Hi All.
We will be making the last network change for 2009 between tonight and tomorrow night. Will give you a heads up before.
This is a big one, and will final resolve all of the performance related issues being experienced.
We need to shape the traffic across the network. This is to assign the correct priorities to traffic. Also to ensure that everyone gets what they pay for. (Still got some freebies chowing more than their fair share of the pipe.)
This is NOT shaping in the negative context of the word (i.e. throttling).
We will start to manage the quality of experience.
Yep, that means deep packet inspection, layer 7 management etc. So all of you who have been bury your 300 torrent connections into HTTP on port 80, well, you will still be able to do that, only we will assign a lower priority to the packet.
So, we will not be blocking anything, and when there is capacity, everything can burst.
This will DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE ALL HTTP BROWSING AND RESPONSE TIMES FOR ALL.
So we have tried unshaped, and it just does not work. I have pasted an e-mail to a user below. (more details)
I am expecting that after tomorrow we will see nothing but
all over the place.
Please let CambodiaDave know of your specific needs so that we can make sure they are taken care of (e.g if you need low quantity but very high responses on game servers etc)
More info to follow shortly.
Regards
Darren Smith
Digi
Chilli
Sir,
Thank you for your thoughtful feedback.
I will ask the team to consider all the options you have presented.
I understand you are offering these suggestions so that we can improve our service, something that we are desirous of.
In return for your thoughts, allow me to explain the process we have been through, and see if you have any additional thoughts for us.
Context:
For your information we have the following available:
1) 100mbps (upgradable to 2X 1Gbps) to Seacom.
2) 155mbps (upgradable to 4X 155mbps) to Saix.
3) 20mbps (upgradable to X 155mbps) local internet access.
3) 100mbps (upgradable to 20 X 100mbps) international to ISP in London.
4) 100mbps international internet access,
a) 98% of all our traffic is international, hence the international v.s. local split.
b) Our network is running at 100% international and 80% local throughput.
c) According to best practice ratios, we should only be using 20mbps for the number of users we have.
Bear in mind that for DigiChilli, international bandwidth is CHEAPER than local. (That may change some of your calculations)
1) The reason for the original performance issues at launch were due to a faulty link between our data centre in JHB and the Seacom Meet me room at Neotel in Midrand.
This had the effect of reducing my network performance down to 9mbps. This has been completely replaced and we have not network problems on the infrastructure.
2) We had some DNS issues, now resolved
3) We have some authentication issues, mostly resolved
4) We had users with many multiple connections (8-9)
5) We cannot control network protocol priorities (peeps encapsulating torrents etc into HTTP on port 80). Hence HTTP is very slow.
So we have a rock solid network, pushing +30Gb an hour.
Our issue is giving each user their fair share of the (big) pie.
To do this we have to look inside port 80 traffic and move some of it to a lower priority.
NOTE: We will never throttle traffic. Only prioritize.
So, for gamers, we can assign the highest priority to ensure the speed and latency is the lowest. But for downloads, we can assign this to priority 4 (for example).
If HTTP is not using its allocation, the other protocols will burst into the full available. So torrents etc will probably have full run at the pipe in the early hours (again and example.)
So shaping is not a bad thing. Its critical for the network to work as intended.
What we need to do do is work with valued users like yourself, to understand what your network priorities need to be.
Today / tomorrow we are installing a world class Layer 7 shaping device to help us do this better.
Also, we do not do any mirroring or caching at the moment. When we turn that on (next week) it will be even better.
Our strategy is to improve things every week. I am sorry for those users who have already given up on us (there are a few of those)
I am sure they will return when they see we have opened a can of whipass!
Please feel free to share this information with the general public.
I just need a bigger cap. I don't want uncapped, just a bigger cap at 4Mb. And at the same price as Do3. 
.
I like the current offers just want my torrents, steam and http downloads to be "fast". 