It’s been a long time coming, but we are now online and operational in London! We actually turned up our routing announcements about two days ago but I wanted to hold off on the blog post to make sure everything was stable. Some folks in the forums noticed we were online and beat me to the announcement.

I’ve been using a server in Amsterdam, hosted by my friend Peter, to test how latency changed when London came online. It should be obvious, but the results are very good and show just how important it is for us to be online in Europe.

From Amsterdam to OpenDNS before London goes online:
bash$ ping 208.67.222.222
64 bytes from 208.67.222.222: icmp_seq=0 ttl=57 time=145.077 ms
64 bytes from 208.67.222.222: icmp_seq=1 ttl=57 time=152.962 ms
From Amsterdam to OpenDNS after London goes online:
bash$ ping 208.67.222.222
64 bytes from 208.67.222.222: icmp_seq=0 ttl=58 time=9.814 ms
64 bytes from 208.67.222.222: icmp_seq=1 ttl=58 time=9.528 ms

The ping test above is a measurement of how long it takes one “packet” of Internet data to reach another host on the Internet. Bringing London online dramatically increases our reliability, speed and performance for our European users. Additionally, it decreases load in New York and Washington DC providing a win for our users in the US as well. Finally, the more sites we have, the more reliable our network becomes and that is a win for everyone.

We are online in London thanks to the efforts of a few really superb technologists and friends. I’d like to thank James Rice for his on-site help as well as his excellent guidance and advice along with Nick Waterman who fixed a minor issue we were having with our IBM BladeCenter chassis. Nick did this on December 29th, when he could have been at home with family or out partying; we really appreciate it Nick. James and Nick run Jump Networks, a high-quality, technically-savvy service provider in London.

I’d also like to give a big thanks to Chris Orme and Philip Baker from Datahop, a metropolitan fiber network in London which provides all kinds of really convenient network services. Chris worked tirelessly to make sure we could be online with our transit provider, NTT Europe in a timely fashion. It’s hard work getting folks to do things during the holidays and Chris made sure it happened. Even more impressive, Philip spent time late at night with our routers and switches making sure they were in good shape to turn up a BGP session with NTT Europe. James, Nick, Chris and Philip all went way above and beyond the call of duty and we appreciate it. I highly recommend both Jump and Datahop to anyone looking for transit and colo in London. Thanks guys!

We’re proud to be in London and look forward to peering with networks currently connected to LoNAP, a growing peering point in London. We are also considering a peering session at LINX, one of the largest exchange points in the world.

Happy New Year from everyone here at OpenDNS and we’ll see you in 2007!

We have so many great users and have been considering, for a while now, different ways to show our love. Out of those discussions the idea of “Five questions with an OpenDNS user” was born. This will be a recurring post category in the OpenDNS blog. Read and learn.

Richard Hughes
Technical Director
MaxWiFi, London, England

OpenDNS: Please describe your organization, and your role there.

RH: I am the technical director of MaxWiFi. We plan, install and manage temporary WiFi networks for media centres and large events. Recent events have included the PGA European Tour in London, The World Rally Championship in Wales and last year we provided a service to the Royal Marriage of Prince Charles & Lady Camilla Parker Bowles. We shifted over 18Gb of traffic on one day without dropping a single packet with a user base of over 400 media from around the world - all packed into a pub in Windsor.

OpenDNS: How did you first hear about OpenDNS?

RH: I was following a blog trail and came across OpenDNS. We are always looking for find ways to streamline our configs and installs and don’t always like to rely on the ISP services we are given. OpenDNS seemed like such a simple opportunity to speed up searches and to improve the end user services, by providing security from phishing sites and intelligent DNS resolution to take care of spelling mistakes!

OpenDNS: What changes have you noticed on your network since switching to OpenDNS?

RH: It’s always hard to measure network performance, especially when your network is rebuilt and relocated every week. We truly became aware of the improvements at the PGA tour when we had snappers (Photographers) commenting on just how fast the network was. We tested it against another network we had running, that was using local DNS, and there was a perceptible difference. On top of that we saved time on writing the configs and when the ISP DNS servers crashed and took down other network’s on-site we just kept running.

OpenDNS: What advice would you give to others who are considering switching to OpenDNS?

RH: It’s so easy to change and test, we would strongly recommend it. In fact every network we install uses it. I use it in the office and at home. Best of all if you don’t like it swap back - nothing ventured nothing gained!

OpenDNS: What is the strangest thing you’ve ever seen while providing WiFi at an event?

RH: Hmm, my favourite was when an American journalist (never known for being quiet or thoughtful), shouted from the middle of a packed press room, “Your WiFi is C*** - I can’t log on or even see the SSID.” We quickly got over to him and after looking at his laptop for a few minutes explained to him he would need to have a Wireless Card or Centrino in his laptop for WiFi to work!

Second fav was a reporter who was at the Royal Wedding due to broadcast Coast to Coast in the USA. We were impressed by her calm before speaking to such a massive audience. When she came back in she was red faced and explained she had just referred to Lady Camilla as Her Royal Horseness!

Anyway, good luck to you all at OpenDNS and we are looking forward to the London site coming on stream.

As of Dec 31, 2006, London is online.

On our network map, we show our four current network nodes in the United States, and provide insight into our future locations. The map, dated July 7, is still accurate as I type this.

The first location online from our “Coming soon” contingent will be London, England. Our hardware is racked and powered in the London facility. But we’ve been held up by bandwidth discussions, as we have some specific network requirements that complicate the matter beyond just the cost of connectivity.

The delay is frustrating to us, too. My apologies to the several folks who have inquired and been told (by me personally, or by my colleagues) that London would be online by this time. I’m not going to promise a new date right now, but we’re working on this, and will announce more details on our blog as we have them. Once the London location is online, we’ll focus more attention on our next locations.

Fortunately, many customers are finding that OpenDNS is faster for them in the UK already, despite any network latency. That’s proof positive that DNS speed is the combination of two factors: network latency and software speed/cache size. Even when we’re “farther” away on the network, OpenDNS often delivers results back to the end user faster. We want to accelerate the experience again, by removing the network latency concern — which is the whole point of London.

Is it only me, or does this post beg for The Clash’s London Calling? Or is that just too much of a cliché?