb.com <mailto:akshay@mongodb.com>> wrote: The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
Just just use the South Africa AWS region.
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 3:35 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com <mailto:ken.gilmour@gmail.com>> wrote: Hi Folks,
I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research?
The challenges: Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files). Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa We can initially only have one POP This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different.
Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region?
"Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa.
Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa.
I hope this is the right place to ask.
Thanks!
Ken
These are actual real problems we face. thousands of customers load and reload TBs of data every few seconds on their dashboards. We have busy servers. We tried cloud. I passionately hate it. We choose to use Bare Metal. On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 10:34, Akshay Kumar <akshay@mongodb.com> wrote:
Go look at the actual specifications for one of the metal boxes - you are not going to come close to maxing anything out with the workload you describe. FSB hasn't been a thing in over a decade. If you really wanted to go crazy you could do some build a custom solution in FPGA on the F1s.
It's a moot point since none of this is going to be available in time but perf is a bogus reason and a lot of the times price is too.
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 5:12 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
Speed is not the issue, it's IO. Also streaming 100Gbps of video is very different to streaming 100Gbps of files smaller than 100kb (average of about 30kb) the issue on the network level is the number of connections and CPU, on the server side it's IO and FSB
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 08:55, Akshay Kumar <akshay@mongodb.com> wrote:
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
Just just use the South Africa AWS region.
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 3:35 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Folks,
I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research?
The challenges:
1. Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files). 2. Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time. 3. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa 4. We can initially only have one POP
This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different.
Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region?
"Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa.
Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa.
I hope this is the right place to ask.
Thanks!
Ken
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 10:39:59 -0600, Ken Gilmour said:
These are actual real problems we face. thousands of customers load and reload TBs of data every few seconds on their dashboards.
If they're reloading TBs of data every few seconds, you really should have been doing summaries during data ingestion and only reloading the summaries. (Overlooking the fact that for dashboards, refreshing every few seconds is usually pointless because you end up looking at short-term statistical spikes rather than anything that you can react to at human speeds. If you *care* in real time that the number of probes on a port spiked to 457% of average for 2 seconds you need to be doing automated responses.... Custom queries are more painful - but those don't happen "every few seconds".
We have a different use case to traditional analytics - We're aimed at consumers and small businesses, so instead of a SOC with one big screen refreshing 10000 rows of only alert data every 30 seconds, we have thousands of individuals refreshing all of their data every 30 seconds because there are comparatively less alerts for individuals than enterprises. What you "should" do often doesn't translate to what you "do" do. On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 11:23, Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 10:39:59 -0600, Ken Gilmour said:
These are actual real problems we face. thousands of customers load and reload TBs of data every few seconds on their dashboards.
If they're reloading TBs of data every few seconds, you really should have been doing summaries during data ingestion and only reloading the summaries. (Overlooking the fact that for dashboards, refreshing every few seconds is usually pointless because you end up looking at short-term statistical spikes rather than anything that you can react to at human speeds. If you *care* in real time that the number of probes on a port spiked to 457% of average for 2 seconds you need to be doing automated responses....
Custom queries are more painful - but those don't happen "every few seconds".
Are they refreshing data they've already got, though? This is the classic use case for client-side caching. On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 5:56 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
We have a different use case to traditional analytics - We're aimed at consumers and small businesses, so instead of a SOC with one big screen refreshing 10000 rows of only alert data every 30 seconds, we have thousands of individuals refreshing all of their data every 30 seconds because there are comparatively less alerts for individuals than enterprises.
What you "should" do often doesn't translate to what you "do" do.
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 11:23, Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 10:39:59 -0600, Ken Gilmour said:
These are actual real problems we face. thousands of customers load and reload TBs of data every few seconds on their dashboards.
If they're reloading TBs of data every few seconds, you really should have been doing summaries during data ingestion and only reloading the summaries. (Overlooking the fact that for dashboards, refreshing every few seconds is usually pointless because you end up looking at short-term statistical spikes rather than anything that you can react to at human speeds. If you *care* in real time that the number of probes on a port spiked to 457% of average for 2 seconds you need to be doing automated responses....
Custom queries are more painful - but those don't happen "every few seconds".
What matters is whether or not we can get a facility in Africa to provide service to our customers from Bare Metal Servers :) On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 16:07, C. A. Fillekes <cfillekes@gmail.com> wrote:
Are they refreshing data they've already got, though? This is the classic use case for client-side caching.
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 5:56 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
We have a different use case to traditional analytics - We're aimed at consumers and small businesses, so instead of a SOC with one big screen refreshing 10000 rows of only alert data every 30 seconds, we have thousands of individuals refreshing all of their data every 30 seconds because there are comparatively less alerts for individuals than enterprises.
What you "should" do often doesn't translate to what you "do" do.
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 11:23, Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 10:39:59 -0600, Ken Gilmour said:
These are actual real problems we face. thousands of customers load and reload TBs of data every few seconds on their dashboards.
If they're reloading TBs of data every few seconds, you really should have been doing summaries during data ingestion and only reloading the summaries. (Overlooking the fact that for dashboards, refreshing every few seconds is usually pointless because you end up looking at short-term statistical spikes rather than anything that you can react to at human speeds. If you *care* in real time that the number of probes on a port spiked to 457% of average for 2 seconds you need to be doing automated responses....
Custom queries are more painful - but those don't happen "every few seconds".
If Nigeria is a possible location, you have a few, off the top of my head is any telco's colo (MTN, Airtel, Glo, or 9Mobile), and there's RackCentre, MainOne and I think IPNX for colo (virtual and bare metal). On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 11:48 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
What matters is whether or not we can get a facility in Africa to provide service to our customers from Bare Metal Servers :)
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 16:07, C. A. Fillekes <cfillekes@gmail.com> wrote:
Are they refreshing data they've already got, though? This is the classic use case for client-side caching.
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 5:56 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
We have a different use case to traditional analytics - We're aimed at consumers and small businesses, so instead of a SOC with one big screen refreshing 10000 rows of only alert data every 30 seconds, we have thousands of individuals refreshing all of their data every 30 seconds because there are comparatively less alerts for individuals than enterprises.
What you "should" do often doesn't translate to what you "do" do.
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 11:23, Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 10:39:59 -0600, Ken Gilmour said:
These are actual real problems we face. thousands of customers load and reload TBs of data every few seconds on their dashboards.
If they're reloading TBs of data every few seconds, you really should have been doing summaries during data ingestion and only reloading the summaries. (Overlooking the fact that for dashboards, refreshing every few seconds is usually pointless because you end up looking at short-term statistical spikes rather than anything that you can react to at human speeds. If you *care* in real time that the number of probes on a port spiked to 457% of average for 2 seconds you need to be doing automated responses....
Custom queries are more painful - but those don't happen "every few seconds".
-- cordially yours, Sina Owolabi +2348176469061
On 17/Jul/19 00:57, Sina Owolabi wrote:
If Nigeria is a possible location, you have a few, off the top of my head is any telco's colo (MTN, Airtel, Glo, or 9Mobile), and there's RackCentre, MainOne and I think IPNX for colo (virtual and bare metal).
My concern about Nigeria is co-lo that isn't carrier-neutral. AFAIK, Medallion come close to being carrier-neutral, but then bandwidth pricing into the country becomes an issue at scale. Mark.
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 15:54:10 -0600, Ken Gilmour said:
We have a different use case to traditional analytics - We're aimed at consumers and small businesses, so instead of a SOC with one big screen refreshing 10000 rows of only alert data every 30 seconds, we have thousands of individuals refreshing all of their data every 30 seconds because there are comparatively less alerts for individuals than enterprises.
Plenty of room for lots of optimizations there, especially in conjunction with some client-side caching. If they're generating enough *new* events every 30 seconds to cause any significant load, they're either in the middle of a major event (something that shouldn't happen too often) or they have the logging is set to be so verbose that they're likely to miss actual important messages.
TBs of data is not really that much data on average when you average it over thousands of customers. The data is summarized, There are a ton of other things happening in the background that I've already explained in the thread and are really irrelevant to the task at hand which is finding a facility in Africa that does Bare Metal servers. I've had a lot of helpful people, despite the naysayers. Thanks! On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 11:23, Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 10:39:59 -0600, Ken Gilmour said:
These are actual real problems we face. thousands of customers load and reload TBs of data every few seconds on their dashboards.
If they're reloading TBs of data every few seconds, you really should have been doing summaries during data ingestion and only reloading the summaries. (Overlooking the fact that for dashboards, refreshing every few seconds is usually pointless because you end up looking at short-term statistical spikes rather than anything that you can react to at human speeds. If you *care* in real time that the number of probes on a port spiked to 457% of average for 2 seconds you need to be doing automated responses....
Custom queries are more painful - but those don't happen "every few seconds".
On 7/16/19 4:30 PM, Ken Gilmour wrote:
TBs of data is not really that much data on average when you average it over thousands of customers. The data is summarized, There are a ton of other things happening in the background that I've already explained in the thread and are really irrelevant to the task at hand which is finding a facility in Africa that does Bare Metal servers. I've had a lot of helpful people, despite the naysayers.
I did find all of the "why not cloud" responses disappointing when you asked for colo of servers. On this list I would assume someone asking for a specific thing knows why they want it.
But cloud all of the things!!!!!! ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions Midwest Internet Exchange The Brothers WISP ----- Original Message ----- From: "Seth Mattinen" <sethm@rollernet.us> To: nanog@nanog.org Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2019 6:45:35 PM Subject: Re: Colo in Africa On 7/16/19 4:30 PM, Ken Gilmour wrote:
TBs of data is not really that much data on average when you average it over thousands of customers. The data is summarized, There are a ton of other things happening in the background that I've already explained in the thread and are really irrelevant to the task at hand which is finding a facility in Africa that does Bare Metal servers. I've had a lot of helpful people, despite the naysayers.
I did find all of the "why not cloud" responses disappointing when you asked for colo of servers. On this list I would assume someone asking for a specific thing knows why they want it.
Then you are "doing it wrong(tm). Good luck. On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 5:40 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
These are actual real problems we face. thousands of customers load and reload TBs of data every few seconds on their dashboards. We have busy servers. We tried cloud. I passionately hate it. We choose to use Bare Metal.
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 10:34, Akshay Kumar <akshay@mongodb.com> wrote:
Go look at the actual specifications for one of the metal boxes - you are not going to come close to maxing anything out with the workload you describe. FSB hasn't been a thing in over a decade. If you really wanted to go crazy you could do some build a custom solution in FPGA on the F1s.
It's a moot point since none of this is going to be available in time but perf is a bogus reason and a lot of the times price is too.
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 5:12 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
Speed is not the issue, it's IO. Also streaming 100Gbps of video is very different to streaming 100Gbps of files smaller than 100kb (average of about 30kb) the issue on the network level is the number of connections and CPU, on the server side it's IO and FSB
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 08:55, Akshay Kumar <akshay@mongodb.com> wrote:
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
Just just use the South Africa AWS region.
On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 3:35 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Folks,
I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research?
The challenges:
1. Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files). 2. Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time. 3. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa 4. We can initially only have one POP
This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different.
Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region?
"Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa.
Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa.
I hope this is the right place to ask.
Thanks!
Ken
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 11:13:45 -0700, Seth Mattinen said:
On 7/16/19 10:53 AM, Akshay Kumar via NANOG wrote:
Then you are "doing it wrong(tm). Good luck.
Are you saying that anyone choosing not to use "the cloud" is simply wrong because "cloud" is always right?
No, he's saying that if you're data-mining the same terabytes of data every few seconds, you're doing it wrong.
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 10:11:48 -0600, Ken Gilmour said:
Speed is not the issue, it's IO. Also streaming 100Gbps of video is very different to streaming 100Gbps of files smaller than 100kb (average of about 30kb) the issue on the network level is the number of connections and CPU, on the server side it's IO and FSB
The trick is to realize that 100Gbps of files smaller than 100kb can be remodeled as 12 Gigabytes/sec of random 128K writes into large files. Which isn't even that hard with modern gear, especially if you have the budget for SSDs.
On 16/Jul/19 16:55, Akshay Kumar via NANOG wrote:
The 2nd requirement seems artificial. The new hypervisors have come a long way and the overhead is minimal. Also you can run bare metal instances in AWS if you really need them with 100Gbps.
That said, there are various providers who can give you bare metal.
Just just use the South Africa AWS region.
There are other local providers that can offer this. They just don't carry the badge. Mark.
On Jul 16, 2019, at 07:33, Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Folks,
I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research?
The challenges: Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files). Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa We can initially only have one POP This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different.
Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region?
"Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa.
100ms from most of the rest of Africa is going to be a bit dubious. If you draw a line horizontally through Senegal the costal stuff north of it can mostly be served in under 100ms from Europe. While cross border terrestrial fiber exists most networks I’ve been exposed to have east west and north south connectivity Via submarine connected networks. This make it hard to locate one low latency spot in the middle. NSRC has a project that can provide some background on terrestrial fiber. https://afterfibre.nsrc.org/ The next best place to my mind for reach east and west is South Africa where you can pick up something of a diversity of transit find decent colo and pick up a few out of region peers if you locate near jinx or cinx which are both multi building connected exchanges.
Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa.
I hope this is the right place to ask.
Thanks!
Ken
On 16/Jul/19 18:23, Joel Jaeggli wrote:
100ms from most of the rest of Africa is going to be a bit dubious. If you draw a line horizontally through Senegal the costal stuff north of it can mostly be served in under 100ms from Europe.
While cross border terrestrial fiber exists most networks I’ve been exposed to have east west and north south connectivity Via submarine connected networks. This make it hard to locate one low latency spot in the middle.
Terrestrial capacity between most countries in Africa is too expensive, not terribly good quality and not always the shortest path. As Joel mentions, for the Eastern & Southern African coast, those countries are connected by marine festoons, i.e., South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Egypt. You then get terrestrial options running deeper into the hinterlands, and depending on the region, the quality and price will vary. On the west side, you can get marine festoons to South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal. Pricing on that side will be a lot higher because those have generally been club cables, unlike on the East side where you have both club and private cables. Just to give an idea about latency between some of the cities we operate in Africa, have a look here: http://as37100.net/latencymatrix/ This should give you some idea of the problem. Mark.
On 16/Jul/19 16:33, Ken Gilmour wrote:
Hi Folks,
I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa.
Where, in Africa? It's not a small place...
1. Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files).
Depending on where in Africa you want to deploy, there will be a choice of service providers.
1. Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time.
This is possible, but will depend on where, in Africa, you want to deploy.
1. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa
This is a tricky one, but if you know where you want to be, it will help to give you options.
1. We can initially only have one POP
Not a problem, but where?
This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different.
Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region?
Africa is huge, with varying levels of quality of connectivity. The 3 main regions are East Africa (Kenya leading), Southern Africa (South Africa leading) and West Africa (Nigeria and Ghana leading). For North Africa, your options can swing between Egypt and Morocco. But stringing all of these locations together, particularly West and North to East and South, will not be straight forward.
"Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa.
Yes, all 5 will be difficult at this point in time. For most of that, hosting within Eastern and Southern Africa will be your best bets. West Africa ticks a lot of the boxes, but it's not very straight forward when it comes to co-lo.
Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa.
Singapore is closer to Eastern & Southern Africa. Will be too far to West Africa unless you want to switch in Europe. The Netherlands is okay for all of Africa. The Middle East is closer to Eastern Africa. Too far for West Africa unless you want to switch in Europe. Mark.
One of my favorite sites to give people: https://thetruesize.com/ Sincerely, Eric Tykwinski TrueNet, Inc. P: 610-429-8300 _____________________________________ From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Mark Tinka Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2019 12:51 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Colo in Africa Where, in Africa? It's not a small place...
Hi Mark, Our "market" is actually the US - but we're experiencing unexpected success across the world. A lot of our customers have selected "Africa" as their region when signing up and they are in various countries around Africa, they deserve to be served better within their continent at least. We can't actually build POPs fast enough, so I want to throw as broad a net as possible with our first POP in Africa and then branch out from there. We have customers in South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco and Ghana for instance. I have resources for only one POP in Africa currently, need to decide where to best serve as many as possible. We could serve Northern Africa from EU and Southern Africa from Singapore, but having something within the continent would be preferable. Thanks! Ken On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 10:52, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> wrote:
On 16/Jul/19 16:33, Ken Gilmour wrote:
Hi Folks,
I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa.
Where, in Africa? It's not a small place...
1. Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files).
Depending on where in Africa you want to deploy, there will be a choice of service providers.
1. Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time.
This is possible, but will depend on where, in Africa, you want to deploy.
1. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa
This is a tricky one, but if you know where you want to be, it will help to give you options.
1. We can initially only have one POP
Not a problem, but where?
This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different.
Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region?
Africa is huge, with varying levels of quality of connectivity. The 3 main regions are East Africa (Kenya leading), Southern Africa (South Africa leading) and West Africa (Nigeria and Ghana leading).
For North Africa, your options can swing between Egypt and Morocco.
But stringing all of these locations together, particularly West and North to East and South, will not be straight forward.
"Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa.
Yes, all 5 will be difficult at this point in time.
For most of that, hosting within Eastern and Southern Africa will be your best bets.
West Africa ticks a lot of the boxes, but it's not very straight forward when it comes to co-lo.
Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa.
Singapore is closer to Eastern & Southern Africa. Will be too far to West Africa unless you want to switch in Europe.
The Netherlands is okay for all of Africa.
The Middle East is closer to Eastern Africa. Too far for West Africa unless you want to switch in Europe.
Mark.
On 16/Jul/19 19:00, Ken Gilmour wrote:
Our "market" is actually the US - but we're experiencing unexpected success across the world. A lot of our customers have selected "Africa" as their region when signing up and they are in various countries around Africa, they deserve to be served better within their continent at least.
Makes sense.
We can't actually build POPs fast enough, so I want to throw as broad a net as possible with our first POP in Africa and then branch out from there. We have customers in South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco and Ghana for instance. I have resources for only one POP in Africa currently, need to decide where to best serve as many as possible. We could serve Northern Africa from EU and Southern Africa from Singapore, but having something within the continent would be preferable.
If you had to go with one PoP in Africa to start, then I'd suggest Johannesburg. The data on your side should indicate that this is where you have the majority of the targets. From here, you can get reasonably well to all neighboring countries, i.e., Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola. Farther afield, you will have reasonable latency to East Africa as well, which will get you Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. Phase 2, I'd say deploy in Nairobi, which will lower your latency for your targets there, and reduce your load in Johannesburg. Phase 3, I'd say Accra or Lagos, but that won't be as straight forward. If you're serious about this, I'd say come down to AfPIF (https://www.afpif.org/) and SAFNOG (http://www.safnog.org/), both of which will be happening 20th - 22nd and 26th - 28th, August, respectively. You will learn a lot by attending both meetings, and since they are back-to-back, between Mauritius and Johannesburg, it is easy to do travel-wise. Otherwise, happy to offline a discussion with you if you want some mail-time with our Sales droids :-). Mark.
[ there is an afnog mailing list which you might find useful ]
3. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa
unfortunately, for common values of 'most' this is a long sad tragedy. mark's excellent reccos can get you the fancy bits. inter-connectivity with africa is sad. randy
I suggest you look at the Teraco facilities, specifically the JB1 (Isando) site. It is extremely well connected and carrier-neutral so you can choose who you want to use. Depending on your requirement you might need to work through a reseller. I work for an SP in South Africa, so let me know offline if you need any help. On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 4:34 PM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Folks,
I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research?
The challenges:
1. Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files). 2. Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time. 3. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa 4. We can initially only have one POP
This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different.
Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region?
"Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa.
Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa.
I hope this is the right place to ask.
Thanks!
Ken
Without being more specific on what geographic region you want to serve, in terms of ISPs, it's hard to say. For example: If you look at submarine cable topology at layer 1, and BGP sessions, AS adjacencies between ISPs: Freetown, Sierra Leone and Monrovia, Liberia are suburbs of London, UK. If you want to reach major things in the west african region the two best connected places are Accra, Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria. On the other hand, if you put equipment topologically close to the cable landing station in Accra it will have rather poor connectivity to the east side of Africa. It's a big place and there is very little cross-continent connectivity that doesn't take the long way around via submarine fiber to Cape Town, and then up the east coast. On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 7:34 AM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Folks,
I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research?
The challenges:
1. Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files). 2. Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time. 3. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa 4. We can initially only have one POP
This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different.
Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region?
"Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa.
Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa.
I hope this is the right place to ask.
Thanks!
Ken
On 17/Jul/19 03:05, Eric Kuhnke wrote:
Without being more specific on what geographic region you want to serve, in terms of ISPs, it's hard to say.
For example:
If you look at submarine cable topology at layer 1, and BGP sessions, AS adjacencies between ISPs: Freetown, Sierra Leone and Monrovia, Liberia are suburbs of London, UK.
If you want to reach major things in the west african region the two best connected places are Accra, Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria.
On the other hand, if you put equipment topologically close to the cable landing station in Accra it will have rather poor connectivity to the east side of Africa. It's a big place and there is very little cross-continent connectivity that doesn't take the long way around via submarine fiber to Cape Town, and then up the east coast.
The shortest path to get to East Africa from West Africa is as south as you can go into Europe. I suppose if you are trying to interconnect both regions for corporate reasons, that should be okay. But if you're trying to offload content, it's easier to do cache-fill from Europe and distribute locally. It's easier to get your systems talking to one another between Eastern and Southern Africa (and either one to/from Europe) as the connectivity on that side is a lot more robust. Mark.
The cross continent connectivity is not going to be particularly reliable. Prone to cuts due to wars and regional turmoil. And imagine how it takes to repair problems at the physical layer. ________________________________ From: NANOG <nanog-bounces@nanog.org> on behalf of Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuhnke@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2019 3:05 AM To: Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com>; nanog@nanog.org list <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: Re: Colo in Africa Without being more specific on what geographic region you want to serve, in terms of ISPs, it's hard to say. For example: If you look at submarine cable topology at layer 1, and BGP sessions, AS adjacencies between ISPs: Freetown, Sierra Leone and Monrovia, Liberia are suburbs of London, UK. If you want to reach major things in the west african region the two best connected places are Accra, Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria. On the other hand, if you put equipment topologically close to the cable landing station in Accra it will have rather poor connectivity to the east side of Africa. It's a big place and there is very little cross-continent connectivity that doesn't take the long way around via submarine fiber to Cape Town, and then up the east coast. On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 7:34 AM Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com<mailto:ken.gilmour@gmail.com>> wrote: Hi Folks, I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research? The challenges: 1. Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files). 2. Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time. 3. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa 4. We can initially only have one POP This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different. Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region? "Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa. Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa. I hope this is the right place to ask. Thanks! Ken
On 17/Jul/19 17:04, Rod Beck wrote:
The cross continent connectivity is not going to be particularly reliable. Prone to cuts due to wars and regional turmoil. And imagine how it takes to repair problems at the physical layer.
I think that view is too myopic... you make it sound like Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia are at war. Just like all other continents, unrest exists in some states, not all of them. For the regions the OP is interested in, there isn't any conflict there that would prevent him from deploying network. Terrestrial connectivity is not a viable solution because: * It costs too much. * Different countries (even direct neighbors) do not share social, economic or political values. * Most of the available network is in the hands of incumbents, typically controlled by the gubbermint. * It costs too much. * There isn't sufficient capacity to drive prices down when crossing 2 or more countries. * It costs too much. * Many markets are closed off and it's impossible to obtain licenses to compete. * It costs too much. * Much of the network is old and has barely been upgraded. * It costs too much. * For those bold enough to build, the terrain in some parts is not a walkover. * It costs too much. Mark.
Circuits linking Asia & Europe via Siberia have proven highly unreliable. Repairs are long and difficult. And arguably Russia is a better case scenario than Africa. More politically stable. Better finances. Better basic infrastructure. ________________________________ From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+rod.beck=unitedcablecompany.com@nanog.org> on behalf of Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2019 7:16 PM To: nanog@nanog.org <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: Re: Colo in Africa On 17/Jul/19 17:04, Rod Beck wrote: The cross continent connectivity is not going to be particularly reliable. Prone to cuts due to wars and regional turmoil. And imagine how it takes to repair problems at the physical layer. I think that view is too myopic... you make it sound like Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia are at war. Just like all other continents, unrest exists in some states, not all of them. For the regions the OP is interested in, there isn't any conflict there that would prevent him from deploying network. Terrestrial connectivity is not a viable solution because: * It costs too much. * Different countries (even direct neighbors) do not share social, economic or political values. * Most of the available network is in the hands of incumbents, typically controlled by the gubbermint. * It costs too much. * There isn't sufficient capacity to drive prices down when crossing 2 or more countries. * It costs too much. * Many markets are closed off and it's impossible to obtain licenses to compete. * It costs too much. * Much of the network is old and has barely been upgraded. * It costs too much. * For those bold enough to build, the terrain in some parts is not a walkover. * It costs too much. Mark.
On 18/Jul/19 00:04, Rod Beck wrote:
Circuits linking Asia & Europe via Siberia have proven highly unreliable. Repairs are long and difficult. And arguably Russia is a better case scenario than Africa. More politically stable. Better finances. Better basic infrastructure.
Wasn't aware Russia was a continent... Mark.
Africa, Russia... You can take as example Lebanon. Capital and major city in tiny country, ~40km away from each other, and only way you can get 2 points connected over microwaves(due mountains - several hops), over "licensed" providers, DSP, who hook this points for $10-$30/mbps/month. And many of them don't have support at evenings and weekend. Of course, due crappy electricity in country and economical situation, discharged batteries and outages at evening/night at "licensed" DSP sites - common case. The laws of the country are so cool, that it is even forbidden to lay optics from the building standing next to other building, unless you are government monopoly (and they don't sell fiber connectivity). In Africa, many people do not have electricity at all and cook on open fire, i imagine what difficulties they have with connectivity. The last time when I worked with a team on study to invest in telecom in Africa - results discouraged even trying to engage in telecom subject there. I think the only ones who are interested in decent connectivity there - mobile operators. Maybe worth to find connections and talk to them. On 2019-07-17 20:16, Mark Tinka wrote:
On 17/Jul/19 17:04, Rod Beck wrote:
The cross continent connectivity is not going to be particularly reliable. Prone to cuts due to wars and regional turmoil. And imagine how it takes to repair problems at the physical layer.
I think that view is too myopic... you make it sound like Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia are at war. Just like all other continents, unrest exists in some states, not all of them.
For the regions the OP is interested in, there isn't any conflict there that would prevent him from deploying network.
Terrestrial connectivity is not a viable solution because:
* It costs too much. * Different countries (even direct neighbors) do not share social, economic or political values. * Most of the available network is in the hands of incumbents, typically controlled by the gubbermint. * It costs too much. * There isn't sufficient capacity to drive prices down when crossing 2 or more countries. * It costs too much. * Many markets are closed off and it's impossible to obtain licenses to compete. * It costs too much. * Much of the network is old and has barely been upgraded. * It costs too much. * For those bold enough to build, the terrain in some parts is not a walkover.
* It costs too much.
Mark.
On 18/Jul/19 11:04, Denys Fedoryshchenko wrote:
Africa, Russia...
You can take as example Lebanon. Capital and major city in tiny country, ~40km away from each other, and only way you can get 2 points connected over microwaves(due mountains - several hops), over "licensed" providers, DSP, who hook this points for $10-$30/mbps/month. And many of them don't have support at evenings and weekend. Of course, due crappy electricity in country and economical situation, discharged batteries and outages at evening/night at "licensed" DSP sites - common case. The laws of the country are so cool, that it is even forbidden to lay optics from the building standing next to other building, unless you are government monopoly (and they don't sell fiber connectivity).
There is no shortage of countries around the world that stifle the development of their telecommunications industry because they don't understand how different the Internet is from POTS. Countries such as Djibouti land a tremendous amount of submarine cable systems, and yet it makes very little sense to the average operator to deploy meaningful network there. The Middle East, Asia, Europe and Latin America all have their own examples of the same. North America is no exception in some parts of those countries. You need to remember that Africa is not one country. Observing an assessment in one country has nothing to do with the the situation in the other 54.
In Africa, many people do not have electricity at all and cook on open fire, i imagine what difficulties they have with connectivity.
Cooking with firewood is not a linear basis for the depth of connectivity in Africa. Traditional views don't always work, which is how Africa is the fastest growing mobile phone economy in the world. It shouldn't be, but it is. You'll need to open your mind to how differently folk get by this side of the world.
The last time when I worked with a team on study to invest in telecom in Africa - results discouraged even trying to engage in telecom subject there.
I'm curious where this team was based... We have no shortage of "consultants" that desktop Africa from an office in New York. I can send you my consulting contract if you like. I live in Africa :-).
I think the only ones who are interested in decent connectivity there - mobile operators. Maybe worth to find connections and talk to them.
Perhaps it's time I went and got my mobile operator license :-). Mark.
You might want to consider attending AfPIF in Mauritius 20-22 Aug https://www.afpif.org/ -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast -------------------------------------------------------------- -
Visit https://live.infrapedia.com and you can connect colo owners , capacity owners directly On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 15:34 Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Folks,
I work for a Security Analytics org and we're looking to build a small POP in Africa. I am pretty clueless about the region so I was wondering if you could help guide me in the right direction for research?
The challenges:
1. Network needs to be able to receive millions of small PPS (as opposed to serving smaller numbers of larger files). 2. Can't be cloud (need bare metal servers / colo). We use the full capacity of each server, all the time. 3. Must have good connectivity to most of the rest of Africa 4. We can initially only have one POP
This is not like a normal website that we can just host on "any old provider", the requirements are very different.
Is there a good location where we could either rent bare metal servers (something like Internap - preferred) or colocate servers within Africa that can serve most of the region?
"Good" is defined as an area with stable connectivity and power, no legal restrictions on things like encryption, and good latency (sub 100ms) to the rest of Africa.
Our two closest POPs are in Singapore and The Netherlands, so I'd like something closer to the middle that can serve the rest of Africa. Middle East will be deployed after Africa.
I hope this is the right place to ask.
Thanks!
Ken
-- Mehmet +1-424-298-1903
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