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amitabh · #1 12-01-2008, 10:20 AM

Setting an inhouse DC

Hi
My company provides vehicle tracking/ fleet management services to customers across various countries in Middle East, South Asia and South East Asia. The tracking application requires dedicated servers (generally multiple FreeBSD servers). The data transfer required is pretty low; not more than 10-20 GB per month for a fleet of 300-400 vehicles but the app is computationally very intensive on Processor, HD speed and RAM.
Currently I have few servers across multiple DC's in US. The main issue we are having is the latency. The average latency that I receive across all DC's in US is 300+ ms at best of times. I have already tried The Planet, Softlayer, LayeredTech and WebNX and all return approximately the same result. Now, if I take a local DC in India, the latency is always in between 50 to 100 ms. I would have liked to co-locate here in India, but the price is prohibitively expensive.
We have enough space in my office (approximately 2000 sqft) with 100% generator backup(24/7) and cooling equipments installed for the empty space. For our local (Indian) clients only , we are actively thinking of replacing our US based servers with local ones (should not be more than 20 odd servers). The only missing link here is the bandwidth, which even if I buy a couple of 2 Mbps lines from different provider, would still be under my reach. I have already scouted for the hardware (IBM) and some racks, UPS (APC) and some extra peripherals like PDU and KVM over IP. We have two people (network admins) in three shifts to manage all our exisitng servers remotely, which should be good enough for the initial phase for the local ones too.
Till this point, the cost of the entire operation justifies the benefits that we are having, unless I am missing something very obvious or something that I have no idea about. Before I finally give a go ahead for the entire operation, I would like to solicit suggestions from others.
Thanks for taking the time to read through the post.
Amitabh

amitabh · #2 12-01-2008, 10:20 AM

Setting an inhouse DC

Hi
My company provides vehicle tracking/ fleet management services to customers across various countries in Middle East, South Asia and South East Asia. The tracking application requires dedicated servers (generally multiple FreeBSD servers). The data transfer required is pretty low; not more than 10-20 GB per month for a fleet of 300-400 vehicles but the app is computationally very intensive on Processor, HD speed and RAM.
Currently I have few servers across multiple DC's in US. The main issue we are having is the latency. The average latency that I receive across all DC's in US is 300+ ms at best of times. I have already tried The Planet, Softlayer, LayeredTech and WebNX and all return approximately the same result. Now, if I take a local DC in India, the latency is always in between 50 to 100 ms. I would have liked to co-locate here in India, but the price is prohibitively expensive.
We have enough space in my office (approximately 2000 sqft) with 100% generator backup(24/7) and cooling equipments installed for the empty space. For our local (Indian) clients only , we are actively thinking of replacing our US based servers with local ones (should not be more than 20 odd servers). The only missing link here is the bandwidth, which even if I buy a couple of 2 Mbps lines from different provider, would still be under my reach. I have already scouted for the hardware (IBM) and some racks, UPS (APC) and some extra peripherals like PDU and KVM over IP. We have two people (network admins) in three shifts to manage all our exisitng servers remotely, which should be good enough for the initial phase for the local ones too.
Till this point, the cost of the entire operation justifies the benefits that we are having, unless I am missing something very obvious or something that I have no idea about. Before I finally give a go ahead for the entire operation, I would like to solicit suggestions from others.
Thanks for taking the time to read through the post.
Amitabh

amitabh · #3 12-01-2008, 10:20 AM

Setting an inhouse DC

Hi
My company provides vehicle tracking/ fleet management services to customers across various countries in Middle East, South Asia and South East Asia. The tracking application requires dedicated servers (generally multiple FreeBSD servers). The data transfer required is pretty low; not more than 10-20 GB per month for a fleet of 300-400 vehicles but the app is computationally very intensive on Processor, HD speed and RAM.
Currently I have few servers across multiple DC's in US. The main issue we are having is the latency. The average latency that I receive across all DC's in US is 300+ ms at best of times. I have already tried The Planet, Softlayer, LayeredTech and WebNX and all return approximately the same result. Now, if I take a local DC in India, the latency is always in between 50 to 100 ms. I would have liked to co-locate here in India, but the price is prohibitively expensive.
We have enough space in my office (approximately 2000 sqft) with 100% generator backup(24/7) and cooling equipments installed for the empty space. For our local (Indian) clients only , we are actively thinking of replacing our US based servers with local ones (should not be more than 20 odd servers). The only missing link here is the bandwidth, which even if I buy a couple of 2 Mbps lines from different provider, would still be under my reach. I have already scouted for the hardware (IBM) and some racks, UPS (APC) and some extra peripherals like PDU and KVM over IP. We have two people (network admins) in three shifts to manage all our exisitng servers remotely, which should be good enough for the initial phase for the local ones too.
Till this point, the cost of the entire operation justifies the benefits that we are having, unless I am missing something very obvious or something that I have no idea about. Before I finally give a go ahead for the entire operation, I would like to solicit suggestions from others.
Thanks for taking the time to read through the post.
Amitabh

amitabh · #4 12-01-2008, 10:20 AM

Setting an inhouse DC

Hi
My company provides vehicle tracking/ fleet management services to customers across various countries in Middle East, South Asia and South East Asia. The tracking application requires dedicated servers (generally multiple FreeBSD servers). The data transfer required is pretty low; not more than 10-20 GB per month for a fleet of 300-400 vehicles but the app is computationally very intensive on Processor, HD speed and RAM.
Currently I have few servers across multiple DC's in US. The main issue we are having is the latency. The average latency that I receive across all DC's in US is 300+ ms at best of times. I have already tried The Planet, Softlayer, LayeredTech and WebNX and all return approximately the same result. Now, if I take a local DC in India, the latency is always in between 50 to 100 ms. I would have liked to co-locate here in India, but the price is prohibitively expensive.
We have enough space in my office (approximately 2000 sqft) with 100% generator backup(24/7) and cooling equipments installed for the empty space. For our local (Indian) clients only , we are actively thinking of replacing our US based servers with local ones (should not be more than 20 odd servers). The only missing link here is the bandwidth, which even if I buy a couple of 2 Mbps lines from different provider, would still be under my reach. I have already scouted for the hardware (IBM) and some racks, UPS (APC) and some extra peripherals like PDU and KVM over IP. We have two people (network admins) in three shifts to manage all our exisitng servers remotely, which should be good enough for the initial phase for the local ones too.
Till this point, the cost of the entire operation justifies the benefits that we are having, unless I am missing something very obvious or something that I have no idea about. Before I finally give a go ahead for the entire operation, I would like to solicit suggestions from others.
Thanks for taking the time to read through the post.
Amitabh

natecarlson · #5 12-01-2008, 03:22 PM

2mb sounds like E1's - are you able to get fiber built in from any providers instead? (I'm in the US, and fiber's almost always available here, and provides more bandwidth at a much better price. No idea how things are in India!)
Also, in the US, it's almost always less expensive to go colocation than it is to build out the infrastructure in your own building.. it's a bummer that it's more expensive there!
Have you tried dedicated servers in the UK? They are generally relatively inexpensive, and are much closer to you than the US. It looks like latency to the UK would be ~200ms. Might also be able to find dedicated servers elsewhere in Europe or Asia that are closer to you.
Also, why is latency an issue for you? Are you doing highly interactive applications (if that's the case, there is not much you can do), or is it just because it's slowing down your transfers? If it's because of the transfer speed, have you properly tweaked your TCP stack to get better performance over a high-latency link?

__________________
-nc

natecarlson · #6 12-01-2008, 03:22 PM

2mb sounds like E1's - are you able to get fiber built in from any providers instead? (I'm in the US, and fiber's almost always available here, and provides more bandwidth at a much better price. No idea how things are in India!)
Also, in the US, it's almost always less expensive to go colocation than it is to build out the infrastructure in your own building.. it's a bummer that it's more expensive there!
Have you tried dedicated servers in the UK? They are generally relatively inexpensive, and are much closer to you than the US. It looks like latency to the UK would be ~200ms. Might also be able to find dedicated servers elsewhere in Europe or Asia that are closer to you.
Also, why is latency an issue for you? Are you doing highly interactive applications (if that's the case, there is not much you can do), or is it just because it's slowing down your transfers? If it's because of the transfer speed, have you properly tweaked your TCP stack to get better performance over a high-latency link?

__________________
-nc

natecarlson · #7 12-01-2008, 03:22 PM

2mb sounds like E1's - are you able to get fiber built in from any providers instead? (I'm in the US, and fiber's almost always available here, and provides more bandwidth at a much better price. No idea how things are in India!)
Also, in the US, it's almost always less expensive to go colocation than it is to build out the infrastructure in your own building.. it's a bummer that it's more expensive there!
Have you tried dedicated servers in the UK? They are generally relatively inexpensive, and are much closer to you than the US. It looks like latency to the UK would be ~200ms. Might also be able to find dedicated servers elsewhere in Europe or Asia that are closer to you.
Also, why is latency an issue for you? Are you doing highly interactive applications (if that's the case, there is not much you can do), or is it just because it's slowing down your transfers? If it's because of the transfer speed, have you properly tweaked your TCP stack to get better performance over a high-latency link?

__________________
-nc

natecarlson · #8 12-01-2008, 03:22 PM

2mb sounds like E1's - are you able to get fiber built in from any providers instead? (I'm in the US, and fiber's almost always available here, and provides more bandwidth at a much better price. No idea how things are in India!)
Also, in the US, it's almost always less expensive to go colocation than it is to build out the infrastructure in your own building.. it's a bummer that it's more expensive there!
Have you tried dedicated servers in the UK? They are generally relatively inexpensive, and are much closer to you than the US. It looks like latency to the UK would be ~200ms. Might also be able to find dedicated servers elsewhere in Europe or Asia that are closer to you.
Also, why is latency an issue for you? Are you doing highly interactive applications (if that's the case, there is not much you can do), or is it just because it's slowing down your transfers? If it's because of the transfer speed, have you properly tweaked your TCP stack to get better performance over a high-latency link?

__________________
-nc

amitabh · #9 12-01-2008, 03:57 PM

I have one E1 coming through fiber, the other through radio. I have already tried looking for UK/EU providers, but the latency remains the same. The only other place that might be feasible to us would be Singapore. I am yet to explore that option.
As for my app, yes it's generally used as a decision support system for running fleets / radio cabs in India. Responsiveness of the application when multiple connections (multiple ajax connection for taxi dispatch) are made is a necessity. I have not yet tried tweaking the TCP stack, so might try that route before taking a final decision.

amitabh · #10 12-01-2008, 03:57 PM

I have one E1 coming through fiber, the other through radio. I have already tried looking for UK/EU providers, but the latency remains the same. The only other place that might be feasible to us would be Singapore. I am yet to explore that option.
As for my app, yes it's generally used as a decision support system for running fleets / radio cabs in India. Responsiveness of the application when multiple connections (multiple ajax connection for taxi dispatch) are made is a necessity. I have not yet tried tweaking the TCP stack, so might try that route before taking a final decision.

amitabh · #11 12-01-2008, 03:57 PM

I have one E1 coming through fiber, the other through radio. I have already tried looking for UK/EU providers, but the latency remains the same. The only other place that might be feasible to us would be Singapore. I am yet to explore that option.
As for my app, yes it's generally used as a decision support system for running fleets / radio cabs in India. Responsiveness of the application when multiple connections (multiple ajax connection for taxi dispatch) are made is a necessity. I have not yet tried tweaking the TCP stack, so might try that route before taking a final decision.

amitabh · #12 12-01-2008, 03:57 PM

I have one E1 coming through fiber, the other through radio. I have already tried looking for UK/EU providers, but the latency remains the same. The only other place that might be feasible to us would be Singapore. I am yet to explore that option.
As for my app, yes it's generally used as a decision support system for running fleets / radio cabs in India. Responsiveness of the application when multiple connections (multiple ajax connection for taxi dispatch) are made is a necessity. I have not yet tried tweaking the TCP stack, so might try that route before taking a final decision.