East Coast Server, Random thoughts

[Smith6612]

Looks like the Datacenter might be having some issues with their New York City to Washington DC transit. I'm getting some awful speeds to the East Coast server tonight. The other two servers, Dallas, TX and Seattle, WA are fine however!

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6002]

Copyright © 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\>tracert dc.testmy.net

Tracing route to dc.testmy.net [184.173.139.122]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.3.1

2 8 ms 7 ms 7 ms 10.41.15.1

3 7 ms 6 ms 6 ms P1-0.BFLONY-LCR-01.verizon-gni.net [130.81.195.144]

4 16 ms 16 ms 17 ms so-6-3-0-0.NWRK-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.28.138]

5 19 ms 18 ms 19 ms 0.xe-8-1-0.XL3.NYC1.ALTER.NET [152.63.5.213]

6 19 ms 19 ms 19 ms 0.xe-2-0-1.XT1.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.20.233]

7 19 ms 20 ms 18 ms GigabitEthernet6-0-0.GW1.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.20.49]

8 19 ms 19 ms 18 ms teliasonera-test.customer.alter.net [157.130.255.206]

9 20 ms 25 ms 19 ms nyk-b6-link.telia.net [213.155.130.33]

10 19 ms 19 ms 35 ms xe-0-0-1.bbr02.tl01.nyc01.networklayer.com [213.248.72.174]

11 31 ms 35 ms 32 ms ae7.bbr01.tl01.nyc01.networklayer.com [173.192.18.176]

12 76 ms 74 ms 72 ms ae1.bbr01.eq01.wdc02.networklayer.com [173.192.18.156]

13 74 ms 76 ms 77 ms ae0.dar01.sr01.wdc01.networklayer.com [173.192.18.197]

14 * 83 ms 76 ms po1.fcr03.sr02.wdc01.networklayer.com [208.43.118.157]

15 78 ms 77 ms 78 ms 184.173.139.122-static.reverse.softlayer.com [184.173.139.122]

Trace complete.

C:\Users\>tracert testmy.net

Tracing route to testmy.net [174.120.187.140]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.3.1

2 8 ms 7 ms 7 ms 10.41.15.1

3 6 ms 7 ms 6 ms P2-0.BFLONY-LCR-01.verizon-gni.net [130.81.44.232]

4 17 ms 17 ms 17 ms so-6-3-0-0.NWRK-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.28.138]

5 17 ms 16 ms 16 ms 0.xe-6-0-4.XL3.EWR6.ALTER.NET [152.63.4.77]

6 18 ms 17 ms 17 ms 0.so-1-0-1.XT1.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.0.213]

7 18 ms 17 ms 18 ms GigabitEthernet4-0-0.GW1.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.20.97]

8 19 ms 18 ms 18 ms teliasonera-test.customer.alter.net [157.130.255.206]

9 19 ms 18 ms 18 ms nyk-b6-link.telia.net [213.155.130.33]

10 70 ms 42 ms 18 ms xe-0-0-1.bbr02.tl01.nyc01.networklayer.com [213.248.72.174]

11 44 ms 44 ms 44 ms ae1.bbr01.eq01.chi01.networklayer.com [173.192.18.132]

12 68 ms 67 ms 68 ms ae20.bbr01.eq01.dal03.networklayer.com [173.192.18.136]

13 70 ms 71 ms 69 ms po31.dsr01.dllstx3.networklayer.com [173.192.18.225]

14 66 ms 66 ms 67 ms te2-1.dsr01.dllstx2.networklayer.com [70.87.255.66]

15 68 ms 67 ms 68 ms a.ff.5746.static.theplanet.com [70.87.255.10]

16 67 ms 66 ms 67 ms 8c.bb.78ae.static.theplanet.com [174.120.187.140]

Trace complete.

C:\Users\>tracert west.testmy.net

Tracing route to west.testmy.net [50.23.138.74]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.3.1

2 7 ms 7 ms 7 ms 10.41.15.1

3 7 ms 6 ms 6 ms P1-0.BFLONY-LCR-01.verizon-gni.net [130.81.195.144]

4 16 ms 16 ms 16 ms so-6-3-0-0.NWRK-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.28.138]

5 20 ms 20 ms 19 ms 0.xe-8-1-0.XL3.NYC1.ALTER.NET [152.63.5.213]

6 19 ms 20 ms 19 ms 0.xe-2-0-1.XT1.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.20.233]

7 18 ms 19 ms 18 ms GigabitEthernet6-0-0.GW1.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.20.49]

8 19 ms 18 ms 19 ms teliasonera-test.customer.alter.net [157.130.255.206]

9 19 ms 18 ms 19 ms nyk-b6-link.telia.net [213.155.130.33]

10 19 ms 18 ms 19 ms xe-0-0-1.bbr02.tl01.nyc01.networklayer.com [213.248.72.174]

11 46 ms 46 ms 46 ms ae1.bbr01.eq01.chi01.networklayer.com [173.192.18.132]

12 46 ms 45 ms 48 ms ae7.bbr02.eq01.chi01.networklayer.com [173.192.18.171]

13 74 ms 73 ms 74 ms ae1.bbr02.cs01.den01.networklayer.com [173.192.18.131]

14 81 ms 80 ms 80 ms ae7.bbr01.cs01.den01.networklayer.com [173.192.18.168]

15 102 ms 102 ms 102 ms ae0.bbr01.wb01.sea02.networklayer.com [173.192.18.144]

16 100 ms 99 ms 99 ms ae0.dar02.sr01.sea01.networklayer.com [173.192.18.159]

17 100 ms 100 ms 100 ms po2.fcr01.sr01.sea01.networklayer.com [67.228.118.138]

18 102 ms 102 ms 101 ms 50.23.138.74-static.reverse.softlayer.com [50.23.138.74]

Trace complete.

C:\Users\>

Just some food for thought. Wonder if there's anything big going on recently that would have messed with the transit. I know in recent years my ISP has been seeing problems with their network more often than not in regions such as New York and Virginia with poor speeds whereas before problems were often more localized, but they never seem to affect me. I wonder what the deal is. Fibers getting cut, capacity not being upgraded fast enough, poor routing, etc. I also wonder what the deal is with some of the backbones out there that still use older protocols such as ATM. My ISP for example is still using SONET rings middle mile and last mile. Last mile being DSL service which is what I'm on, and middle mile being the transit between POPs and COs until it gets to what is most likely an Ethernet backbone.

Just throwing what's running through my mind out there. Not so much a question but if anyone wants to chime in and just talk about ISP things, that'd be nice

Edited September 30, 2012 by Smith6612

[CA3LE]

Looks to be localized to your route. Pulling recent results for the DC server shows that others are getting decent speeds. Pulling samples of users within those results shows that they're getting speeds in line with what they normally get.

It could very well be a fiber cut, with traffic being routed more heavily across the network that's picking up the slack for the route that was cut. It's really hard to tell. I sometimes experience slower speeds to the DC server as well... but then after more research into other peoples results I find that I'm the only one with the issue... I also test from one or more of my remote desktops and get perfect results and it further drives home the point. Routing issues happen. I think they happen more on the east coast though because of the aging infrastructure that's always being upgraded, maintained and replaced. Eventually the bandwidth will become so great that rerouting shouldn't congest the lines like it does today. At least that's what I imagine for the future.

[Smith6612]

Agreed. For the most part, the only problems I've ever seen with my connection were due to some sort of poor transit between some connection in my ISP's network to some connection who knows where. What does bother me however is, as you've mentioned, the networks were designed so long ago to where you've got many redundant systems tying into a single failure point, or many going into few which causes issues such as slow speeds, or, which Verizon is currently overdue for this year, routing outages in NYC that take out 95% of my Internet connectivity completely but do not destroy speeds. If it's not that, you've also got plenty of older systems that just have not been invested in and are having to handle loads that they can take, but don't allow for smooth failover. Or for that matter, old systems that choke down at night because they were set up with too much oversubscription (such as my local Cable Company's network/backbone).

Then of course, there are providers who just don't plan their networks for double growth (Moore's Law, in perspective) or upgrade them fast enough for whatever reason. I know my second ISP, Frontier Communnications is one of these. Their services are known to slow down at night due to lack of transit capacity or overloaded routers during the night time hours. They're starting to fix all of that up now that they're *FINALLY* bringing out the bigger guns. My Frontier connection before the days of streaming and YouTube in HD was pretty solid. Come all of the big streaming services like Netflix, and higher quality video, I started seeing speeds dropping from 3Mbps down to 1Mbps at night, perhaps lower depending on the day as the edge router at the ISP got overloaded, the old SONET rings not having been upgraded, and so on.

I do know that part of the problem here is with an ISP saying they don't guarantee speeds (and none can), but if it's something that happens routinely according to events, or time of day it's something they have to work to fix up.

Upgrades have been getting done though, which is fortunately something that is being done here in the East. The problem is with old last mile infrustructure and underutilized long haul cable, and of course poor routing to other areas.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Smith6612