Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Colocation and Data Centers : Anycasted network for hosting available?

[pjsmith]

Hi,

I have a requirement for a set of servers to be deployed worldwide on 1 or more anycast networks. Rather than re-invent the wheel and do our own thing, I was wondering if anyone knows of any hosting companies that have data centres/facilities around the world and will provide ip space on anycasted ip's to be used at these facilities? There are content delivery network providers renting cdn space, so the networks exist. Just wondering if any companies also provide hosting on these networks?

Thanks.

[cristibighea]

It should be doable, though you will be looking at setup costs as well as monthly fees. I can't recommend anyone myself, but would you mind saying more about what you need anycasting for?

[Spudstr]

the problem with anycast is still being able to control your announcements. Doing a proper anycast network requires the ability to work with mainly tier1 networks or any good tier2 network that has communities and lets you/allows you to prepend your announcements in specific regions.

Normally people just use anycast for DNS since its a bit hard to control. Why don't you just use a CDN?

[pjsmith]

We are looking to provide other services on the network which would be served from our own servers rather than just content delivery (I used that as an example - we don't actually provide content delivery to anyone as a service) so we need to run our own bespoke software.

I relaise it is a complex solution, but that is why I was perhaps looking for content delivery network type providers that also might be prepared to or already allow hosting on their network/locations. It may be cheaper and easier than setting up a solution of our own.

[qwidjib0]

Really any single provider that controls a network in multiple POP's and has adequate routing equipment should have the technical ability to do this, although it's likely uncommon to a point that you won't see it advertised. I'd look at contacting providers that meet those characteristics directly for quotes.

[plumsauce]

Apologies in advance if I am wrong, but anycast TCP is a really exotic application. Last I saw there were a number of demo's meant to show why routing would be unreliable, but none that refuted that position. Anycast UDP is quite another story, and is fairly common for DNS providers.

If there are papers around showing that it is ready for prime time, I would certainly like to see the links posted.