Hi,

Could someone who's got an office or a home in the Metro NYC area please post ping times for the data centers?

I have a web app that will serve people in this area, in addition to the Pacific NW, which it's currently doing. And I live in Portland, OR, which makes it hard for me to judge what a NY/NJ/CT/PA user's experience would be like. I've deciding whether to move from Fremont, whether to split to two servers, etc.

In case it's interesting, here are my ping times from my slow home connection in Portland:

fremont1.linode.com: 34ms
newark1.linode.com: 110ms
dallas1.linode.com: 80ms
atlanta1.linode.com: 94ms

For NYC, Newark is undoubtedly best — it’s only a few miles away.

CT, PA and obviously NJ are also geographically closest to Newark.

Atlanta is second-closest, though with really, really bad routes, it’s slightly possible that London or even Dallas would be faster for some users.

That's what I was thinking, what the relative differences are.

I'm trying to decide, though, whether the increase in latency to, say, Dallas or Fremont is a show-stopper for a web app.

From my FIOS connection in Northern NJ (close enough to Metro NY)

64 bytes from newark1.linode.com (207.192.68.6): icmp_seq=1 ttl=48 time=11.7 ms
64 bytes from fremont1.linode.com (64.71.152.17): icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=86.7 ms
64 bytes from dallas1.linode.com (70.85.129.19): icmp_seq=1 ttl=46 time=56.7 ms
64 bytes from 63.247.71.196: icmp_seq=1 ttl=48 time=34.8 ms (that's Atlanta1; no rDNS?!)

For completeness:
64 bytes from london1.linode.com (109.74.207.9): icmp_seq=1 ttl=50 time=94.8 ms

_________________
Rgds
Stephen
(Linux user since kernel version 0.11)

I used to live in the area. pings to newark are incredibly low. Atlanta has good pings too, but I wouldn't get a a linode there. Dallas is decent and Fremont is a little slow.

If you have any European traffic, I'd go with Newark. Otherwise, Dallas is a good compromise for US traffic.

I'd lean towards Dallas; it's a good compromise between both coasts and is well-connected in both directions. The increase in latency will probably be minor compared to the total page load time, given a decently-smart web server and network stack. Alternatively, design the application to use two Linodes, one on each coast.

For what it's worth, at least two of us with cable modems in upstate New York have used VoIP through Dallas with no deleterious effects. (For what it's worth, London is "closer" to me than Fremont, so I might just be in a bizarro pocket.)

Thanks - that's very helpful. I'm deciding between two scenarios:

1) Linode in Newark and Linode in Fremont

2) Linode in Dallas.

It's a Rails app with an average server response time of 80ms. So it's very fast, and offhand I have no idea how I'd split it up to run redundantly in different data centers. The big issue is user sign-ins and history.

From a Pittsburgh data center (run by a large host), I'm getting an average of 32ms over about 20 pings.

I hope at some point in the future Linode gets some space in a Seattle DC. I have 5ms ping times to one in particular

However, the 23ms I get to Fremont ain't bad either

That's actually pretty ridiculous. I was curious so:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=di ... to+fremont

It takes light 16.9ms (in fiber) to cover that distance... but that's if the fiber was a straight line from pittsburg to fremont. Basically, the computers between you and fremont are adding almost no latency.

You assumed I was in Pittsburgh. I'm in the Seattle area. I have a shared hosting account at a large host in Pittsburgh where I tested to Newark.

From Pittsburgh to Fremont I get 63ms.

From a cable modem in Bellevue, WA (a Seattle suburb):

fremont1:
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 32.575/34.932/36.295/1.084 ms

dallas1:
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 74.200/75.360/78.328/1.271 ms

newark1:
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 107.097/110.173/112.980/1.769 ms


So I've reduced my DNS TTLs in preparation for a move from Fremont to Dallas. It seems like Dallas is best for serving both coasts, with Fremont a close second.

Anyone else situated in Dallas to best serve people nationwide?

I can attest that Florida Comcast users ping best to Dallas, so I think you must be right. Of course it's best to host servers in multiple locations, but I'd say if you have to choose one, Dallas is probably best. It is the most centrally located geographically, anyway. I ping better to Dallas than Fremont.

Interesting.



I'd love to do that, but I haven't come with good ways of (1) Keeping geographically distributed database-stored sessions and associated user data synced, and (2) reliably / cost-consciously / maintainably do the Geo-IP routing.

For my setup I haven't had to deal with your problem #2, but for problem #1, master-master mysql replication has done the trick for years with zero issues.

alpha:~ brianpuccio$ ping -c 1 fremont1.linode.com
PING host27.linode.com (64.71.152.17): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 64.71.152.17: icmp_seq=0 ttl=48 time=88.088 ms

--- host27.linode.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 88.088/88.088/88.088/0.000 ms
alpha:~ brianpuccio$ ping -c 1 newark1.linode.com
PING newark1.linode.com (207.192.68.6): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 207.192.68.6: icmp_seq=0 ttl=45 time=10.032 ms

--- newark1.linode.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 10.032/10.032/10.032/0.000 ms
alpha:~ brianpuccio$ ping -c 1 dallas1.linode.com
PING host107.linode.com (70.85.129.19): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 70.85.129.19: icmp_seq=0 ttl=44 time=55.819 ms

--- host107.linode.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 55.819/55.819/55.819/0.000 ms
alpha:~ brianpuccio$ ping -c 1 atlanta1.linode.com
PING host77.linode.com (63.247.71.196): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 63.247.71.196: icmp_seq=0 ttl=46 time=28.279 ms

--- host77.linode.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 28.279/28.279/28.279/0.000 ms
alpha:~ brianpuccio$

This is from a FIOS connection on Long Island, about 23 miles as the bird flies from midtown Manhattan.