Hi,

I had a couple people ask me how many hops my servers were to a pop or the "backbone".

What does this actually mean , what is its relevance, and how can I test my two different data centers where my dedicated servers are at..to see how many hops it actually is?

I am thinking that with all the peering going on..it does not matter how many "hops" you are away from the "backbone" (what backbone are they talking about??) adn that performance is often predicated on how many hops the web site viewer is from the server..
Do I have it all wrong??
Thanks!
Deja:dunce:

using tracert you should be able to see how many hops , it'll take to reach your server.

in dos/command line type: tracert domain.net

Hops are the amount of routers a packet goes through to reach it's destination.

If you traceroute a domain, it will show up like this...

traceroute to pwebtech.com (64.21.5.34), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 dv2-atl-hsrp-transit-lan.dv2.net (209.51.134.190) 0.988 ms 0.479 ms 0.457 ms
2 209.51.137.249 (209.51.137.249) 0.786 ms 1.029 ms 0.630 ms
3 f1.ba01.b000173-0.atl01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.20.129) 1.110 ms 0.893 ms 1.075 ms
4 g9-2.core01.atl01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.5.245) 0.951 ms 0.680 ms 0.621 ms
5 p14-0.core02.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.126) 12.706 ms 12.784 ms 12.456 ms
6 p15-0.core01.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.21) 13.199 ms 12.333 ms 12.580 ms
7 mae-east-atm.peer.nac.net (198.32.187.103) 13.892 ms 13.449 ms 13.277 ms
8 a9-0-0-64.msfc1.oct.nac.net (209.123.11.65) 19.431 ms 19.229 ms 19.178 ms
9 fa0-0.core1.pwebtech.com (207.99.8.198) 19.579 ms 19.190 ms 19.726 ms
10 64.21.5.34 (64.21.5.34) 19.366 ms 19.020 ms 19.624 ms


It took 10 hops to hit their server.

You cannot tell the client how many hops you get to your server as it is dependant on their locations etc.
If you are running a gaming server, then hops is important, but most of all the time it takes to reach the destination and back again is the most important.

--James

Originally posted by WildWayz
If you are running a gaming server, then hops is important, but most of all the time it takes to reach the destination and back again is the most important.

<Student Type="CS DPhil">
Correction: The hop count is never important, except for in 1. advertising and 2. dealing with people who don't understand computer networks. Often between each IP router there will be several ethernet or ATM routers anyway, so the number of IP hops isn't even indicative of network topology.
</Student>

99% of the time what they mean is:

How many switch/router "HOPS" does my traffic have to go throught (from my server) before it actually hits an Internet backbone.

Hope that helps!