The ISPRIME Blog

Building a Better Network

As many of our customers know, network availability has been one of the strongest points of the ISPRIME service for many years.

In fact, since our Weehawken, NJ facility went live in 2005, total network availability is measured at approximately 99.999%.

Accomplishing this was the product of several smart decisions made early on, a continued focus on engineering upgrades with reliability, as well as a good bit of luck.

Our new network design solves limitations concerns and also adds new technologies for future use.

We have increased our backbone capacity in a way that scales with each new carrier port we add in a remote POP. This translates to our doubling the overall capacity from our flagship Datacenter in Weehawken.

We have also added incredible redundancy: each uplink to a carrier/peer is backed by two diverse dark fiber paths.

In the event of a dark fiber cut, all carriers would instantly and seamlessly be transferred onto an alternate fiber path.

In the event of a power loss at one of our POPs, any traffic that is merely passing through to another POP is handled completely “passive”.

The “active” portion of the DWDM is only done at the endpoints, allowing for resilience against power loss in a single suite within a building, allowing us to maintain connectivity to any remaining unaffected carriers.

This upgrade also included a complete ‘forklift’ upgrade of our core routers from a mix of Cisco 6500/7600 and Brocade XMR/MLXe to a unified Juniper MX960 platform.

In Weehawken, we have two MX960 routers, each fully capable of running the entire facility on it’s own, and each of our MX960 core routers are also fully redundant within themselves. Both are configured with an A/B power source, each capable of running the entire system, as well as a redundant switch fabric and routing engine.

This redundancy also adds to upgradeability, enabling us to complete upgrades and perform a hitless failover rather than waiting up to 30 minutes for a reload as we had with our Cisco 6509’s.

Due to the extended time for a reboot on a 6500 based platform, many networks end up upgrading infrequently, and typically only when there is an issue so major that there is no choice.

With our new Juniper MX platform, we can perform upgrades on a proactive basis to add minor bug-fixes and new features.

As all of our customers have already come to expect, resilience from Denial of Service attacks is and has always been a priority of ours.

Juniper MX series routers have the best-in-class firewall filtering features capable of “wire speed” processing of complex rules. When combined with our large increase in capacity, both the complexity and size of attacks we can now filter for our customers is increased by an order of magnitude.

Finally, the work we have done is all designed to scale upwards both quickly and cost-effectively. The capacity on our DWDM backbone has been increased from 30Gbps per dark fiber pair, to over 800Gbps per dark fiber pair.

We configure our fiber network in redundant ‘rings’, and we have two rings facing both East and West from Weehawken, resulting in multiple Tbps capacity.

As this capacity is built into our network, such deployments could be deployed on a rapid basis.

We are always looking forward and embracing new technologies.

Why Choose Managed Hosting?

  There are so many choices out there for web-hosting.

Here are 10 reasons why Managed Hosting makes sense.

  Technical Support – Managed service providers (MSP) have a staff of highly skilled and experienced engineers delivering customer support. These are the same people who manage entire datacenters of hardware; have worked on a myriad of diverse setups, logged-in to thousands of servers; have seen the errors and issues first-hand, and have implemented solutions. That problem you’re having? Chances are they’ve seen it and know how to fix it -- and make sure it doesn’t reoccur. Best of all, it’s included in the price of your managed service plan.

Customized Options – Everyone’s business is as unique as them, which means there’s no “one-size-fits-all”. A managed provider will help you customize a solution to your particular needs. Taking the guesswork out and making your life easier – that is what managed hosting is all about.

Reduced Costs – Technology moves at a rapid pace. The servers you buy today will need a refresh every 3-5 years. Instead of an up-front capital cost, your IT infrastructure becomes an operating expense. Better yet, you don’t have to worry about warranties and RMA when something breaks – your MSP will take care of it, free of charge.

Time Savings – Delegating tasks to the technical support department of your MSP frees up your time and allows you to focus on the important stuff. Spend less time learning how to manage your hardware, more time growing your business.

Predictable Costs – You are billed a flat fee for managed services, making it easier to predict IT expenses. A customer account management portal helps keep track of your services and usage, simplifying budgeting.

Scalability – Managed solutions are formulated with the idea of being able to expand with ease. Your site/app is not the first and certainly not the last one to become successful and require a larger setup. Your MSP will help scale your infrastructure as your business grows.

Security – Today’s web can at times be quite hostile. Exploits and DoS attacks can cripple even those companies with huge online presence. Being at the center of it all, your MSP has an inside-look at what is happening in the Internet as a whole. Security professionals monitor and detect malicious activity, and put in place measures that prevent issues from ever reaching your setup.

Access Control – Managed hosting offers top-level security with limited physical access to the facility where your data is stored. Key features include on-site guards, CCTV, biometric locks, and key card restrictions. One-Time-Password (OTP) fobs may also restrict employees’ access to servers; adding a second layer of authentication and ensuring only those who are authorized have access.

Single Point of Contact – Your MSP is your single partner in all things related to your hosting. No longer do you need to juggle vendors, licenses, domains or certificates – your host manages everything. From cloud and content delivery network (CDN), to video transcoding and backups; all services are available to you from one place.

Service Uptime Guarantee – Your provider does the legwork to guarantee 100% network availability and the fastest possible routes, and backs it with an SLA.

Remember, your hosting is the foundation of your online business. Make the right choice when it comes to it. The last thing you need is a crack in the foundation when you start reaching for the skies.