Syndicate
) October 6, 2008 --
The Planet, the global leader in IT
hosting, today announced significant improvements to its
enterprise-class network. These new upgrades consolidate the already
powerful Houston and Dallas networks into a single global network, which
provides increased reliability, better scalability and a more consistent
experience for the company’s 22,000 customers.
It also provides a common network policy across the company’s
six world-class data centers in the two cities.
In preparation for next-generation technologies, The Planet’s
network is now IPv6-ready and is running MPLS for greater traffic
engineering and management, as well as enhanced IP services.
“In survey-after-survey, customers tell us
they choose The Planet based on the quality and reliability of our
network and data centers,” said Will Charnock,
the company’s vice president of technology. “Both
comprise the central nervous system operations for our customers, who
rely on us to operate their mission-critical IT infrastructures around
the clock. During the past two years, we’ve
performed significant upgrades to deliver even better quality network
capabilities. As we prepare for future technologies that will be
important to our customers, these upgrades represent strategic
investments that provide them with access to the highest-quality network
in our industry.”
Network Upgrade Overview
Over the past two years, the company has continued to advance the
quality of its network to provide an even better customer experience and
to improve its operational efficiencies. Following is an overview of the
key improvements:
Interconnection Upgrades: The company upgraded all of its
major carriers to 10Gbps connections, providing industry-leading network
speeds.
Port Upgrades: 10Gbps port upgrades were added in the
Houston data centers to AboveNet, NTT, Level3 and AT&T, expanding total
capacity and enhancing performance.
Redundant Links: The company installed redundant 10Gbps
links between its Dallas network and Houston’s
H1 and H2 data centers, as well as between these two data center
locations.
Router Upgrades: All core network routers have been
upgraded to Foundry XMRs, while all customer-facing routers are now
Cisco 4500 Series routers.
Increased Capacity: The company increased its Internet
capacity in Houston to 65Gbps, which offers greater network speed and
performance.
Private Peering: The Houston network can now leverage the
company’s direct peering connections,
reducing latency and providing faster performance to end-users.
IPv6-Ready: IPv6 provides an almost infinite number of
addresses. Customers can rest assured The Planet is prepared to deal
with the threat of IPv4 address exhaustion.
MPLS-Ready: MPLS provides higher network
performance for customers and more granular traffic management across
the company’s network. In addition, it lays
the foundation for offering advanced IP services in the future.
About The Planet
The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure
solutions, hosting
more than 22,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 12 million Web
sites worldwide. The Planet Alpha division provides the widest array of
self-managed dedicated
servers and advanced services backed by 24x7x365 support. The Planet
Northstar Managed Hosting division combines a proactive methodology and
seasoned IT experts to deliver a fully managed
hosting solution. With the best choice of servers, software tools
and world-class support, backed by state-of-the-art facilities and an
enterprise-class network, The Planet turns IT into a powerful
competitive advantage that enables customers to grow their businesses.
For additional information, visit www.theplanet.com.