'Burstable' high-speed link, new web proxy to upgrade 'pathetic' Internet performance

Thursday, April 19, 2001 • Vol 7, Issue 8

General Article

By RON HOOD

This Sunday, Information Technology will unclog sluggish Internet performance by upgrading the Hutch's Web connection to a high-speed link.

This 45-megabyte link will replace the existing 3-megabyte link installed two years ago to relieve what then appeared to be massive congestion.

The Center's original Internet link, a 1.5-megabyte line, provided more than adequate capacity from the early 1990s until the popularity of the Web sparked a significant increase in Internet usage. By 1998, the Internet link was badly congested during business hours.

Doubling the link's capacity in early 1999 provided much-needed relief, but in less than two years traffic has more than doubled and resulted in the worst congestion yet.

Staff using high-bandwidth applications relying on the Internet, particularly those working with colleagues at other institutions, have suffered slow response times and pathetic performance.

The new link will provide a potential 15-fold increase in performance, although we hope we won't use that entire amount right away. We're moving to a new billing scheme, so instead of paying a fixed amount each month, we're now paying for what we use.

Variable cost

In the past, the Center bought a fixed Internet capacity for a fixed price: 3 megabytes for $50,000 a year. The cost of the new link, however, will vary according to how much traffic moves across it. The floor is $100,000 a year for 7 megabytes, but that increases to $440,000 a year for 45 megabytes.

Some of these numbers are a little scary, but the performance boost should be fantastic. The formula used to calculate costs is based on a percentage of peak traffic, so the Center can burst to the full 45 megabytes and still pay a lesser price as long as the bulk of the usage is at a lower rate.

If the usage gets out of hand, we can quickly switch back to a fixed rate and price, but what I'm hoping is that the Center can take advantage of this burstable model for a few years.

In conjunction with the Internet upgrade, Information Technology will install a Web proxy that will reduce the inbound Web traffic traversing the Center's Internet connection. The Web is our biggest user of Internet bandwidth, and our inbound traffic far exceeds our outbound.

The proxy will store a local copy of every Web page requested by someone at the Center. Any subsequent requests for the same page will be served out of the local copy rather than from the original server out on the Internet.

The combination of the high-speed link and the proxy should provide the performance necessary for effective collaboration while maintaining maximum economy and efficiency. The new link should serve the Center's needs for the next five to seven years.

Anyone with questions or comments about this work may contact me at rhood@fhcrc.org or 206-667-5063.

[Ron Hood is manager of Information Technology's voice and data operations group.]

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