We’re pleased to announce an important new improvement to the SimplerCloud network – direct connection to Singapore Internet Exchange (SGIX) through a fiber cross-connect connection within 1-Net data center.
Our new SGIX membership gives us direct peering connections to major regional network providers such as M1 (Singapore), Telkom (Indonesia), Maxis (Malaysia), Time (Malaysia), DTAC (Thailand) and Globe Telecom (Philippines), among others (see all providers), substantially reducing latency and the number of hops, and improving our network bandwidth and overall performance by up to 200% in some instances.
Faster, Bigger, Better
Leveraging SGIX’s high speed Internet Exchange network to route traffic through bigger Internet and network service providers in Singapore and across the region drops the number of hops from one point to another and improves latency, but also increases bandwidth availability overall. This will greatly improve the overall network performance for the ISPs’ users as they accessing their servelets hosted in SimplerCloud.
Our network now also has better routing efficiency and diversity. Although we already have good network connectivity to major Singapore ISPs: SingTel and Starhub via 1-Net. This SGIX addition connects us directly with other major ISPs in Singapore and region.
We have 1 Gbps of fiber connection to SGIX with 100 Mbps committed bandwidth. Together with our existing 2 x 1 Gbps lines that we have to 1-Net, we now have a total of 3 Gbps links with 300 Mbps of committed bandwidth to the Internet. Our overall utilisation remains below 20% on average.
Are you faster than XX (another cloud provider)?
We’re always working to keep our levels of service, product usability and network high. In this, we recognize that network connectivity and routing diversity are very important for the end-user’s experience. Increased routing diversity means that traffic reaches users through the fastest possible route instead of bottle-necking through a single available path. The absence of routing diversity is a common problem encountered by any cloud service provider that has only one Singapore POP. The added redundancy that we have also means that in the event of failure, uptime is preserved through alternative traffic routes.
When providers depend on a single upstream provider, and lack direct connectivity to local Internet exchanges and regional ISPs, the result can be substantial customer frustration at slow loading speeds. In one extreme example, a standard tracing route for a new overseas cloud provider that has just set down in Singapore shows that traffic from their Singapore users to their Singapore node actually flows through Japan and Hong Kong before reaching their Singapore destination.
Here’s a simple comparison.
Tracing route to a SimplerCloud servelet from a local ISP (Singnet)
A. Traceroute result from SingNet Broadband connection to SimplerCloud network:
===
C:\Users\indra>tracert my.simplercloud.com
Tracing route to my.simplercloud.com [103.25.200.2]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 7 ms 6 ms 3 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 11 ms 15 ms 11 ms 202.166.120.58
4 6 ms 7 ms 7 ms 202.166.120.57
5 12 ms 8 ms 9 ms bb118-200-252-4.singnet.com.sg [118.200.252.4]
6 6 ms 9 ms 6 ms bb118-200-252-3.singnet.com.sg [118.200.252.3]
7 9 ms 8 ms 7 ms xe-9-2-1.tp-ar11.singnet.com.sg [202.166.120.29]
8 8 ms 8 ms 13 ms ae8-0.tp-cr03.singnet.com.sg [202.166.122.50]
9 9 ms 9 ms 8 ms ae8-0.singha.singnet.com.sg [202.166.121.154]
10 8 ms 11 ms 12 ms ae1-0.corona.singnet.com.sg [202.166.122.150]
11 12 ms 11 ms 8 ms 202.166.124.190
12 12 ms 8 ms 9 ms 165.21.12.22
13 10 ms 10 ms * 202.172.213.1
14 11 ms 11 ms 21 ms 202.172.221.133
15 11 ms 10 ms 9 ms 202.172.221.142
16 9 ms 10 ms 11 ms 202.172.161.58
17 12 ms 14 ms 10 ms my.simplercloud.com [103.25.200.2]
Trace complete.
===
B. Traceroute result from SingNet Broadband connection to another network in Singapore:
===
C:\Users\indra>tracert 128.199.248.214
Tracing route to 128.199.248.214 over a maximum of 30 hops
1 3 ms 4 ms 9 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 11 ms 8 ms 12 ms 202.166.120.58
4 8 ms 8 ms 14 ms 202.166.120.57
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 10 ms 8 ms 33 ms bb118-200-252-3.singnet.com.sg [118.200.252.3]
7 9 ms 15 ms 24 ms xe-9-2-1.tp-ar11.singnet.com.sg [202.166.120.29]
8 10 ms 10 ms 9 ms ae8-0.tp-cr03.singnet.com.sg [202.166.122.50]
9 55 ms 9 ms 9 ms ae2-0.beck.singnet.com.sg [202.166.123.58]
10 14 ms 8 ms 8 ms 203.208.190.57
11 12 ms 12 ms 11 ms 203.208.152.209
12 49 ms 16 ms 21 ms 203.208.151.254
13 39 ms 40 ms 42 ms 203.208.166.238
14 42 ms 62 ms 40 ms t3-2-2-1-0.loncl-cr1.ix.singtel.com [203.208.172.50]
15 41 ms 41 ms 42 ms 203.208.152.194
16 52 ms 44 ms 100 ms ae-2.r21.newthk02.hk.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.10]
17 49 ms 42 ms 130 ms as-7.r21.sngpsi02.sg.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.6.9]
18 190 ms 157 ms 48 ms as-0.r21.tkokhk01.hk.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.6.124]
19 122 ms 115 ms 131 ms ae-6.r00.sngpsi02.sg.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.6.105]
20 160 ms 129 ms 154 ms ae-6.r00.sngpsi02.sg.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.6.105]
21 165 ms 128 ms 132 ms 116.51.27.150
22 130 ms 151 ms 151 ms 103.253.144.242
23 152 ms 152 ms 114 ms 128.199.248.214
In this real example, the traffic route for the overseas provider with a Singapore POP is quite a lot longer, resulting in a much longer load time. In addition to this, the route actually diverts traffic out of Singapore into another country, causing latency to jump to 150ms, compared to the traceroute to our network, which is only 12ms.
We believe strongly in continuously improving our user experience by providing better and direct network connection with high-speed bandwidth and lower latency and number of hops. As our base grows, you can expect to continue to see the same commitment to network convenience and experience.
For our overseas users, here are some sample trace routes from our network through major regional providers. You can also check for improved network performance by using our speed test.
Sample Trace Routes
Below are some examples of traceroute results to some networks behind SGIX backbone:
* Traceroute to Google public DNS server:
indra@ns1:~$ traceroute 8.8.8.8
traceroute to 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 103.25.200.1 (103.25.200.1) 0.492 ms 1.314 ms 1.300 ms
2 103.16.102.64 (103.16.102.64) 1.291 ms 1.288 ms 1.281 ms
3 66.249.95.124 (66.249.95.124) 1.613 ms 1.608 ms 1.590 ms
4 72.14.239.61 (72.14.239.61) 1.971 ms 64.233.174.109 (64.233.174.109) 1.357 ms 1.339 ms
5 * * *
6 google-public-dns-a.google.com (8.8.8.8) 1.815 ms 1.504 ms 1.790 ms
* Traceroute to SpeedTest Singapore (hosted at NewMediaExpress):
indra@ns1:~$ traceroute speedtest.com.sg
traceroute to speedtest.com.sg (202.150.221.170), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 103.25.200.1 (103.25.200.1) 1.819 ms 1.729 ms 1.711 ms
2 newmediaexpress.sgix.sg (103.16.102.22) 1.658 ms 1.665 ms 1.650 ms
3 ge1-2.r01.sin01.ne.com.sg (203.174.80.209) 20.448 ms 20.448 ms 20.531 ms
4 202-150-221-170.rev.ne.com.sg (202.150.221.170) 1.585 ms 1.572 ms 1.556 ms
* Traceroute to Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom):
indra@ns1:~$ traceroute telkom.net.id
traceroute to telkom.net.id (202.134.0.12), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 103.25.200.1 (103.25.200.1) 0.675 ms 0.645 ms 0.728 ms
2 telin.sgix.sg (103.16.102.34) 0.803 ms 0.802 ms 0.790 ms
3 180.240.190.14 (180.240.190.14) 2.174 ms 2.165 ms 2.075 ms
4 41.subnet118-98-59.astinet.telkom.net.id (118.98.59.41) 13.582 ms 11.253 ms 4.119 ms
5 * * *
* Traceroute to Maxis (Malaysia):
indra@ns1:~$ traceroute maxis.net.my
traceroute to maxis.net.my (202.75.130.54), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 103.25.200.1 (103.25.200.1) 0.563 ms 0.570 ms 0.635 ms
2 * * *
3 202.151.252.249 (202.151.252.249) 9.761 ms 9.739 ms 9.718 ms
4 202.151.241.141 (202.151.241.141) 9.408 ms 9.403 ms 9.611 ms
5 202.151.241.133 (202.151.241.133) 9.595 ms 9.585 ms 9.605 ms
6 gi1-0-0.sgbp-pe90a.maxis.net.my (202.151.241.14) 8.902 ms 8.795 ms 8.682 ms
7 202.151.252.46 (202.151.252.46) 8.790 ms 8.789 ms 8.744 ms
8 * * *
* Traceroute to DTAC (Thailand):
indra@ns1:~$ traceroute dtac.co.th
traceroute to dtac.co.th (203.107.128.132), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 103.25.200.1 (103.25.200.1) 0.569 ms 0.548 ms 0.580 ms
2 true.sgix.sg (103.16.102.46) 5.205 ms 5.210 ms 5.185 ms
3 TH-ICR-TT1-26-209.trueintergateway.com (122.144.26.209) 36.621 ms 36.635 ms 36.630 ms
4 TH-IDR-MTT1-26-162.trueintergateway.com (122.144.26.162) 35.432 ms 35.445 ms 35.615 ms
5 TIG-Net28-34.trueintergateway.com (122.144.28.34) 35.351 ms 35.396 ms 35.337 ms
6 203.195.105.18 (203.195.105.18) 35.392 ms 36.607 ms 36.501 ms
7 58.181.253.21 (58.181.253.21) 34.262 ms 34.288 ms 34.185 ms
8 58.181.253.50 (58.181.253.50) 34.181 ms 35.499 ms 35.456 ms
9 * * *
* Download speed test from Singapore SpeedTest server hosted at NewMediaExpress:
[root@sc-centos65-64b ~]# wget speedtest.com.sg/test_random_1000mb.zip
–2014-02-28 16:48:46– speedtest.com.sg/test_random_1000mb.zip
Resolving speedtest.com.sg… 202.150.221.170, 202.150.221.172, 2406:f400:8:8::2, …
Connecting to speedtest.com.sg|202.150.221.170|:80… connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 200 OK
Length: 1024768000 (977M) [application/zip]
Saving to: `test_random_1000mb.zip.1′
100%[==========================================================================================================================================================================>] 1,024,768,000 12.1M/s in 84s
12.1 MBytes/sec is approx. 96 Mbps.
More details about SGIX: http://sgix.sg/en/about/
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