Technologies
MPLS - (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) - Colo@ has full MPLS capabilities across all of our locations. What is MPLS, you might ask? Simply put, it is a networking technique where equipment that is spread out over geographically discrete locations to act as if it's all on the same network. This allows any of our locations to have a direct connection to any of our other locations (i.e. Los Angeles can connect directly to Atlanta with lower latency than across a normal network). MPLS will provide your operations with several benefits:
- Low latency between connections.
- Lower packet loss than with traditional networks.
- A very robust network.
- High speed.
- Secure, low cost private network option.
FCP - (Flow Control Platform) - We utilize the Internap FCP device in our Atlanta operations. FCP is a great way to improve network performance and avoid bottlenecks outside of our network. The FCP automatically routes traffic around trouble spots and network outages beyond our network. It also helps traffic select and use the highest performing routes at any given time. The Internap FCP device represents a significant capital investment that Colo@ has made to help provide the best network performance to our customers.
In the case of normal BGP routing, routes are determined based on ASN hop count, nothing more. In contrast to this, FCP checks more meaningful metrics when determining the best route for traffic. FCP instantly analyzes ping time, jitter, and packet loss to determine the best route for your traffic. With BGP, your destination could be six hops away but have a 20ms higher ping time and 20% packet loss. When your traffic uses our FCP, it would automatically route over a better provider even if there were eight hops away but with zero packet loss and lower latency. This provides far higher quality routing and results in a much more efficient network.
