How to find out a data center's Internet Backbone connections

Having multiple Internet backbone connections will not only provide the redundancy of your Internet Server's Internet connections, but it also improves the performance of your webpage or application serving. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) efficiently routes traffic by choosing the shortest path available to deliver your webpages to end users. What this means is data will be sent to the user, say on ATT network, through the ATT backbone, and data will be sent to the user, say on Verizon (MCI/UUNET) network, through the Verizon (MCI/UUNET) backbone. If one backbone fails, BGP will automatically reroute your traffic to other working backbone connections. You can see a sample of the traceroute results to see how servers hosted at Cybercon data center reach each major Internet backbone.

It is important for you to find out what Internet backbone providers your hosting center is using, and how reliable and scalable these backbones are. You shouldn't be surprised if you find hosting centers claiming Internet backbone connections they don't have. Some hosting centers use second tier and third tier backbone providers that have limited capacity (such as OC3 or OC12) in their intra-city backbone links. It is important for you to check out these backbone providers' network maps. Most backbone providers put their network maps on their web sites.

With a little research, you can find a hosting center's direct Internet backbone connections. Public network tools and databases allow you to check a hosting center's direct Internet backbone connections. Here is how:

Disclaimer: All the tools and sites used here are not hosted at Cybercon data centers. These are third party independent tools and websites.

Step One: Find out the hosting center's AS number

AS Numbers (Autonomous System Numbers) are assigned by ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers) to each major ISP or hosting center in North America. With an AS number, a hosting center can route traffic via the shortest path utilizing BGP. Each hosting company, regardless how many data centers they have, should only have one AS number.

Here are two ways you can find out a hosting center's AS number:

* Go to Level 3's Looking Glass at http://www.level3.com/LookingGlass/;
Click on "Traceroute from Level 3 sites";
Under "Traceroute to", enter the hosting center's web site address (e.g. www.cybercon.com);
Click on "Submit"

Here is a sample result for www.cybercon.com

Show Level 3 (Chicago, IL) Traceroute to www.cybercon.com (216.15.129.5) 

1 so-4-0-0.bbr1.Chicago1.Level3.net (4.68.112.189) 0 msec
2 so-4-1-0.bbr2.Chicago1.Level3.net (4.68.112.197) 0 msec
3 ge-7-2.hsa2.StLouis1.Level3.net (64.159.4.138) 4 msec
4 ge-9-0.hsa2.StLouis1.Level3.net (64.159.0.66) 8 msec
5 Level3GigE.cybercon.com (63.208.32.186) 4 msec
6 www.cybercon.com (216.15.129.5) [AS7393 {CYBERCON}] 8 msec

This shows that www.cybercon.com is using AS number: 7393

Step two: find out the direct Internet backbone connections of a hosting center

Once you have the hosting cetner's AS number, say AS 7393 for Cybercon, you enter the URL with such AS number direct to your web browser:

http://www.cidr-report.org/cgi-bin/as-report?as=AS7393

(You will need to replace AS7393 above to whatever AS number you found for the hosting center you are interested in. CIDR report page will show Cybercon has four upstream backbone providers: UUNET, ATT, Qwest and Level 3. (UUNET used to be the MCI Internet backbone. Now it is the Verizon Internet backbone).

Cybercon's data center has direct connections to four of the top five backbones. Cybercon only uses top-five backbones to route its traffic, to ensure our customers receive the best network performance for servers hosted in Cybercon's data center.