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How to evaluate network quality?
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How to evaluate network quality?

Not_OlesNot_Oles Moderator, Patron Provider

At https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/3483455/#Comment_3483455

@yoursunny said:

crappy M247 network
better Voxility network

What's the difference between "crappy" and "better" networks? What does a "good" network look like? How do we tell the difference? Thanks! :)

«1

Comments

  • imo, utilized private peering and presence at IX is always better than transit driven networks since it shows actual effort in maintaining a network.

    Thanked by 2maverickp sgheghele
  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited September 2022

    See for me M247 is better than Voxility. I'd guess most would say the same given that M247 is a government operation to destroy VPNs. Kidding, I think.

    A good network is one that handles the traffic you need at a reasonable latency and with more throughput than you need. It's about as relative as anything can get.

  • NeoonNeoon Community Contributor, Veteran
    edited September 2022

    M247 is like the power grid in russia.
    Basically they have to re-dispatch traffic to avoid congestion.

    However, M247 does fuck all to fix or upgrade it.

  • First of all, you trust the network. Than host application and observe real world experience by using application over the network. Going further, you will receive dos/ddos attempts. Observe how network behave, how routing change if any.

    Do not trust synthetic tests or edge cases. Try, observe and validate from everyday use.

  • What does a "good" network look like?

    Like this:
    image

  • "r u there" comes immediatelly after last message. And newtrok is really fast!

  • For example, extravm.com's Tokyo node has bad local network peer.
    From Tokyo vps to HE Tokyo endpoint:

     Host                                Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
     1. _gateway                          0.0%     8    0.2   0.2   0.2   0.2   0.0
     2. 31.217.251.190                    0.0%     8    0.2   0.2   0.1   0.2   0.0
     3. sg3.gslnetworks.com               0.0%     8   67.3  67.3  67.2  67.3   0.0
     4. sg3.gslnetworks.com               0.0%     8   67.2  67.2  67.2  67.3   0.0
     5. (waiting for reply)
     6. 100ge4-1.core1.sin1.he.net        0.0%     7   67.5  67.1  67.0  67.5   0.2
     7. 100ge16-2.core1.tyo1.he.net       0.0%     7   67.1  67.0  67.0  67.1   0.1
     8. 101.203.88.74                    66.7%     7   67.3  67.3  67.3  67.3   0.0
     9. tserv1.tyo1.he.net                0.0%     7   67.0  67.1  67.0  67.5   0.2
    

    To another HE Tokyo node:

     Host                                Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
     1. _gateway                          0.0%    16    0.1   0.1   0.1   0.2   0.0
     2. 31.217.251.190                    0.0%    16    0.2   0.2   0.1   0.2   0.0
     3. eth39.dist.la2.gslnetworks.com    0.0%    16   98.2  98.2  98.2  98.3   0.0
     4. la2.gslnetworks.com               0.0%    16   98.3  98.3  98.3  98.4   0.0
     5. ca-3-1-c3.ter1.lax12.us.zip.zayo  0.0%    16   97.8  97.8  97.8  98.1   0.1
     6. port-channel14.core2.lax1.he.net 73.3%    16  103.8 103.6 102.4 105.4   1.4
     7. 100ge14-1.core1.lax2.he.net       0.0%    15  108.4 105.3 102.2 112.2   3.4
     8. core1.tyo1.he.net                 0.0%    15  103.8 116.8 102.4 128.4   9.7
    
  • YABS.

  • Easy, ask me as Deutsche Telekom customer to download anything from such network. No better test.

    I am aware that it’s DTAG who’s crappy in their policies.

  • yoursunnyyoursunny Member, IPv6 Advocate

    @yoursunny said:
    crappy M247 network
    better Voxility network

    It's based on reputation.
    I hear M247 is slow so it's crappy.
    I hear single home Cogent blocks Google IPv6 so it's crappy.
    I hear Twelve99 is congested so it's crappy.

    I haven't heard many negative things about Voxility, CenturyLink, AT&T, HE so they're assumed to be good.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran
    edited September 2022

    @Not_Oles said: What's the difference between "crappy" and "better" networks? What does a "good" network look like? How do we tell the difference? Thanks!

    A good network has plenty of quality and uncongested peering + transit available to reach most destinations, plus a competent NOC able to deal with issues promptly and proactively.

    A bad network offers congested transit from cheap providers and does not bother to have presence at key interconnection points or to peer with other networks.

    But this is a generalization, you can not tell a "good" or "bad" network without some basic know-how and plenty of probes over time to destinations that matter to you.

    There are networks way worse than M247 and way better than Voxility. And if you are talking about global networks, you need to mention the specific PoPs, it is useless to generalize when a network has presence all over the world.

  • @LTniger said:
    "r u there" comes immediatelly after last message. And newtrok is really fast!

    fine, I’ll increase it to 0.05s

  • Can you guys explain this in football terms?

  • Most VPS consumers don't even know how to tell if hardware is good let alone network. They see 2 cores vs 4 cores for $10, 4 cores must be better deal.

  • @ariq01 said:
    Can you guys explain this in football terms?

    m247 is basically Maguire.

    Thanked by 1TrendyJack
  • yoursunnyyoursunny Member, IPv6 Advocate

    @Harmony said:
    Most VPS consumers don't even know how to tell if hardware is good let alone network. They see 2 cores vs 4 cores for $10, 4 cores must be better deal.

    For CPU, I check release year to determine its instruction set support.
    Currently I prefer Skylake or later, and avoid anything older than Haswell.

    The more important factor is persistent allowance.
    "Killer Core" is worthless if provider suspends you for using more than 5%.

    I can tell NVMe > SATA SSD > SAS HDD > SATA HDD.

  • luckypenguinluckypenguin Member
    edited September 2022

    @Not_Oles said: What's the difference between "crappy" and "better" networks? What does a "good" network look like? How do we tell the difference?

    Better peering, better IX presence. Just check common VPN providers, all use M247, Datapacket,
    Leaseweb, because they provide volume bandwidth and have nice local presence in many places.

  • Easy, good ones use cat8 Monster Cables.

    Thanked by 1bdl
  • I wish there were a good, objective answer to this question.

    We see many providers claiming to have "premium" networks, but the only thing that matters is: how well does the network perform between my servers and my users? And even this can (and does) change from one day to the next.

    I've had big, multihomed premium providers that perform terribly for me, while some discount VPS companies have better peering/transit in my particular case. You just never know.

  • MrRadicMrRadic Patron Provider, Veteran

    @ehhthing said:
    imo, utilized private peering and presence at IX is always better than transit driven networks since it shows actual effort in maintaining a network.

    This is 100% not true. We've recently been doing a lot of automation via our routing and have seen ~30% of traffic transfer to transit over peering due to better performance and reduced packet loss.

    Theoretically IXs are better, but many many providers maintain small commits or congested ports via IX.

  • MrRadicMrRadic Patron Provider, Veteran

    @Not_Oles said:
    At https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/3483455/#Comment_3483455

    @yoursunny said:

    crappy M247 network
    better Voxility network

    What's the difference between "crappy" and "better" networks? What does a "good" network look like? How do we tell the difference? Thanks! :)

    Maintaining a "good" network is complicated. No one carrier is great world wide, IX ports cannot always be relied on for great connectivity. The internet is a constantly changing beast with a lot of moving pieces. A great route one day, can be a congested route another day due to fiber cuts, oversold commits, or DDoS attacks.

    (In my opinion) the best networks are ones with the highest diversity of carriers and IX that can shift traffic as needed with more intelligence than BGP.

    Thanked by 1LowHosting
  • Some global ping websites like ping.sx and ping.pe? Checking the worldwide latency could be a good idea, especially the physically near location to find out if the network routing is good.

  • ArkasArkas Moderator

    Kind of off topic, but a great example of network quality and speed is Hybula. Now they are premium for sure.

  • @BreakaWD said:
    Some global ping websites like ping.sx and ping.pe? Checking the worldwide latency could be a good idea, especially the physically near location to find out if the network routing is good.

    Probe locations offered by both websites are mostly from datacenters, which might differ from residential networks. Example: you can hardly find a provider who offers single-homed telekom.de connection, but end users do use that network.

  • user54321user54321 Member
    edited September 2022

    @Kousaka said:
    Example: you can hardly find a provider who offers single-homed telekom.de connection, but end users do use that network.

    telekom.de network is one of the worst networks i had ever to deal with, that crap is congested over every single big transit there is. If you have customers there better tell them to ditch that crap and use a other ISP if they want Internet and not only telekom.de LAN.

  • @MrRadic said:

    (In my opinion) the best networks are ones with the highest diversity of carriers and IX that can shift traffic as needed with more intelligence than BGP.

    A great point. The intelligence part is key.

    I've used providers with diverse carriers, and yet they will occasionally choose routes that are clearly suboptimal for me, even if better routing is available. I assume it's due to some routing logic related to costs of passing traffic through different links.

  • MrRadicMrRadic Patron Provider, Veteran

    @aj_potc said:

    @MrRadic said:

    (In my opinion) the best networks are ones with the highest diversity of carriers and IX that can shift traffic as needed with more intelligence than BGP.

    A great point. The intelligence part is key.

    I've used providers with diverse carriers, and yet they will occasionally choose routes that are clearly suboptimal for me, even if better routing is available. I assume it's due to some routing logic related to costs of passing traffic through different links.

    BGP doesn't choose routes based on any real world metrics. It has no idea how a route is performing.

  • MrRadicMrRadic Patron Provider, Veteran

    @Arkas said:
    Kind of off topic, but a great example of network quality and speed is Hybula. Now they are premium for sure.

    Can you expand more on what's exactly premium? Do they manage their network differently? Specific carrier mix?

  • ArkasArkas Moderator

    @MrRadic said: Can you expand more on what's exactly premium? Do they manage their network differently? Specific carrier mix?

    The speeds are amazing, packet loss non existent. I believe they do manage it themselves.

  • "Good networks" wont drop you for whatever reason and cooperates with you to mitigate issues
    "Bad networks" will terminate you soon after whatever incident.
    Respecting people freedom of speech > uptime availability > support time > speed and routing
    This is my way of looking at it when we are speaking of user generated content websites.

    Obviously if you are looking for something different like hosting companies sites or shops uptime is most important factor

    Thanked by 10xbkt
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