Internet data centers are known for providing ping, power and pop (network, power and a place to put it). Our carrier neutral data center just happens to be located in one of the best POPs (which means a point of presence) in Southern California that has a ton of ping. Not only is it located directly on the largest Sonet ring in Orange County, but the center also has direct access to over 14 network providers. And if that wasn’t enough, our facility location not only drives our streaming media hosting business, but it is also the major West Coast hubs for Level 3 and Global Crossing, including their gateway to Asia and the Far East.

In terms of volume, the Sonet ring consists of nine independent OC-192 fiber loops. To translate, that is the equivalent of 90,000 Mbps or about 60,000 T1s. And with all the providers coming into our facility, you have a choice of SMH provided allocated bandwidth across multiple tier 1 providers - in which you let us choose the best path for your traffic; or you can choose your preferred provider. Whichever you decide, with our location in the heart of a major traffic junction, you benefit with reduced latency, less network and POP hops and less packet loss.

An added benefit of the network connectivity with SMH Colocation is that we are one of our own customers (and we’re pretty demanding!). Both our streaming media and our dedicated hosting businesses use the bandwidth in our center. For these businesses it is critical that the quality, performance and reliability of our network services be at the highest levels. For streaming, it also needs to have very low latency. The net result for our colocation customers is that they get the same great network connectivity.

Another important aspect of bandwidth in a data center is that you want to ensure that it is always on and available. One thing that not all data centers do in this respect is to get bandwidth on diverse fiber. What this means is that the building is served by at least two different fiber feeds entering the building from distinctly different locations. The benefit of this is that if one of the fiber feeds is cut, the other one can still provide you service. Some data centers get Internet access from multiple providers, but they are all running over the same fiber. Obviously, that is a serious point of failure. Amazingly, our center has 4 different fiber entry points! And most of the individual carriers in the center have diverse entry for their connectivity. An additional step to take to ensure 100% network uptime is to deploy multiple, redundant switches and routers . Here again, SMH takes it further than the rest. Our Internet connections run into brand new, dual Cisco 7600 series routers and brand new, dual Cisco Catalyst 6509 switches. These are some of the best routers and switches available today. Current Analysis gave the Cisco 7600 router across the board outstanding ranks in a review written in September, 2009. These routers feature Cisco’s newest fault tolerant capabilities. Keep in mind that many data center providers are running on routers and switches that are 5+ years old.

With SMH Colocation, you can count on getting the best solution for your business. To top it all off, we even offer a 100% network availability SLA.