The CROS.NET Network
Design
Our network is designed with industry leading hardware.
Dial-in access is provided by Lucent PortMaster 3s. We use only
Cisco (http://www.cisco.com) routers. Cisco routers are estimated to
handle 80% of all Internet traffic. Our network is designed around
industry standards and utilizes best-practices to insure more up time.
We are the only Cisco Premier Reseller in the area, and we use our
knowledge of Cisco equipment to provide you with better service.
Bandwidth
Many providers in the local area have only one connection to their
upstream. This connection is usually a single T1. If they
don't have many subscribers, this can suffice. When you have the
number of users we have, that just won't do.
A few providers have two T1s to the Internet. They
are usually from the same upstream provider. The problem with this
is if the provider goes down, or is having routing problems, you lose
connectivity.
We are aware of only one other provider in the same
service area that we are in that has a total of three T1s to the Internet.
They all terminate into the same Tier1 provider. We'll get to why
that is important in a moment.
CROS.NET has a total of Nine T1s to the Internet.
We are connected with Qwest (three T1s) in New York and Chicago, UUnet in Detroit,
Sprint (two T1s) and Cable & Wireless (two T1s). Being connected to multiple Tier1 upstreams has its
advantages.
If you are trying to reach a server hosted on Qwest's
network or one of it's customers and you are on Qwest's network, you will
usually get good response time. That's because your traffic hasn't
had to go to one of the public (or private) peering points. If you
are on Qwest's network and try to contact a server that is located with
UUnet (such as E-Bay), you would have to go through Qwest's network to a
spot where they peer with Uunet. These peering spots can be a common
point of congestion on the Internet.
By buying transit from multiple backbone providers, you have
fewer hops (routers) between you and the rest of the world. Gamers
certainly appreciate the performance increase of fewer hops. We also
use what is known as BGP (Border Gateway Protocol). BGP is the
routing protocol of the Internet. We get complete 'views' of the
Internet from all of our upstream providers. Getting complete 'views' allows
your traffic to take the most efficient path to it's destination.
You may be asking why more providers don't do this.
Two reasons: cost, and setting it up can be difficult.
The 128 Megabyte memory module that is needed to hold
multiple copies of the Internet routing table costs over a $1,000. Aren't
you glad memory prices for PC's aren't as much?
We are fortunate in having highly qualified people
on staff to make sure our network runs well. We have several
Microsoft Certified Professionals on our staff, and our router
infrastructure is maintained by a Cisco Certified Network Professional.
It's 3:00 AM... do you know where your bandwidth is?
We do. Our network is monitored 24/7. After hours, both the
owner and our Network Engineer get paged when something goes down.
We are actively monitoring more than 150 services (from RADIUS, SMTP,
POP3, to a channelized T1 used for dialup). And the list is growing.
Every time we find an issue, we try to find a way of preventing it from
occurring again. Often an issue is resolved before any of our
customers are aware of it.
It
all equals...
A better value for you, our customer. We
realize that there are many providers in the area. We strive to
offer more services and better value for your dollar. In the first
half of 2000 alone, we have invested over $70,000 in our infrastructure,
and countless hours of hard work to try and provide you with the best
Internet experience you can get. We hope we've succeeded.
