Kitz ADSL Broadband Information
adsl spacer  
Support this site
Home Broadband ISPs Tech Routers Wiki Forum
 
     
   Compare ISP   Rate your ISP
   Glossary   Glossary
 
Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Author Topic: 4 Main Servers feeding UK?  (Read 3746 times)

snadge

  • Kitizen
  • ****
  • Posts: 1450
4 Main Servers feeding UK?
« on: September 17, 2017, 07:20:25 PM »

Hi Guys and Gals

Ive been told on FB that there are 4 main servers in the UK and that 3 are down and the reason behind all the slowdown for most the ISPs this weekend.. is this true?

they shared this link

http://www.internettrafficreport.com/europe.htm

and that server kt1-3ja.bdr.ex.net is the only one feeding the UK?

can anyone put some clarification on whats been happening & if the server statement is right? please?

thanks
Logged
Aquiss - 900/110/16ms - TP-Link AR73

Chrysalis

  • Content Team
  • Addicted Kitizen
  • *
  • Posts: 7382
  • VM Gig1 - AAISP L2TP
Re: 4 Main Servers feeding UK?
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2017, 12:38:18 AM »

What kind of slowdown are you talking about?

There is peering points, LINX is a well know cluster in the UK, I am not aware of any major kind of outage personally.
Logged

kitz

  • Administrator
  • Senior Kitizen
  • *
  • Posts: 33879
  • Trinity: Most guys do.
    • http://www.kitz.co.uk
Re: 4 Main Servers feeding UK?
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2017, 10:37:51 AM »

Not quite sure what that report is supposed to be showing.  Perhaps some sort of personal peering?    blueyonder is outdated and BT has way more than one uk core server*

UK has loads of peer points - LINX being as Chrys said one of the best known.   Transit in and out of the UK is usually via Cogent, Level3, BT, Interoute etc


*the breakdown of the bletchley url also sounds outdated - location of one of the old 20CN RAS. gig2 sounds a bit odd.
There are loads more newer ones such as telehouse.ukcore, southbank.ukcore linx.ukcore, faraday.ukcore, kingston.ukcore, ilford.ukcore etc etc  At each of which has multiple links.
Logged
Please do not PM me with queries for broadband help as I may not be able to respond.
-----
How to get your router line stats :: ADSL Exchange Checker

smf22

  • Member
  • **
  • Posts: 48
Re: 4 Main Servers feeding UK?
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2017, 10:38:49 AM »

The InternetRrafficReport site looks to be showing a number of servers that it uses for monitoring. And of those four monitoring servers in the UK, three are not currently reporting. The number and status of UK monitoring servers is not the same as the number of 'routers' and connections through which UK ISP will connect to the rest of the Internet. I don't know how many routers and links there are across all UK ISP, but I'd bet it's in the hundreds.

If you take a look at BT for example we can see from the BT Peering Information that the main UK Internet 'Autonomous System' is AS2856, and that they have peering in four locations: London Docklands - Telehouse, London Docklands - Redbus/Sov Hse, London - Interxion and Slough - Equinix LD5.

If you then look at the peering of BT's UK IP Network - AS2856, in addition to four private peering points mentioned above, you can see seven public peering points in LINX. Other UK ISP such as Sky would also have their own peering points.

As you should be able to gather from this, the four servers shown on the InternetTrafficReport site is irrelevant to the available Internet connectivity. Think of it like the number of CCTV cameras watching the M25. If the cameras are not working, it doesn't necessarily mean there are traffic jams... although with the M25 traffic jams are a safe bet.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2017, 10:42:11 AM by smf22 »
Logged
BT FTTC 80/20 Huawei Cab - Zyxel VMG8924-B10A bridge mode + Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X

WWWombat

  • Kitizen
  • ****
  • Posts: 1674
Re: 4 Main Servers feeding UK?
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2017, 01:09:38 PM »

I originally wrote a response yesterday, but forgot to post it. Others have made most of my points, leaving me with one or two...

Ive been told on FB that there are 4 main servers in the UK and that 3 are down and the reason behind all the slowdown for most the ISPs this weekend

The UK interconnections to the outside world are likely to involve one of these submarine routes:
https://www.submarinecablemap.com/

Numerous routes to Holland, Belgium, France, Norway, Ireland, Canada and the US. Add in Portugal, Spain, and the Mediterranean (and on to Asia).
There's a bit more than 4 routers involved in that lot.

A lot of those routes will head into the major UK interconnection centres, which Linx run peering connectivity within. There are 10 of these places in London:
https://www.linx.net/tech-info-help/network-topology

@smf22's post gives a link to BT's main peering locations (private and public), and you can see they make a lot of use of Linx's LON1 network (visible on that Linx topology page). Other ISPs are likely to connect in those locations too (incl via LON2 and LONAP), and all are likely to have either peering or transit agreements out to the international routes through those locations. For example, Plusnet, VM, Sky, TalkTalk, B4RN.

The 10 London sites that LINX peers at are the ones that are intrinsically important to the UK's internet connectivity. Other sites (visible in the public and private peering database entries) all play their part too.

Using PeeringDB, it is also interesting to compare peering locations for BT's US+European network with Liberty Global's.
Logged

niemand

  • Kitizen
  • ****
  • Posts: 1836
Re: 4 Main Servers feeding UK?
« Reply #5 on: September 20, 2017, 01:20:29 AM »

That site isn't entirely reliable but it's not too bad. It claims VM have 1Tb to LINX. They have 450Gb.

Only company with a Tb to LINX are Apple - 1.12Tb. Then Facebook and BT at 560Gb each.

VM do a fair bit of private peering as well as peering across Europe and also using Aorta and have a less centralised network than many.
Logged

Chrysalis

  • Content Team
  • Addicted Kitizen
  • *
  • Posts: 7382
  • VM Gig1 - AAISP L2TP
Re: 4 Main Servers feeding UK?
« Reply #6 on: September 27, 2017, 07:16:03 AM »

I think its based on out of date info.

See this video at start (I made it start at that point with url)

The linx guy mentions they initially had 4 route-server's in 2002.  Thats over a decade ago, its probably those 4 servers that are referenced.

https://youtu.be/2o2_ajKgXuw?t=1m10s
Logged

niemand

  • Kitizen
  • ****
  • Posts: 1836
Re: 4 Main Servers feeding UK?
« Reply #7 on: October 06, 2017, 12:02:45 PM »

and that server kt1-3ja.bdr.ex.net is the only one feeding the UK?

I imagine it'd be news to Gradwell that they can feed the entire UK.  :)

inetnum:        79.135.97.64 - 79.135.97.95
netname:        GRADWELL-DSL-122970-123
descr:          gradwell dot com Limited - DSL Customer

Even complete loss of LINX wouldn't take the UK's Internet down. It'd be annoying, it would cause degradation and expense however the UK's infrastructure is state of the art and most networks can reach each other via a number of peering locations and fall back to transit.

On the subject of the LINX route servers there are still 4 in London, 2 on each LAN, each running different software. They are very useful but not essential.

On the subject of actual physical fibre links the UK is so rich in international fibre links that it would be incredibly difficult to lose enough of them to make a difference. Thanks to our geography we have an abundance of optical capacity.
Logged