Hosting: Tier1 -vs- Tier2
 

Somebody in the hosting industry needs to explain me something.

We use Tier1 bandwidth for our galleries thumbnails, .html, tour pages and member areas.

We use Tier2 bandwidth for video clips and big images from galleries.

For the hell of it, I tried to do multiple Traceroutes from USA, UK, Germany, France, Greece, Russia, Africa, etc... and I get the exact same route results for our Tier1 servers -vs- Tier2 servers.

What do I get wrong? Or is Tier1 traffic basically the same shit as Tier2 since all big providers are using cheaper Tier2 routers? Like buying Generic -vs- Brand... same stuff for 2x the price.

People in hosting, please explain me ;)

May as well add in Tier 3 while your asking.

Tier-1 and Tier-2 ARE NOT DEFINITIONS OF QUALITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They have NOTHING to do with a networks quality.

Tier-1 means they do not use transit to reach other networks on the internet, they only use peering.
Tier-2 means they pay for exchanging traffic with other networks.

Transit = paying for routing over another network
Peering = the EXCHANGE of traffic over both networks

There is nothing inherently wrong or bad about a Tier-2 backbone. They are equal and sometimes better because the Tier-2 will have more eyeballs (end user customers/residential users) on their network or direct access to them.


ESPECIALLY now a days, you will be hard pressed to find a real difference between most bandwidth backbones... they will all pretty much provide good performance. The thing to know though is that NO ONE PROVIDER will ever be "the best" or "good enough for everything". Each one is good at certain things and certain parts of the internet. They KEY is to have a wide VARIETY of MULTIPLE providers so that you have that many more routes (or ROADS) to and from the internet.

Did you guys know that Level(3)... (a provider that some of you guys think is the cats meow) IS ACTUALLY SELLING THEIR BANDWIDTH CHEAPER THAN COGENT??????????

The difference between providers comes with the amount of redundancy they have available both in their network and their power infrastructure. Their support performance, value added services, and ease of scalability with variety of hardware offerings.

I can't edit anymore, but a Tier-2 will also have more control over who and how they route things as they won't be bound by trying to come up with MUTUAL AGREEMENTS on traffic exchange terms (peering). Which they can also fight over and become "depeered" (IE: Cogent/Level(3), Cogent/Telia, Cogent/Sprint)

Since they use transit (paying for their use of the other network), they can actually make changes and CHOOSE without encumbrance as to how they want to route things.

So you can see that a Tier-1 is not the cats ass, its ok... so is Tier-2.

The people using Tier-1 and Tier-2 as quality derivatives are just feeding you gimmicks.

So basically, what it comes down to when worrying about which hosting company to use is:

- Redundancy in their network -- are they using redundant (2 or more, that can take the full load should 1 fail?) routers?

- Do they have AT LEAST 2 backbones, so they have a backup plan WHEN one of those backbones has an issue?

- Does each of their backbones have enough capacity to handle the complete outage of another backbone without causing slow downs or packet loss?

- Do they have quality network hardware and spare parts for their routers? (very expensive)

- Do the datacenters have proper UPS and Generator systems for backup power and tested and working cut-over procedures so the transfer to backup power AND BACK is seamless?

- Is their support ON-SITE AT THE DATACENTER 24 hours a day so any physical issues are handled without delay?

- Are the staff they employ both in the day AND the night qualified to work on complicated tickets?

- AND MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: ARE THEY SELLING AT PRICES WHERE THEY ARE MAKING A _PROFIT!?

Too many hosting companies try to squeeze deals in just to get some revenue or close the deal. EVERY deal has to be profitable or they are setting themselves up for FAILURE. They need to examine every one of their costs and ensure that each deal they close is a good deal. Not just a "revenue" deal.

Wow, lost of very interesting informations Chris. GFY can still be worthwhile!
Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

just host at isprime .. no tiers needed, just top notch hosting :)