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WTB: Arizona non-OpenVZ VPS, very specific routing 'requirements' -- see inside
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WTB: Arizona non-OpenVZ VPS, very specific routing 'requirements' -- see inside

Hey all,

First post here [though I'm a long time lurker of LET's discussion boards].

--In all of my searching to date, I've not been able to come across a VPS provider that completely meets my needs (that hasn't collapsed) ... so hopefully someone out there of you guys can lend a hand and become that awesome provider.

To keep it sweet and to the point, I'm looking for the following:

Virtualization: anything other than OpenVZ (eg. Xen, KVM, VMWare)
RAM: 256mb
HDD: 3GB
CPU Cores: 1+ | node just cannot be overloaded -- a small CPU guarantee would be nice
B/W: 500+GB /mo (*would prefer 1TB if possible*)

Port speed: ~20+mbit
Reliability: Yes please!
(See above port comment -- burst speed isn't much a concern, yet reliability is)

Routing: Must have similar routing traits to SecuredServers

[eg. 174.138.175.114]
  2     7 ms     7 ms    11 ms  67.40.227.244
  3     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  phnx-agw1.inet.qwest.net [75.160.237.153]
  4     8 ms     8 ms     7 ms  phn-edge-08.inet.qwest.net [67.14.40.50]
  5     8 ms     9 ms     9 ms  65.118.209.74
  6    14 ms    9 ms     9 ms  eth15-1.cr1.ss.phx0.0.170.108.in-addr.arpa [108.
170.0.9]
  7     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  8    10 ms    11 ms    10 ms  x3430-24589.securedservers.com.175.138.174.in-ad
dr.arpa [174.138.175.114]
  • This is the most-critical of my requirements. The majority of providers that I've come across in Arizona, with Qwest's routing go from Arizona to Los Angeles, and back to Arizona again (adding ~30ms of latency).

[40ms RTT to the same state I live in is not ok here and defeats the point!]

In essence: I am looking for a direct and short path to a VPS that does not involve bouncing through LA.

Price: With the resources I'm asking for and intended usage, I would expect this to be under 10$ /mo.

However, if you do not have such a budget-plan I may be willing to be flexible here, and to buy more than what I need as there don't seem to be many (if ANY) choices.

Intended usage of the VPS and its bandwidth (the why):

I'm looking to bond together multiple DSL lines with packet-mirroring to the VPS, across all said lines. This is for redundancy and NOT bandwidth aggregation, as a personal VPN / proxy. (ifenslave in broadcast mode + OpenVPN)

The specific goal is to minimize overall latency and jitter, and to maintain as good as possible uptime without packet-loss .. --- and importantly to avoid enabling interleaving on my lines

(aka, to combine multiple UNRELIABLE, yet low latency, internet connections into one reliable & low-latency connection [the best of both worlds] )

To re-iterate: I can't be sold on OpenVZ as I want to use ifenslave on TAP adapters, and to have control of kernel TCP stack settings.

Please let me know if you can provide such a VPS or have suggestions of someone that can,
-Thanks!

Comments

  • wychwych Member

    How many DSL lines are you bonding?

  • How many DSL lines are you bonding?

    That's a good question!

    Right now I'm planning on 2-3 ADSL lines, w/ interleaving off, and cellular as a non-active spare if the ISP completely goes down.

    I'm approximately 4 miles of copper from the remote line unit, so it won't be possible to exceed 5mbit per line (at the best case). [hence the 20mbit estimate for port-speed]

    -At the moment, my lines drop intermittently during any rain, lightning strikes, etc, as well as numerous CRC errors non-stop unless I enable interleaving.

    If I permit Qwest / CenturyLink to enable interleaving, this bumps my latency +24ms to the first hop on their end. I'm looking to do better than this for latency critical tasks like VoIP and MMO's.

  • VoIP is mostly jitter sensitive, not so much latency sensitive. VoIP works well between continents, with always high latency.

  • @rds100 said:
    VoIP is mostly jitter sensitive, not so much latency sensitive. VoIP works well between continents, with always high latency.

    That indeed may be the case. My lines have always had alot of jitter, even with interleaving on and with the packet-loss eliminated. I'm hoping that mirroring between the lines will crush both the jitter and loss.

    -I don't know the inner workings of interleaving and if it exacerbates jitter, yet it certainly induces added latency and so I assumed that was the culprit. I could be wrong for sure, as I've just never had a smooth voice-chat conversation at this home yet.

  • To add a bit by what I mean there on jitter.

    While the above traceroute doesn't show anything in that short period. There's swings with my CenturyLink service w/ spikes of 200+ms (to anywhere) that last 2-3 seconds [with no saturation / a quiet line].

    These generally coincide with bursts of line CRC errors.

  • belinikbelinik Member
    edited March 2015

    @a2razor said:
    -At the moment, my lines drop intermittently during any rain, lightning strikes, etc, as well as numerous CRC errors non-stop unless I enable interleaving.

    what you need is not a handoff after leaving quest, but finding out your wiring between house and the CO/remote.
    had similiar issue like yours years ago, moved into a new house and found out there is noise when using DMT, replace house wiring and connect directly to demarc. noise is gone(quiet) but as soon as rain starts it just goes to shit and I can pretty much tell my raid group I am off. Few months later isp installed a remote closer my house and everything is solved after I switched.

    I really don't think your problem will be solved by bridging connection at phoenix nap or outside your quest network, as it seems a backbone issue.

    After solving that issue, I would suggest jumping on one of the isp that piggy back quest/century's last mile, make sure they offer MLPPP. The solution seems much better then having a vps doing it as it is just another point of failure.

  • @belinik said:

    Unfortunate part of my current situation is that I've had CenturyLink / Qwest out here repeatedly (dozens of times now with different technicians).

    I've had the cable from the house back to the pedestal re-trenched and replaced. Been swapped to different copper pairs (8 different pairs in total, which is every pair that's suitable for DSL), including having cable techs run back and forth many times attempting to find and remove any bridge-taps. Had them run new Cat6 wiring through the house and redo the connection to the demarc outside (this dropped 1db off the attenuation) ... but I'm still basically at the limit of attenuation to even get speeds that I'd consider broadband (eg, 5mbit).

    VDSL can only get ~2mbit at this distance, and I had to convince them (which was very hard) to put us on the older ATM technology.

    ---- I usually use DMT on my DLink 2640B to force a sync at around 3mbit whenever it rains, or the line will just rapidly drop.

    CenturyLink has also tried to talk me into buying a T1 line at 350$ a month. Yet at that point I'd only be getting 1.5mbit and be paying roughly 5 times the price of a single 5mbit business-tier DSL line. They threw in a 'deal' saying they could charge me 500$ a month for 4.5mbit bonded T1, but that's kindof way out of my budget, imo.

    [I'm dealing with the business department as that's the ONLY way that I could even get them to connect the house .. residential kept telling us that we're out of reach and that this area is not serviced "at all" ]

    As we live pretty well in the middle of nowhere there's low to no chance of them putting a mini-DSLAM closer as there's not enough customers to make it worth their while. Yet I've also looked into this, and asked them for a price quote. They came back and said that they will not even provide us a quote for the number of houses in the area, and that service capacity will not be extended unless more people move in / a housing development springs up.

    So, I'm low on options overall to say the least. Cox cable gave us a price tag of about 100k$ plus 1000$ a month for 5 years (dropped thereafter), to have fiberoptic trenched / installed. [obviously refused that as that too is kindof way outside my budget, lol...]

    4G cellular with Verizon is actually better in terms of stability than my DSL lines are at the moment for gaming, and what I use as a backup. While a VPS is another point of failure and it may be ideal (certainly I don't refute that) to get a stable landline connection. I just don't see it as something that's going to happen anytime soon.

    I've been living here for years and the situation hasn't changed. Tried pretty much everything, including looking into point to point wireless setups. Wydebeam has a tower about 16 miles from us, but the reception at this distance is pretty bad and it only yields about 1mbit capacity.

  • @a2razor

    We offer high availability KVM services out of Phoenix, AZ. I'd like to think our routing is pretty good but I don't have Qwest so there's no way I can test for you.

    Here is our test IP: 104.140.67.17

    Let me know your results!

  • Thanks for that Test-IP fizzyjoe908, really appreciate it.

    Here were the results from a trace:

    |                                      WinMTR statistics                                   |
    |                       Host              -   %  | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
    |                            192.168.22.1 -    0 |   51 |   51 |    0 |    0 |    1 |    0 |
    |                           67.40.227.244 -    0 |   51 |   51 |    6 |   11 |   29 |   11 |
    |                phnx-agw1.inet.qwest.net -    0 |   51 |   51 |    7 |   14 |   67 |    9 |
    |              los-brdr-01.inet.qwest.net -   91 |   11 |    1 |   23 |   23 |   23 |   23 |
    |                           63.146.27.146 -    0 |   51 |   51 |   18 |   22 |   33 |   20 |
    |              xe-3-0-0.phx10.ip4.gtt.net -    0 |   51 |   51 |   29 |   36 |   85 |   31 |
    |                serverhub-gw.ip4.gtt.net -    3 |   49 |   48 |   30 |   41 |   74 |   52 |
    |                   No response from host -  100 |   10 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
    |                 3-10.dst4.serverhub.com -    0 |   51 |   51 |   31 |   45 |  151 |   37 |
    |                         107.158.252.242 -    0 |   51 |   51 |   50 |   56 |   68 |   51 |
    |                        lg.vapornode.com -    0 |   51 |   51 |   51 |   54 |   67 |   64 |
    

    Also to make this easier for everyone, I've removed the ICMP block on one of my DSL lines:

    This address isn't a static and may not be valid if the line ends up taking a dump.. Yet I'll keep updating it as that may make this much easier to run traces from the other side too to see if they get directed through LA.

    CenturyLink / Qwest DSL: 174.19.137.192

  • Hm, unfortunately that does go through LA...doubling the ping response time. That doesn't seem to happen to any other Phoenix/Arizona IP I can find.

  • it sounds a little bit crazy to think residential does not have access to the copper when business does. Most drone on the residential department may be less educated compare to the business people. Have you tried emailing your situation to [email protected] to see what's up? Assuming the price of residential is less then business you may be able to have more line deployed(granted you will get more headache when you call techsupport).

    dslreport CL forum has a centurylink rep stationed there, usually they are much more capable then the people on the phone. you may want to also try that route to see if they can update the residential database.

    bottom line, since you mention how much you have done towards the demarc, and given your explanation I am almost willing to put money it's demarc > CO problem when it comes to rain, and since you live in remote area there is little you can do about it.

    vapornode seems to pass it's traffic via phoenix > LA and back...
    http://evlgaming.com/budget-vm/ comes to mind, I have a friend that use their phoenix dataceter and is kvm, see if you can get their test ip. If not iniz la and bandwagonhost both have 20ms ping from LAX, which tbh since you are playing mmo it is not really as game breaking compare to some other activity.

  • @fizzyjoe908 said:
    Hm, unfortunately that does go through LA...doubling the ping response time. That doesn't seem to happen to any other Phoenix/Arizona IP I can find.

    Indeed, Qwest seems to have some odd routing overall.

    The same thing happens to alot of addresses all the way on the East Coast as well, that they bounce through LA first --- with the exception of a few Denver and Texas datacenters (specifically of those that use Internap bandwidth).

    One of the only relatively budget VPS providers that I know of that has good routing to me is JollyWorksHosting. Yet they're a VZ provider exclusively. (I actually have an account with them)

    There were alot of other providers in the past that I also had accounts with that had good routes to Qwest ... yet they ultimately went under / out of business.

  • belinik said: it sounds a little bit crazy to think residential does not have access to the copper when business does. Most drone on the residential department may be less educated compare to the business people. Have you tried emailing your situation to [email protected] to see what's up? Assuming the price of residential is less then business you may be able to have more line deployed(granted you will get more headache when you call techsupport).

    I've not tried this approach yet. I'll probably look into it eventually. A 5mbit DSL line with residential is slightly cheaper than the business-equal.

    -Would pay roughly in the 80$ range per line, yet I also get an unlimited bandwidth quota for the price, so it's not that bad a deal all things considered.

    Business department is also much nicer to work with for getting interleaving shut off and or re-enabled compared to my past experiences with residential Qwest. If you ask for it, they'll do it for you same day within a few hours.

    belinik said: http://evlgaming.com/budget-vm/ comes to mind, I have a friend that use their phoenix dataceter and is kvm, see if you can get their test ip.

    I'll definitely see if I can request a Test-IP for evlgaming.

    belinik said: If not iniz la and bandwagonhost both have 20ms ping from LAX, which tbh since you are playing mmo it is not really as game breaking compare to some other activity.

    This is just something that bugs me because I play games on the East-Coast, when I know that ~30ms is being added by bouncing back and forth in the wrong direction.

  • IshaqIshaq Member

    SecuredServers is PhoenixNAP, you'll want a VPS that's based in that datacenter.

  • @Ishaq said:
    SecuredServers is PhoenixNAP, you'll want a VPS that's based in that datacenter.

    The issue is that alot of IP's within PhoenixNAP don't perform well to me and hop back through LA.

    For instance Eonix's Cage in PhoenixNAP with say BerryServers / EpiDrive yields similarly high latencies.

  • that's where evlgaming is in. NOTE: friend has a MC server there, don't know their vps quality.

    Thanked by 1ryguy222
  • We are with Eonix as well. In PhoenixNAP - different network.

  • IshaqIshaq Member

    Perhaps PhoenixNAP has different networks blends, and the cheaper blend is what budget companies use?

  • a2razora2razor Member
    edited March 2015

    @Ishaq said:
    Perhaps PhoenixNAP has different networks blends, and the cheaper blend is what budget companies use?

    This is very possible and wouldn't be that uncommon as I've seen it with many datacenters and certain customers having their own blends of peers within them.

    Honestly if I have to go up to a higher price bracket, that's perfectly ok. The price is definitely something negotiable and that I'd be willing to pay a bit more for, if someone can provide such a VPS.

    Another thing that I had not considered, yet may start considering, is bouncing through JollyWorksHosting (as a proxy for OpenVPN on each DSL line in order to avoid going through LA). Yet I'd prefer to avoid that if I can.

    Aka, get a KVM / Xen VPS, and go through an OpenVZ VPS to get to it ... then just double mirror each connection both through JWH (proxied) and direct to the VPS (bounced through LA) -- incase JWH goes down [they do from time to time].

  • @belinik said:
    that's where evlgaming is in. NOTE: friend has a MC server there, don't know their vps quality.

    Our Minecraft Servers and VPS servers are on the same bandwidth blend. Thanks for suggesting us :)

    Our carrier uses a noction IRP, and majority of the traffic goes out via Level 3.

  • edited March 2015

    Does 199.231.84.66 work allright? (Centurylink seems to stay within Phoenix, but the other direction may not be).

    Side note: This is ioflood, Corgi Tech, 3mhoster seem to have servers there (Haven't tested either of them, but they are advertising on the forums)

  • vdnetvdnet Member
    edited March 2015

    Just my two cents, but why not go with a provider in Los Angeles? A lot of Arizona routes are backhauled through Los Angeles first anyways, so it won't be adding latency in those situations. It might actually improve response from Asia and California and for any situation that does send from Arizona to LA and back.

  • ryguy222 said: Our Minecraft Servers and VPS servers are on the same bandwidth blend. Thanks for suggesting us :)

    Our carrier uses a noction IRP, and majority of the traffic goes out via Level 3.

    Sadly EVL did end up being routed through LA.

    Yet I do have to give credit where it's due and say that EVL's routing to other locations is really interesting (as they don't use Cogentco too much, which is the norm for most PhoenixNAP VPS providers to the East-Coast). They're the only provider that I've seen Level3 used in connections to Montreal, CA with.

    [~65ms to Montreal for anyone else curious and some 63ms routes to NYC, which is absolutely-fantastic! Did not expect this of Level3's routing ]

    StartledPhoenix said: Does 199.231.84.66 work allright? (Centurylink seems to stay within Phoenix, but the other direction may not be).

    Side note: This is ioflood, Corgi Tech, 3mhoster seem to have servers there (Haven't tested either of them, but they are advertising on the forums)

    Ah, I actually have a VPS with Corgitech in Texas that I run my mail server off of, along with our website among other things. All their locations, TX, AZ, etc, are routed through LA and use Cogentco dominantly.

    ioflood I've tested I'm pretty sure. I think that GHB and a few other hosts are located with them too. I seem to recall being very interested in ioflood due to alot of talk in promotions (on this site and others) of VPS DDoS protection / packages.

    vdnet said: Just my two cents, but why not go with a provider in Los Angeles? A lot of Arizona routes are backhauled through Los Angeles first anyways, so it won't be adding latency in those situations. It might actually improve response from Asia and California and for any situation that does send from Arizona to LA and back.

    I've a VPS with NFOServers (out in LA) that I'm already using for bandwidth aggregation and not mirroring, yet I receive 110ms to the East Coast routed through that VPS .. and also have mptcp + several kernel modifications running on it. Have had big issues with the mptcp kernel whenever I also have ifenslave broadcast mode going.

    [mptcp connections get dropped when the bond interface goes up or down]

    Have been just trying to avoid using that VPS (for this new function that I'm planning) and have been looking more for a server for low latency (to both coasts) rather than rigging something out of LA. If I went out of LA, I'd be inclined to re-open looking for the problems with mptcp and ifenslave being used at once in my config.

    Either way, ideally I'd "like to" get 80ms to the East Coast, which seems possible if I can find that magic host and optimal location.

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