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Advantagecom Networks, Inc.
255 A Street
Walla Walla, WA 99362, USA
509-522-3696 | 888-509-8644
sales@advantagecom.net
support@advantagecom.net
billing@advantagecom.net

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Obsessive network engineering at your service.

Visitors to your web site will simply choose a different web site to view rather than wait for your web site to function. Your web site must always be accessible and at a level of performance such that no visitor spends time waiting on your web hosting company's network to deliver the data.

To create and maintain a network that delivers 100% of the time at levels of performance that exceed all expectations requires a special kind of obsession. Let us handle the "obsessing over the network" part. It's what we do and we love it.

Here is our special obsession:

Backbone connections

• Gigabit Ethernet with 364Mbits/sec effective throughput over a 400Mbits/sec FCC licensed wireless link. Upstream from our connection point, the backbone provider is limited to 300Mbits/sec. We've setup a contract with the backbone provider that guarantees they will upgrade their network to exceed our usage level with 90 days notice. This is carrier quality licensed wireless engineered for error free operation at greater than 99.999% of the time. It uses the same spectrum used by governments to beam data to and from satellites, though this is a terrestrial application.

• One DS3 (44.21Mbit/sec each) backbone connection over fiber optics. The DS3 is terminated to a different router than the gigabit Ethernet backbone connection. This is currently capable of handling all of our traffic in the event the gigabit Ethernet link fails and will be upgraded as capacity needs dictate.

• An additional DS3 (44.21Mbit/sec each) over a short range licensed wireless link is used for peering with a local provider. If needed, this can be converted to a fully functioning backbone connection within hours.

• Fully multi-homed routing using BGP and route optimized for the lowest possible latency and fastest paths to all destinations.

• Two separate backbone companies with geographically diverse networks. The resulting uptime truly is greater than the combined average uptime of each individual backbone since it is extremely rare for both backbone companies to be having trouble at the exact same moment. Each backbone company provides 99.95% uptime or better on their own while our network exhibits better than 99.997% uptime as a result of the combination.

Two separate forms of backbone delivery to our facility - wireless and fiber optic. No one cable cut will bring down the network. This is much more cost effective and reliable than the traditional method of having multiple fiber feeds from different sides of the building. Please note that the wireless used on a high-end backbone link is not the same caliber of wireless that you may use for a laptop in your home or office. It is a much higher level of quality, uses very different spectrum, and is engineered for 99.999% link reliability. It is unaffected by rain, snow, heavy fog, birds, or any other airborne object.

Enough fiber optic capacity for ten OC-768 (40Gbits/sec each) backbone links should it ever be required. That's 400Gbits/sec of total capacity or, in other words, enough capacity to transmit the entire contents of 73 completely filled CD-ROM discs per second. Of course, this capacity is only turned on once it is required.

• Comprehensive capacity planning and usage monitoring on all backbone links ensures there is always adequate capacity available for your heaviest usage.

Core routers

Cisco 7513 with dual redundant auto-failover route switch processor cards (dual RSP4 with 256MB RAM each), dual redundant VIP2-50 interface processors with 128MB of DRAM and 8MB SRAM, and dual redundant auto-failover power supplies. This router contains two DS3 ports (44.21Mbit/sec) and four 100Mbit/sec fast Ethernet ports. There is a tremendous amount of available expansion left in this router and it will easily scale to multi-gigabit speeds as required.

All routers run in hot standby mode. If a router fails, another takes its place within seconds to prevent downtime in the unlikely event a router fails.

InterNAP Flow Control Platform 120 (FCP 120). The FCP 120 detects and routes around any problems it detects with our backbone connectivity. No backbone link is immune to problems, but where we shine is how we deal with those problems. Most providers simply rely on BGP to make the routing decisions for their network. BGP only detects completely failed links and only in certain circumstances, though. BGP by itself will not detect congestion, reduced bandwidth, packet loss, or high latency and thus is incapable of handling those type of outages or performance problems. The FCP 120 augments BGP routing by detecting all types of outages and slowdowns and optimally routing around those issues. It determines those less than optimal conditions on the full path the data takes and not just our network or our backbone connections. Granted, a human can route around those types of issues using BGP, but the FCP 120 detects and corrects even the shortest duration issues that a human might not notice in time to be able to correct by hand. The FCP 120 also can make cost based routing decisions enabling lowest-cost best-path routing which helps us keep bandwidth costs low. The reporting tools that are part of the FCP 120 enable us to quickly pinpoint any network routing issues that a customer might report.

LAN core

• The routers are connected to our LAN through an auto-failover redundant fast Ethernet mesh comprised of multiple switches and multiple 100Mbit/sec switched links to protect in the event of any switch or port failure. The mesh is configured in such a way that it can handle up to two failed switches without losing connectivity between the routers and the LAN. This redundant fast Ethernet mesh is tentatively scheduled for an upgrade to gigabit Ethernet in May 2008.

• Dual back-to-back transparent firewalls. One firewall handles dynamic attack detection and filtering and the other firewall handles static firewall rules. This keeps unwanted traffic off the network and blocks known hacker networks. Each firewall can handle 100Mbits/sec of traffic. They are tentatively scheduled for an upgrade to gigabit Ethernet in May 2008.

• Managed 100Mbit fast Ethernet switches. Each server gets a dedicated 100Mbit port to our network. True switching ensures that your 100Mbit network access is not slowed down by any other system using the network heavily. For special needs we can provide switched gigabit Ethernet ports. We have a network upgrade tentatively scheduled for May 2008 that will place all gigabit Ethernet capable devices on a new gigabit Ethernet network. When that upgrade is in place, we will be able to offer 10 gigabit Ethernet ports for special needs.

Data backup system

• 2TB backup and restore staging area on hard disks. This ensures that file searches, backups, and restores all happen very quickly without the extra time associated with seeking to the proper position on a tape. The very fast seek times of hard drives also allow us to do one full backup each month with daily incremental backups without incurring unreasonably long restore times. It also enables a smaller storage requirement for backups than if we did full backups every day. This system is completely extensible and will be expanded and upgraded as required.

• Portable storage devices enable off-site storage of the data in the backup staging area. A mirrored copy of the backup data is taken off-site each evening by a member of our staff. At least one fresh copy of the backup data is off-site at all times. This system will be upgraded and expanded as necessary.

• For systems that use our data backup system, backups occur daily between 6PM and 6AM Pacific time.  This is the period in which backups are least likely to impact performance for most customers.

Power backup

• We have a computer-grade gasoline generator continuously on-site, which is enough to power our entire network and all servers with power to spare. We keep enough fuel on hand for about 10 hours of continuous running. That gives us plenty of time to procure more fuel should there ever be a power outage longer than 10 hours. The longest power outage we've seen in our area between 1995 and now was about 5 hours.

• Due to the geography of our area (in a valley surrounded by mountains on three sides), any power disturbances are localized and not over widespread areas like you'd find after a major hurricane or other widespread disaster. This helps keep the mean time to repair relatively low for electrical outages in our area. Furthermore, we are just a few blocks from the local power company's repair truck dispatch facility.

Environment

• Temperature and humidity in our datacenter is continuously monitored for abnormal fluctuations. If any problem is detected, our environmental monitoring system pages two on-call people by cell phone and pager so that the problem can be investigated and corrected.

• Datacenter is cleaned weekly to remove any dust that may have accumulated with normal use.

Security

• Security system is monitored 24/7.

• Datacenter access is only by escort from one of our staff.

• Due to our proximity to the regional airport, our area is constantly patrolled by airport police. If our security system detects an intrusion, they are typically on-site within one to two minutes of receiving the call.

Geography

• Situated at the foot of the Blue mountains in the southeast corner of Washington state in Walla Walla, the geography of our location naturally has a lower risk for natural disasters such as floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, mud slides, hurricanes, and volcanoes versus the typical datacenter on one of the coasts or in southern states. The area is in a valley surrounded on three sides by mountains.

• Our location within Walla Walla is at the regional airport, which was formerly a military airbase. It sits at a higher elevation than the rest of the valley and thus avoids any flood risk from the nearby rivers and creeks. When selecting this location for an airbase, the military naturally took into account those risks.

Disaster Preparedness

• The northwestern quadrant of the United States has several active and dormant volcanoes. Though our location is not directly at risk from any of those volcanoes, ash fall from any of those volcanoes could be a concern. To deal with this risk, we have taken steps to prevent fine volcanic ash from reaching and damaging our equipment, including electrical generators and datacenter air conditioning. We also have an ash mitigation plan that allows us to continue uninterrupted operations in the days and weeks of clean-up that could follow an ash fall event.

• There are no known risks of floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, mud slides, or hurricanes at our location.

• In the event of a fire or other event that destroys servers, we mirror data backups to portable storage devices that are safely taken off-site at the end of each day. There is always at least one fresh copy of data off-site at all times.

Green Power

• Electricity for the area is generated entirely by hydroelectric turbines and windmills with zero emissions.

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