DigiChilli Network Status December

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rsd said:
They need to address the 11% packet loss before they worry about anything else. Packet loss on an ADSL network is a little strange...
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Packet shapers having a hard time keeping up with the rules?
 
i know this was asked before, but is anyone actually practically connecting two digichilli accounts in load balance and getting double the speed? i.e two 256k = 512k minimum speed (obviously not on single thread connections)

Thx.
 
burn said:
More of a trickle on my side. Why is it that people experience such varying degrees of service?
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I think much of the problems are with telkom.

There have been times that the problems experienced by DC users, were exactly the same as I was experiencing with my telkom account, as well as what others were experiencing from their various ISPs (and no doubt, telkom as the one half of the service).

rurapente said:
i know this was asked before, but is anyone actually practically connecting two digichilli accounts in load balance and getting double the speed? i.e two 256k = 512k minimum speed (obviously not on single thread connections)

Thx.
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Yes, many have had concurrent connections running and it works.

I'm too lazy to dig through the threads. :D
 
Lightscribe said:
I think much of the problems are with telkom.

There have been times that the problems experienced by DC users, were exactly the same as I was experiencing with my telkom account, as well as what others were experiencing from their various ISPs (and no doubt, telkom as the one half of the service).
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Just wondering how an issue can only effect some accounts and not others. Like the poor download speeds while others are getting blazing downloads. Seems odd to me...
 
Network Change - We need to know your needs

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 :D:D:D
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
DigiChilli

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.
 
There is another known issue at this stage. The pool of IP's are spread across the 40 odd Telkom ESR's evenly. When those IP's run out, one will be pulled from the pool. This is really slow and causes some time outs and PAP auths. Please power down modem/router, have a coffee, and reconnect. This works in most instances. Patience is recommended until Telkom dump more IP's on their ESR's in the next few days.

http://www.digichilli.com/
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It's telkom and then the abusers.

They are trying to tweak the system to be able to limit the protocols of abusers.

But then the abusers go and tunnel the torrents as http...

So, untill they can track and trace and boot the abusers, there will be slow speeds for some at times and then for others at times.

Then there are the upstream providers.

Last night the problem was upstream. http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=3448376&postcount=340

Hehehe! ...and Makhulu beats my short explanation! :D
 
So if it is not working tomorrow, it won't work until next year :p Let's hope it all works fine in the morning :D
 
burn said:
So if it is not working tomorrow, it won't work until next year :p Let's hope it all works fine in the morning :D
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If this doesn't work then I'm going on holiday :o

We will let all know what time.

Regards

Darren Smith
DigiChilli
 
I hate DPI machines on the pure basis of privacy but hey this is the Interwebz privacy is a pipe dream. Also I would put money on the fact that all ISP's in S.A. will have DPI running so for you guys to have it is no concern to me.

One question how strict is your prioritizing going to be? Currently torrents are dead in the water at this time of day but when you get this layer 7 guy running will torrents still get some traffic during the day? Even if it is small like 10kB/s and burst it up after 9/10pm I am pretty sure everyone would find that acceptable?

+1 To the gaming need :).

Thanks for the input MC much appreciated :).
 
Anakha56 said:
I hate DPI machines on the pure basis of privacy but hey this is the Interwebz privacy is a pipe dream. Also I would put money on the fact that all ISP's in S.A. will have DPI running so for you guys to have it is no concern to me.

One question how strict is your prioritizing going to be? Currently torrents are dead in the water at this time of day but when you get this layer 7 guy running will torrents still get some traffic during the day? Even if it is small like 10kB/s and burst it up after 9/10pm I am pretty sure everyone would find that acceptable?

+1 To the gaming need :).

Thanks for the input MC much appreciated :).
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Why dont you tell us how much you would like us to allocate to torrents? :D

Assuming 100% network utilisation, we will have 5-6 priorities

P1- DNS, ACK etc (5% guaranteed)
P2- Proper HTTP, HTTPS, SSL, anything interactive (60%)
P3- Mail, POP, IMAP, IM etc (10%)
P4- FTP, SSH etc (10%)
P5- Everything else (including NNTP, Torrents etc) (15%)

We will tweak these as required. For example, if you need serious speed but the volume of data is low, then we can look to put it into P1 or P2?

Regards,

DigiChilli
 
MC I am going to be very honest with you, I have no idea what is a good level for torrents :p. From what you are saying those levels look good but I will leave it for the more knowledgeable members to give feedback :). For me I tend to browse, game then download.
 
All this talk of chillis makes me lust for some yummy spicy chilli poppers, right now :love:
 
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