Connectivity Comparison for Blue Reef Virtual Servers. Transfer Capacity, preferential routing, and traceroute

Internet Connectivity Comparison

Blue Reef Virtual Servers are connected to the Internet via one of the fastest and most extensive networks in the world - the Verio backbone. As a tier one backbone provider, Verio's high performance national network is fast, reliable, and scalable. Currently Blue Reef data centers are connected to the Verio Backbone via multiple OC12 (620 MBps) and OC3 (155 Mbps each) pipes.

Blue Reef also continually evaluates router data to prioritize what future connections need to be secured to minimize delays in data transfer.

Transfer Capacity
Blue Reef maintains multiple OC12 and OC3 connections with Verio and an additional DS3 line with Sprint, while many hosting companies still only have access to DS3 and T1 lines to connect to the Internet.

Our OC12 connections provide 620 Megabits of data transfer per second (nearly 14 times the rate of a DS3 and over 400 times the rate of a T1). The chart below demonstrates the difference between transfer rates for different connection technologies:

Line Type	Transfer rate (higher is better)	Transfer Time for a 680 MB file (lower is better)
Standard Modem	28.8 Kbps	2 days, 3 hours, 43 minutes, 53 seconds
1-channel ISDN	64 Kbps	24 hours, 11 minutes, 8 seconds
2-channel ISDN	128 Kbps	12 hours, 5 minutes, 34 seconds
T1/DS1	1.544 Mbps	58 minutes, 43 seconds
T3/DS3	44.736 Mbps	2 minutes, 2 seconds
OC3	155 Mbps	34.95 seconds
OC12	620 Mbps	8.73 seconds

Preferential Routing
Because the Blue Reef Virtual Server System is hosted in an environment redundantly connected to the Internet via diverse carriers or backbones, your site can take advantage of "preferential routing." This means visitors to your site will not need to route through saturated Network Access gateways in order to connect to your site. Rather, requests will be routed directly through the Internet backbone to your Blue Reef Virtual Server. This preferential routing ensures higher data transfer rates and less packet (data) loss.

Tracing Your Route
The "traceroute" utility ("tracert" on Windows 95/NT) attempts to trace the route an Internet Protocol (IP) packet would follow to a specified remote host. For example, you can view the route between our facility and your computer by opening up an MS-DOS or Command Prompt window. At the command prompt type:

tracert bluereef.net

This will display the sequence of gateways or "hops" between your computer and our servers. Hops with "verio" in the name indicate our backbone provider.

SEE ALSO:

Our Network

Our Server Features

Surcharge Comparison