BYOD Users: Testing Michigan Datacenter

[racerdude]

Tim - any update on this?

[VOIPoTim]

Tim - any update on this?

The MI testing server has still been in place for BYOD/resellers (SIP7).

We've been exploring a few options for deploying some more servers for resellers/BYOD users to choose from. Honestly there there's not much difference in them unless someone just happens to have a bad route. We've hesitated on publicly doing this because then people get very set on being put on specific servers thinking they need to be on closest one or a small difference in ping times will make a difference vs looking at the alternative as an option if they have a significantly better connection to it.

We're still debating a little and looking at options, but we're considering either deploying a public/permanent node in a different centralized datacenter (like the Michigan one) or just adding additional servers on the east and west coasts with Softlayer (our primary datacenter in Dallas).

[chevyman]

How about one in the northwest like Seattle where all the big guys are.

[racerdude]

Thanks Tim for the update. Hopefully you will be able to install some more servers around the country that will help us minimize latency on our calls. I have tried the Michigan server and noticed it added 5 extra hops (18 total) over the Texas server (13 total) and a small but detectable latency in my calls so I rarely use it. Just as a comparison, the Los Angeles voip.ms server is 11 hops and the ping is about 25ms better for me than the Texas server which is a noticeable difference.

It would be nice for BYOD/Resellers to have more options on the servers, perhaps having something in CA, WA and FL would cover more bases for you. Of course if you only do one I would vote for CA and I would be more than happy to test it out for you!

[GreenLantern]

To me it isn't only about geographic location, but about network/backbone path.

Example: I've run into a lot of issues with Comcast customers experiencing connectivity issues with the main Texas server.

When I move these customers to the Michigan server, the issues go away, even though MI has more hops and a bit more latency. I even have some Comcast customers in Texas that have better results connecting to Michigan.

This could be due to its different geographic location resulting in a different path through the internet. Or it could be simply because MI has different backbone providers than the TX data center. I don't know enough about either data center to be sure. But the results suggest there's something very different between the two.

Here's a really interesting article written by an admin at Level 3 that relates to this topic... Observations of an Internet Middleman

So to me, it seems that thoughtful selection of alternate data centers that use different backbone providers might help as much, if not more, than just different geographic locations on the same backbone.

[tritch]

Just keep in mind that the amount of hops or latency to these SIP servers at the data centers should have no effect on the audio of the call (or quality of the call). Unless Voipo has changed the way they handle audio (RTP stream), these SIP servers are just handling the setup/signaling of the call not the audio stream itself. Voipo’s upstream/terminating carriers are handling the audio stream, unless Voipo has specifically flagged your account to proxy the audio.

See Tim’s last 2 responses in this thread a few years ago:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r242...Washington-DC-

If this is still the case, your ISP network backbone/routing would be most important between the terminating carriers and your location, not so much to the SIP servers at the data centers. I’m talking about the audio quality of the calls. The amount of hops/latency would come into big play here.

The main concern to the SIP servers is just to have good connectivity (no extreme latency), so as not to have any call setup/signaling problems during the call. In this respect, the backbone/routing just needs to be dependable and reliable more so than bandwidth….

[racerdude]

I believe that post you linked to is outdated, Voipo does proxy audio now on all calls. In the case of sip7 the audio proxy shows as 72.52.231.45 (Liquidweb Michigan) and in the case of sip and sip-central01 it shows 67.228.190.147 (Softlayer Dallas). So this does have an effect in the call quality, at least for me.

[tritch]

I believe that post you linked to is outdated, Voipo does proxy audio now on all calls. In the case of sip7 the audio proxy shows as 72.52.231.45 (Liquidweb Michigan) and in the case of sip and sip-central01 it shows 67.228.190.147 (Softlayer Dallas). So this does have an effect in the call quality, at least for me.

Thanks, I stand corrected. I wasn't aware they made changes and proxy the audio now....good to know.

I suppose they made the change to mitigate firewall issues at the customer's router. In the past, they suggested forwarding a wide range of ports on the router to prevent blocked, one-way audio issues due to the audio coming from a different IP (terminating carrier) than the SIP server...

[GreenLantern]

Thanks, I stand corrected. I wasn't aware they made changes and proxy the audio now....good to know.

I suppose they made the change to mitigate firewall issues at the customer's router. In the past, they suggested forwarding a wide range of ports on the router to prevent blocked, one-way audio issues due to the audio coming from a different IP (terminating carrier) than the SIP server...

at risk of getting off topic... I believe that this change has rendered the "force media proxy" setting in the control panel to be meaningless. can anyone confirm that?

[burris]

Would you guess then that those of us who have major port forwarding enabled for many years now, can disable the port forwarding?.