Published: Friday, Feb 14, 2014 Last modified: Monday, Apr 8, 2024
Since Digital Ocean has opened a new SG datacenter, it’s time to pit my existing SG VPS at GPLhost against it!
From my Singtel connection at home, with iperf -s running on either VPS.
x220:~$ iperf -c sg.hackandtell.org # GPLhost
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to sg.hackandtell.org, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 22.9 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.88.249 port 46675 connected with 117.121.241.187 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.2 sec 18.2 MBytes 15.0 Mbits/sec
x220:~$ iperf -c sgo.webconverger.com # Digital Ocean's new SG VPS
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to sgo.webconverger.com, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 22.9 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.88.249 port 52035 connected with 128.199.252.174 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.3 sec 6.00 MBytes 4.89 Mbits/sec
BAD SINGTEL ROUTING: mtr shows the routing from Singtel (SG’s largest ISP IIUC) to Digital Ocean’s SGP1 is poor. It seems to go to Hong Kong and back and hence the pings are ~80ms, when they should be ~5ms!
I know GPLhost’s network configuration is limited to just 50 Mbit/sec. It’s a shame I’m not getting close to it from my OpenNET Singtel line at home. :(
Nonetheless GPLhost beats Digital Ocean on repeated iperf tests on average by
at least 2x from my Singapore connection.
From a Digital Ocean droplet in the Netherlands
[hendry@nl ~]$ iperf -c sgo.webconverger.com # Digital Ocean
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to sgo.webconverger.com, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 22.9 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 146.185.152.215 port 45486 connected with 128.199.252.174 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.1 sec 6.38 MBytes 5.30 Mbits/sec
[hendry@nl ~]$ iperf -c sg.hackandtell.org # GPLhost
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to sg.hackandtell.org, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 22.9 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 146.185.152.215 port 60435 connected with 117.121.241.187 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-11.1 sec 1.50 MBytes 1.13 Mbits/sec
Digital Ocean’s international peering seems a lot better. The results above are indicative.
From Linode in the UK
hendry@gb ~$ iperf -c sgo.webconverger.com # To the SG Digital Ocean droplet
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to sgo.webconverger.com, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 20.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 176.58.122.199 port 36559 connected with 128.199.252.174 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.1 sec 46.2 MBytes 38.4 Mbits/sec
hendry@gb ~$ iperf -c sg.hackandtell.org # To my GPLhost VPS in SG M1 datacentre
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to sg.hackandtell.org, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 20.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 176.58.122.199 port 33729 connected with 117.121.241.187 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-11.2 sec 2.12 MBytes 1.60 Mbits/sec
Digital Ocean’s international bandwidth definitely seems a lot better!
Webconverger’s VPS are documented upon http://webconverger.org/servers/.
From a Microsoft Azure VPS to either SG VPS
hendry@hackerspacesg:~$ iperf -d -c sgo.webconverger.com
WARNING: option -d is not valid for server mode
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to sgo.webconverger.com, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 22.9 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 10.146.222.93 port 53883 connected with 128.199.252.174 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 572 MBytes 480 Mbits/sec
480Mbit/sec from Microsoft to Digital Ocean… NICE! Still that is IIUC less than half a Gigabit connection.
hendry@hackerspacesg:~$ iperf -d -c sg.hackandtell.org
WARNING: option -d is not valid for server mode
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to sg.hackandtell.org, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 22.9 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 10.146.222.93 port 40515 connected with 117.121.241.187 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 55.2 MBytes 46.2 Mbits/sec
Ok, here GPLhost’s 50Mbit/s limit is plain to see.
Conclusion
Digital Ocean’s SG droplet internal connectivity to Singapore is a little worrying. A traceroute indicates traffic is going upto Hong Kong!
I need someone on a 1Gbps line to do some iperf testing. Any My Republic
users reading this?
I’m going to continue with GPLhost till at least to the end of May and I guess I will make a decision whether to migrate or not long before then. GPLhost are a small outfit, though they have provided really good service over the period I’ve used them. DO on the hand seems a bit unpredictable. It took them two days to sort out a networking glitch in Archlinux images made available in Singapore. DO could easily be a victim of their own success.
Update: A network engineer from DO got in touch to say they working to improve local peering. I guess a follow up test from me will be in order…(!)
Update: Outage today http://www.digitaloceanstatus.com/history?update=206#95 and still the routing from Singtel to SGP1 is poor http://ix.io/aWZ after a month. :/
Update: 4 months later, still bad: http://r2d2.webconverger.org/2014-05-18/mtr-sgo.webconverger.com.html