I've searched through this forum briefly and didn't see this, so I apologize if this has already been brought up before.

I submitted a support ticket recently and was told that The Planet only allows pairing of 2 ServerMatrix servers (via crossover cable + 2nics) or 2 Total Control servers, at approximately $25/mth ($10/mth for any additional nics and $5/mth for crossover cable). TP currently does not allow pairing between SM and TC, due to physical location of the servers and some other issues. TP also does not offer internal routing between the 2 w/o counting bandwidth against both.

Because TC's pricing is great for dual xeons (ideal for database), and because SM have very good offerings for a cheap P4-based server (ideal for apache), I would like to see The Planet offer setups that pair the 2 'brands' for a dual server setup, whether over crossover or via internal routing (w/o counting bandwidth against either server...maybe via some form of private ip range?....im not too sure so maybe a network design guru can enlighten me).

Our website, as I'm sure is the case with many of yours, is quickly exceeding the capacity of a single dual xeon for both web+db and will need to move to a 2 server setup. And eventually probably to something like 2 web+1db. Because TC does not have any SM-priced/level, solid P4-grade servers that are cost-effective and suitable for web, we feel we're rather limited in our growth options here. Having that leg room to scale and add servers when needed would give a lot of us much more peace of mind.

The support technician let me know that they will bring this issue up to TP management for consideration and I figured that if there were much more support for this, it would garner more attention with TP management. If crossover/internal routing was available for this, I think it would very valuable to customers of The Planet. If you have any thoughts on this, please chime in!

Welcome to the forums, buzz.

Private networking via second NICs is the only way to transfer data internally and not count it toward your monthly bandwidth allotment. Location is the primary reason we can't connect a servermatrix to a totalcontrol server. In most cases it's not physically possible to connect them. Either your two servers will be in different datacenters, or your servers will be so far apart that we can't effectively run the cable between the two of them. This gets more complicated when you want to add more servers, as you'll need to rent a switch form us and second NIC's for all machines.

If you want to try linking two servers up send a note to our salespeople when placing your order. We'll see if we can do it for you.

Thanks...I actually registered long ago but forgot I had an account till today.

Yes physical location would be a huge deal and I completely understand that may not ever be possible. Still, I think internal routing has its merits and this is the portion that I would like to see offered. I can only think of a few reasons why internal routing would become an issue.

If TP's major concern lies with the way how bandwidth is counted by the switches/routers because it can't differentiate between public traffic and internal traffic, then that can't be that difficult to solve. Seems like not counting traffic coming from certain IP ranges or thru the use of private ip ranges could be implemented....or am i completely wrong here? I also wouldn't mind blocking all internet traffic to my database server and simply measure the amount of bandwidth used and subtract it from the bandwidth used by the web server and the difference will give us the actual bandwidth used by the web server. Or since TP can seem to differentiate between multiple protocols (HTTP/FTP/SMTP/etc), perhaps it's possible to simply negate any mysql/mssql traffic? I'm only speculating here on possible alternatives.

Though if TP's major concern is that the additional internal traffic will negatively affect performance of the network, then that I have no real answer to....except that I can only imagine total utilization jumping by maybe about 5% at most since surely not all of TP's customers will be using this method and I wouldn't mind paying the 25/mth that would've gone towards the nics/crossover.

You could run into the problem of people using their servers for a remote DB over the internet.

I wonder what logistics would be involved for them to run a separate, internal only network that could be plugged up to a second nic, and also how other datacenters handle this issue. Sure seems like there must be some way to route internal traffic without counting against your bandwidth.

Our concern is more of a physical concern than fearing that internal traffic would "overload the switches". Your primary NIC is for public Internet access. We'd need to refit your server with a second NIC first, which could be problematic depending on the type of server you have with us. Next we'd need to run a cable between these two servers, which again is impossible if your servers are in different datacenters or if your servers are spaced too far out.

Or, you know, you guys could do what EV1 has done and provide an internal network for all customers...

They add a second NIC to your server, which is connected at 10mbit to the private network, over which you can access a machine anywhere on EV1's network without bandwidth charges.

SM is WAY behind in this regard. Shame!

Also, when I had a crossconnect, I was not charged for the cable, only 10$/mth for each of the second NICs.

That's what I was trying to say, not too clearly, in my message. A completely seperate network for inhouse only, everyone with a second nic could plug into it.

Even cooler if the inhouse network could include all the datacenters.

sm doesn't charge for a cross connect cable, at least they didn't for me. Both my boxes already had second nics so I didn't have to pay anything.

I don't like seeing EV1 having a leg up on SM. Come on SM, what are you waiting for?

Right, which is why I'm proposing to eliminate that and route internally w/o physical cabling, other than a 2nd cable to the existing router/switch but on private IP space. By "internal routing", I'm not talking about crossover cabling, I'm saying using TP's existing infrastructure to route traffic. This would eliminate the need for crossover cabling or physical proximity issues.


Oh, no crossover cabling fee is nice....guess they misquoted me or something. My TC server doesn't have a 2nd nic I don't believe, though one of my SM servers does but that ports not plugged in. So EV1 automatically provides an internal network for all servers, huh? I had no idea. That sounds like exactly what I'm proposing here and would be ideal, especially when i need to move to a 2-web server setup.

It's not clear to me if they provide the service to ALL servers, or merely CAN provide it to all servers (I mean if it's free vs if it costs a fee).

However, they clearly have the infrastructure in place for all servers.

Yeah I don't mind paying a fee, as long as it's reasonable. Free would of course be very attractive. But anything under 25/mth is acceptable to me. I've always thought the $5/month for a crossover cable was a bit ridiculous. The nics also, but at least I can understand it takes them time to install it and wire it up.

Yeah, I think that whoever quoted that was in error. As I said earlier, when I had my crossconnect I was only charged for the NICs.

I did some more digging about EV1's PNET. It is indeed free per month, but has an installation fee:



The installation fee seems preferrable to monthly fee. Also, EV1 mentioned they may bump up the PNET to 100mbit in the future.

SM has no equivalent service to this, most unfortunate.

but they could get a jump on ev1 by offering this same thing, at 100Mb, and no charge.

How would you route it over the current infrastucture without counting it in the usage when your usage is done at the first switch? It is a counter on the port itself, NOT on your ip... Maybe you know something other people dont about Cisco equipment and keeping usage info from them without using the port interface....

YES! A one-time fee is MUCH more preferable to monthly fees and I inquired about that too. They currently don't offer it.

As for the question about current infrastructure, yes bandwidth is measured at the first switch. But obviously with this type of setup, you'll need to eat up another port on the switch anyway. Your current bandwidth graphs are based on 1 port on a switch from your 1st nic. They can safely just ignore any traffic on the 2nd port that your 2nd nic will eat up. Besides, I don't think they can even count traffic pooled from 2 ports on a switch and merge the data....or at least that'd be harder to do.

Unless, I'm misassuming something, I think it's entirely feasible. The one-time fee could go into installing the nic, and the 2nd cat5 cable that'll take up an additional port on the switch. Though I'd definitely want 100mbps. According to this MySQL Administrator frontend I'm using, I avg about 4MB/s of mysql traffic. Unless this is in megabits?

I would absolutely love the idea of a second, private network.

Indeed, EV1 probably either has a second physical network set up, or more likely, they give people a second port and non-routable IPs (LAN IPs)

So who would I have to sleep with to bring such a thing to SM?

I would also like to have a PNET like EV1 does.... it will be a MAJOR plus...

A gigibit pnet would be mighty cool

Let's not ask for too much at a time now

Will there be an announcement if/when this becomes available? Or should I just hound support every once in awhile?