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SEA2 Network Infrastructure & Architecture Summary
Our SEA2 advanced Network Operations Centre (NOC) in Tukwila, Washington
is an essential part of our core network.
The SEA2 NOC is staffed by highly experienced Systems & Network Administrators
24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and features three (3) parallel N+1 500KVA UPS systems with maximum battery life, a 1.5MW
diesel generator, and 100s of tons of AC capacity. SEA2 offers both premium and
value transit services.
The local network is arranged in four logical segments:
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Core - redundant Cisco 12008/12012 GSR routers connected to the Internet
and the rest of our national coast-to-coast network via multiple Gigabit Ethernet lines; running the full BGP4 protocol,
thus ensuring route optimization and redundancy. |
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Distribution A - redundant Catalyst 4912G master switches that
ensure a fully redundant switching fabric between the core routers
and the DistB distribution switches. |
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Distribution B - redundant high-end Cisco Catalyst 6509 MSFC2
/ Supervisor 2 master routing switches that distribute access to the
physical and virtual LANs and route internal traffic. |
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Access - redundantly connected Catalyst 2924XL EE switches
to which all servers are connected. Each and every server gets a full
100Mb/s full duplex port to the access layer. |
Our network does not use any 10Mb/s switches, or any hubs - at all.
It is completely Fast Ethernet (100 Mb/s, for access) and Gigabit Ethernet
(1000 Mb/s, for core and distribution) based. Both internal and external
network provides multiple, redundant, paths. Each and every piece of
the network is fully redundant: there is no single point of failure.
Physical Network Infrastructure
OnFiber, ELI, and Sabey, three of the most financially healthy fibre
carriers, provide our local private, redundant, SONET-ring based fibre transport circuits.
The multiple private SONET rings provide us the ultimate
in reliability: no downtime even in the case of a major fibre cut in the
area (due to separate paths and multiple fibre transport providers).
A number
of fibre carriers are on site, too: ELI, OnFiber, AboveNet (MFN) and Level 3 just to name a few, and more are nearby.
Furthermore,
we do not only connect within the Seattle metro area. The Seattle portion of our network is fully tied in with our
national coast-to-coast IP backbone, and connects to Palo Alto, CA (PAO1) and Ashburn, VA (IAD1) directly via our Seattle, WA site (SEA1).

Logical Network Architecture |
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Run
a traceroute from our SEA2 network.
Traffic from SEA2 considers all the outgoing routes - be it at the same site or at one of the many other sites - weighted for physical distance, reliability, performance and latency, and picks the most direct, lowest latency route available to the destination. That is, all the packets take the most direct, fastest, way out and have a full BGP selection of all the transit providers and peers at all the sites, not just the transit/peering lines present at that particular site. The network is fully inter-connected and meshed.
For more details on our core network, such as a full backbone connectivity
and peering diagram and network maps of our transit Tier 1 backbone connectivity
providers, please review details on our core
network.
All customers and independent tests find our network to be better
performing than any single competitor. Our industry-leading
SLA guarantees that.
Further
Advantages of Our Network
Seattle is one of the best connected high-tech cities in the US (all major networks peer locally in Seattle, and it is under 30ms to California, under 75ms to the East Coast), and has some of the most reliable power anywhere. Furthermore,
we are located in a stable and level area (ground level of a well-built single story facility), providing the best resistance to earthquakes, and have multiple diverse-path fibre transport circuits with OnFiber, ELI, and Sabey.
In Seattle we peer both at the SIX (Seattle Internet Exchange) and PAIX Seattle, thus reaching almost all the major networks locally. This is further
built upon by our redundant connectivity to multiple Tier 1 providers
via separate circuits, terminating at diverse locations in Tukwila (south of Seattle) and Seattle downtown.
We are redundantly set-up Internet connectivity
wise (multiple backbone connectivity providers), as well as physically.
In terms of fiber optics, we have multiple private SONET rings
with multiple financially-healthy fibre providers (OnFiber, ELI, and Sabey), taking different physical
paths.
We have built our facilities in the best possible area for Internet
connectivity, and then further reinforced it with redundancy in all possible
forms and factors. The big 1.5MW generator can keep well over 5000 servers up and running indefinitely
(though with the very reliable and abundant electricity in Seattle, power there is not typically an issue).
The three (3) N+1 redundant 500KVA UPS systems (with maximum battery life each) ensure that even if one UPS fails, there is no noticeable impact whatsoever.
There is currently 180 tons of Air Conditioning within the data centre, with easy ability to triple it to 540 tons using the existing dry coolers.
The entire data centre has been built out with no expense being spared, and with further future expansion in mind. As it stands now, it is already
able to accommodate 5,000 - 8,000 total servers.
To ensure the best routing of our customers' data, we pay for commercial
top-priority transit network capacity to our tier 1 backbone providers
and have full burst capacity available at all times on all circuits. Thus
we receive the highest level of service, including 99.99% or 100% uptime
and no packet-loss guarantees, from all our connectivity providers. 90%+
of traffic from us to end users only passes over one or two backbones
on its way to reaching the end destination. In addition, we are committed
to under 50% network capacity utilization at all times; we ensure that
our network always has double the capacity it needs, even at peak hours.
Our network design and operations ensure the very best connectivity,
speed, and reliability possible: 100% network uptime, no packet loss,
and under 3 ms low latency connection to Tier 1 backbones - guaranteed
by our industry-leading SLA.
Our SEA2 network & site in summary:
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