Video Compression

[Alex_Manifest_M]

Most areas of the country seem to have no trouble at all playing our video but on occasion folks out West have them stop and start. First I was told that the files were too large. So now they are smaller (less than 29mb) and seemed to be fine. Now it is happening again with the professionally compressed vids that used to be fine. So I now hear I need a faster server. Based on surveys, the problem is isolated but these few customers have no trouble with my primary competitors vids that are no larger in file size. Any ideas?

[gaybucks_chip]

I seriously doubt this has anything to do with your compressed files and instead, everything to do with your ISP. We have videos that are over 100MB and we almost never get reports of problems.

Doing a quick traceroute, it looks like your ISP is reselling Internap/pnap.net. From what I could see, it looks like there's a routing problem between Internap where they peer (connect) with AT&T, who supplies much of the west coast-bound connections for Comcast, which is the big cable ISP in norcal.

You probably don't need a faster server, but you might need either a faster connection to your network (100Mbit if your current server has less than that) or a bigger bandwidth connection (you might be limited to 3, 5 or 10 Mbits, which wouldn't be enough for video if you have more than a few members.)

I'd say check with Luke/Chilihost/National Net or, if you have someone willing to do your own admin/update of your server, check out SoftLayer or ThePlanet.

[Alex_Manifest_M]

What you are seeing in the location of the site this particular day. We have it on two servers (both in Idaho). One is dedicated and one is shared. The dedicated server is being replaced and will be online in three days. What is being reported to me by our members is that the only folks with consistent problems are on the western part of the US. The kicker is that they are members of competitor sites with servers on the far west coast that and they do not have the same issue. But customers in the middle part of the US and the east coast do have problems with these competitors. Are we going to have to have multiple servers and addresses around the country to avoid this? Man oh Man!

[gaybucks_chip]

I would still say what you're experiencing is either an ISP problem or a BGP problem (which is, indirectly, an ISP problem)

If your ISP is properly advertising the routes through whatever given transit providers it uses, the time delay between one coast and another should be a few milliseconds at best. I regularly upload and download content with servers that are in the Netherlands and still don't have any problems.

To be honest, I've had longer ping times from servers located 50 miles away than from servers located 1500 miles away... because their routing tables are screwed up. You should not need geographically diverse servers to provide adequate download to anyone, even if your site has 25,000 members.

I would look carefully at *which* west coast customers are having problems. I'd bet they are either all with the same provider, or whatever providers they are using are using the same routes between your server and their ISP, and that particular route is having a problem. Your ISP should be able to resolve this for you if they're reasonably competent, but you'll need to talk to someone who understands routing tables and how to modify them.

[Alex_Manifest_M]

That is a real help. Thank you. I will get trace routes from the members with known problems and hand that over to FastServers.

Thanks much. I really do appreciate it.

Alex

[Chilihost]

Alex, if you do find this continues and want to look around, I can offer you servers running from Atlanta which are physically located in the same building as the cross-USA cables. This building also houses telcos like AT&T & Sprint so you will be in a prime location to serve the west coast.

cheers,
Luke

[Alex_Manifest_M]

Luke,
Thanks. I will def keep this in mind. This is one of those things outside my understanding that always seems to make me nutz!

[steven619]

I'm doing a ping test using PingPlotter (good free software) that will give me multiple ping tests.

I'm doing the test from San Diego (cox networks) to your FastServer connection in edenwebsites.com (I guess your reseller or server) in Chicago (IP 64.38.9.115)

You can also find what is called a "looking glass" and can run traces and tests from different parts of the world.

In most cases and in my opinion it is related to:

1. Apache setup (timeout issues, connections ..... )
2. Switch / Router / BGP
3. Network traffic
4. Server load / resources

It all depends on what you have control over or what ISP (or reseller) has control over. We have had to do live monitoring on servers in the past to watch (sniff) the traffic and connections. Sometimes it was an easy fix to the server, other times we have had to change settings on the BGP or Router.

In any case, contact your hosting provider and put presure on them.

I've done 84 ping tests and took the average.
The results were okay. The biggest slowdown happned at the handoff to fastservers at 216.218.224.106 and 64.62.252.2.

But you were still under 100ms and that is okay for most video and VOIP.

Unless you are on the geek side of life I would contact your provider and ask them for help. If they can't help or they blame other things. Find another provider.

When you don't have value you have price.
Price should not be the only thing you look for in hosting, servers, or bandwidth. There are large differences and reasons (most of the time) that one hosting company will be twice as expensive.

We have seen client sales double because of better networks and servers.

Give your ISP/provider a chance and see what they can do first. It is easier to work with them then to move the site/server. Just remember, it is better to move from a slow provider then to stay and loose money.

[Alex_Manifest_M]

very very helpful information. I will get on it and see what I can do. Thanks much!