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  1. #1
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    Oct 2011
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    Hosts switching bandwidth providers?

    I ordered a server from a known provider here based on their usage of Level3 bandwidth which seemed to have very stable ping overall.

    However after several months of being with them, the majority of the routes seemed to be switched to Cogent, and my users started to complain about lag bursts.

    What is the etiquette regarding hosts switching bandwidth providers, and is there anything I can do short of switching hosts? And if I do switch hosts, how can I get a host that won't do something like this?

  2. #2
    Hello,

    There are many reason able to be happened, one of them could be the financing of the BW for the provider. Cogent is more cheaper than Level3 and it is possible that your provider has changed this because of this cost problem.

    You can check the network map of your provider in order to see if they are still using level3 or not.

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  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by bottiger1 View Post
    I ordered a server from a known provider here based on their usage of Level3 bandwidth which seemed to have very stable ping overall.

    However after several months of being with them, the majority of the routes seemed to be switched to Cogent, and my users started to complain about lag bursts.

    What is the etiquette regarding hosts switching bandwidth providers, and is there anything I can do short of switching hosts? And if I do switch hosts, how can I get a host that won't do something like this?


    Depending on their TOS they might be allowed to. But, if you can show proof when you purchased the server it was advertised as Level 3 bandwidth then your host owes you money for not providing you with the service you were promised to.

    Ask them to sign a contract. If you are willing to pay for Level 3 Bandwdith you should probably get colo and customize your needs.

  4. #4
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    Oct 2011
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    They did not guarantee specific carriers. Is there really any particular host that guarantees a specific carrier for the lifetime of your contract?

    When I use looking glass, they still have Level3, but most of my customer are reporting routes through cogent, while the route from my own ip changed from level3 to cogent.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by bottiger1 View Post
    They did not guarantee specific carriers. Is there really any particular host that guarantees a specific carrier for the lifetime of your contract?
    No there is no such provider, it would also be very stupid to do this as a carriers performance could deteriorate over time.

    Quote Originally Posted by bottiger1 View Post
    When I use looking glass, they still have Level3, but most of my customer are reporting routes through cogent, while the route from my own ip changed from level3 to cogent.
    This is called BGP. BGP protocol checks what the best routes are continuously and adapts the routes accordingly. You might not believe it, but for many routes the Cogent network actually performs better then Level3.
    That is the power of a bandwidth mix - it gives the network the possibility to use the best routes using BGP.
    On one location, we use Global crossing (now Level3) and Cogent. Without tampering with the routes in any way, our destinations seems to favor Cogent over Global crossing 4 out of 5 times.
    In this location we will bring many additional providers online during the coming months, so i will keep an eye on how well Cogent performs over these (more premium classed) carriers.
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  6. #6
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    Cogent may have shorter paths to loads of networks (BGP wise), but BGP does not know anything about latency and congestion.
    It is no secret that Cogent is having issues to many incumbents, especially the big Telcos in Europe.

    Now with megaupload gone (very large cogent customer), some paths might actually have become temporarily uncongested.
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  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by bottiger1
    What is the etiquette regarding hosts switching bandwidth providers, and is there anything I can do short of switching hosts? And if I do switch hosts, how can I get a host that won't do something like this?
    There is no such ettiquete. You don't control your vendor's vendors. If you want to stick with Level3, buy level3 yourself and do colocation.
    There are tons of factors why your host could have switched Level3 off or at least to most of the routes. It can be pricing on a circuit renegotiation; it can be congestion, it can be bad performance (for their general of customers, not only you), it can be a special that the other carrier is running... Thing is if you are buying a dedicated server, it is the host's job to control their network upstreams, not yours, so you can't demand any specific carrier unless it was specifically written in the contract (which won't be for 99.999999% of the hosts out there).

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by bottiger1 View Post
    What is the etiquette regarding hosts switching bandwidth providers, and is there anything I can do short of switching hosts? And if I do switch hosts, how can I get a host that won't do something like this?
    It's unlikely that a host will guarantee a certain provider in an overall mix, unless it's specifically stated as part of your service. Normally, if a host were to switch out an upstream provider completely, they should be notifying all clients. However, as you've stated, they still have Level3 in their mix but are simply preferring Cogent on many routes.

    The question then becomes, is Cogent being preferred naturally due to BGP, or has the provider manipulated their BGP configuration to preference Cogent in order to reduce their costs. It may be possible to determine this by using a looking glass or route server. Any AS prepending (i.e. where the provider's ASN shows up multiple times in the path) would be a giveaway that they are manipulating their inbound routing. Outbound routing, however, would be much trickier. You'd need to look at multiple outbound routes, and check the looking glasses for both Level3 and Cogent. If Cogent is favoured even on routes where Level3 has the shorter AS path, then the routing policy may be suspect.

    You can also ask the provider what their BGP policy is in these circumstances, i.e. what weight, local preference and MED's they respectively use on Cogent and on Level3. If they have nothing to hide, they should be able to give you a straightforward answer. Here's some more information on BGP path selection from Cisco:

    http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk36...shtml#bestpath
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  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by swiftnoc View Post
    This is called BGP. BGP protocol checks what the best routes are continuously and adapts the routes accordingly. You might not believe it, but for many routes the Cogent network actually performs better then Level3.
    That is the power of a bandwidth mix - it gives the network the possibility to use the best routes using BGP.
    On one location, we use Global crossing (now Level3) and Cogent. Without tampering with the routes in any way, our destinations seems to favor Cogent over Global crossing 4 out of 5 times.
    In this location we will bring many additional providers online during the coming months, so i will keep an eye on how well Cogent performs over these (more premium classed) carriers.
    If this is just standard BGP I am assuming the only performance metric in place is AS hops which as previously indicated by another member doesn't take into account actual latency, jitter, or congestion. I would be shocked if Cogent actually offered lower latency, less jitter, and better throughput than Global Crossing (or Level3) 4 out of 5 times in any location.
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  10. #10
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    Oct 2011
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    I heard that Cogent does tricky things like prioritizing pings so you will never see a problem with a traceroute.

    My users are complaining about lag bursts and the only thing that has changed is that people are being routed through Cogent instead of Level3.

  11. #11
    you should contact the support and find why they do that. Normally there might be some issue between your host and Level3. If they made the switch, you should have sent your email notification.

  12. #12
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    No provider can guarantee that a single carrier is used for outgoing AND incoming traffic. Routing on bgp is often asimmetric, what you see doing a traceroute is only the path in one direction, there are chance that a trace taken from the opposite end would infact follow a different path..
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