hamlet

Hallo! af København

LS Net finally packed it in – in Denmark, that is. Hamlet embodies a significant project of several phases. Before such a huge undertaking, though, we considered the features, advantages and benefits of moving away from our own T1 facility and we considered resource impacts in such an undertaking.

Motivations

Honestly, T1 connectivity is too slow serving most present-day Internet users. Generally, a T1 is faster uploading than typical DSL, cable and satellite Internet connections upload; however, most cable Internet and DSL subscribers download far more data in a second than is possibly uploaded via T1. Least expensive (read slowest) residential broadband supports 1 megabit of downloaded data per second. The explosion of Internet media content drives low-end broadband even higher. Today's Internet users want what they want they want it fast. In today's network lingo, we needed "a fat pipe". The old 1.5 megabits per second is passé; today's Internet nearly demands 5 megabits per second … and tomorrow ???

In the early days of Internet, the overwhelming majority of Internet users connected with dial-in service. Only elite users could afford broadband; LSNet was one of those elite and we availed our facility to dial-in users for a small fraction of the T1 cost. There is not a practical economy, any more, in providing dial-in connectivity through a small ISP. We found an upstream dial-in service provider, and discovered a remarkable improvement in the reliability of service we could provide. We no longer need a T1 to connect customers to the Internet, so our T1 became the world's window on LSNet and our web-served clients; but for todays' Internet users, that window is too small.

In Copenhagen, LSNet has four redundant Internet connections – each with total bandwidth grater 700 T1 circuits. Our host can access those redundant connections at 100 megabits per second. With that kind of connectivity, very few (if any) visitors have legitimate complaint of slow delivery from LSNet. Fast delivery means more satisfied visitors and satisfied visitors become return visitors; return visitors mean more visitors overall, and everybody understands the economy of more visitors.

data transfer rate is ONE benefit

Our support, technical, and engineering staff are world-class talent. Unfortunately, demands for each talent frequently exceeds availability. In client emergencies, queued attention is unacceptable. The Denmark installation allows streamlined and automated resolution of all attention to network issues without constraints on the physical location of necessary talent.

Many procedures, previously attended by only the two senior engineers, are scriptable. Scripts can be invoked with web forms. Web forms can, when appropriate, be accessed by customers instead of requiring staff attention. Self-managed accounts do not consume valuable staff resources and, in return, do not accrue support charges.

Bandwidth costs, in Copenhagen, significantly reduce our costs of operation. In fact, our increased capacity costs less than our T1 subscription. That cost advantage is passed on to our customers. In the same way our modem changes reduced subscription rates, our data customers will find advantage in the Denmark network configuration.

Procedure

Phase 1: inventory

The first phase involved cataloging hundreds of domains, sub-domains and aliases; but, that was not all. Each subscription was, in the process of inventory, appointed standards-based upgrades. Each subscription was, in the process of inventory, given many google domain services, a name server, two databases, ftp access,

Our enhanced basic websites now include the infrastructure for:

200 email accounts
- Super-admin availability
- SPAM filters per account
- 2 GB, snd growing, of email archive per account
  (almost 1/2 terabyte total data store)
Federated chat
Shared and private calendars
Shared and private documents
Web pages
- Portals
- Pictures
- Gadgets and more
FTP service
Forward DNS
MySQL database
HTTP access control
(and more)

During inventory, several issues surfaced. Expired domains were purged. Compromised accounts were disabled. Dysfunctional and misconfigured sites were repaired.

Phase 2: prototype

The Denmark installation, although fast, is not on the Local Area Network. Evaluating a proposed international extranet requires two, distinct networks – vaguely connected by the Internet cloud. Before closing the T1, we elected a business class connection with Comcast. We pull data through that connection at 7 megabits/second. That rate sufficiently saturates our T1, and easily allows synchronization of data in a timely manner. By establishing a mirror of the primary server, a quick DNS change at our registrar will bring our customers back online in a highly unlikely bad day – when Copenhagen goes offline.