PracticalHost Network Technical Details

PracticalHost co-locates servers in a multi-million dollar network operations center (NOC) in Baltimore, USA.

The NOC is a 24/7 facility with multiple loops of redundancy. The NOC is located in a secure, monitored, class A building with a minimum number of approved personnel allowed access to highly sensitive areas and equipment.

Uninterruptible Power System
To guard against local power failures, the NOC has two industrial-grade, three-phase Liebert UPS systems. These act as back-up batteries, maintaining uninterrupted power in case of surges or power outages. With these back-up systems in place, we can keep our network up and running indefinitely without relying on external power.

Custom Web Servers
Our web servers are custom-built industrial machines designed for a 24/7 web serving environment. All servers are equipped with dual-redundant, 450-watt power supplies, hot swap SCSI Seagate Baracuda/Cheetah drives and force-filtered cooling systems. In addition, the NOC is equipped with an inventory of identically configured, burned-in standby servers. If a server were to experience a hardware failure, we would turn a key, grab the handle on the drive, pull it out and insert it into an identical standby CPU. We would then reboot the second machine, and the server would be up and running again in a matter of minutes.

Force Filtered Cooling
All servers are equipped with a positive-pressure filtered-air system. Four large fans pull filtered air into each server's protective case, and the components within are cooled by fans that circulate this purified air. This constant introduction of clean air into the case creates a positive pressure environment ensuring that dust and particles remain outside the server.

Industrial-Grade Air Conditioners
The NOC has two Liebert 10 ton industrial air conditioners that condition our computer rooms and operations center. Air temperature is maintained at an optimal 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

Connectivity to three backbones

The Network Operation Center, located in Baltimore, Maryland, is connected to three backbones. They include Genuity, AT&T & Qwest.

GC, a Tier 1 provider with a 13,000-mile fiber optic network and Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology that provides an enormous 460 gigabytes per second (Gbps) of capacity worldwide, has an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) fiber node located just a few floors below the NOC.

Qwest comes into Baltimore with an OC-12 line. Qwest also has an ATM fiber node just floors below the NOC.
Our Qwest connection enables us to offer additional redundancy and better routes to Europe, Latin America and Asia. With our carriers, our router has up to 150,000 possible routes to send each packet of traffic.

Genuity, a division of GTE, is our third Tier One Internet backbone. Genuity provides excellent network performance as a result of high-speed peering arrangements with other Tier One Internet backbone providers. The GTE global network delivers customers directly onto the Internet via a high-speed connection to its private, super-capacity backbone, including 17,000 miles of fiber and OC192 capacity. It is comprised of more than 800 U.S. local access points and approximately 1,500 international local access points in more than 150 countries.

Furthermore, because of these unique connections, the NOC does not need to link to the Internet through an OC3 or T3 Telecom circuit. Instead, independent cables run inside the building directly from the NOC to all three carriers' points of presence. These lines can handle the bandwidth of a T3 or an OC3 with DWDM. Plus, they handle several times the bandwidth of an OC3.
Whatever your bandwidth needs may be, we has the scalability to meet them.

Network Redundancy
Our NOC uses intelligent end-user routing software called Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) between Qwest, GC and GTE, which use the same protocol. BGP identifies which path is the most efficient for each data packet and then routes the packet to its destination on the fastest path. This increases the speed at which web pages sent from our NOC arrive at their destination.

Studies have shown that the most common reason for downtime is circuit failure on Tier 1 provider backbones, the major data highways. By connecting to three Tier-1 providers, we are immune against this issue:
If one experiences problems, we can route traffic down another one. Furthermore, because we are OnNet with GlobalCenter, Qwest and GTE, we share their digital distribution architecture, which includes private peering network connections to major Internet carriers such as MCI, Sprint, UUNET, EUNET, AT&T, AOL, Best, Erols, @Home, IBM Advantis and others. These private peering arrangements allow the NOC to quickly and efficiently exchange packets of data with every major backbone carrier in a one-to-one environment.

In addition, GC has high-speed links to eight public exchanges including both MAE East and West and several NAPS. Through these public exchanges, customers have the ability to reach their sites, no matter where they are.

Network Reliability
Industry analysis reveals that 70% of downtime of over 10 hours with any ISP is caused by telephone circuit failure. Within the NOC, circuit failure is virtually eliminated. That's because the servers are in the same building as GlobalCenter, Qwest and GTE. There is no phone circuit between the NOC and these providers. Instead, there is a direct connection between our Cisco 7500 routers and theirs.

Raw Performance Equals Low Latency/High Throughput
Too often providers operate their networks at three to four times their responsible capacity. As a result, their corresponding transfer times reach over 300ms. Our network daily average is around 27% of its capacity, with midday peak spikes reaching only 33% capacity. We guarantee that clients will be carried off our network in less than 80ms over a five-minute average at any time of day or night!