# DigitalOcean Planning UK Location



## ocitysolutions (Mar 30, 2014)

One of the co-founder's of DigitalOcean (Moisey Uretsky) has made a statement saying that they are planning to launch a UK location.



> Hi folks,
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Quoted from their suggestion forum: http://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocean/suggestions/3069422-add-uk-data-center.


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## nunim (Mar 31, 2014)

New locations is always nice, however they really need to deploy IPv6 first, as that's the only thing that stops me from using DO long term, i.e. more than just dev work.


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## DomainBop (Mar 31, 2014)

> This would provide our second distinct geography in Europe after Amsterdam. UK has been one of our fastest growing customer segments and we would love to get *a more geographically closer solution there for our customers.*


Amsterdam to London: 8ms-9ms

NYC to Buffalo: 14ms-16ms

tl;dr Amsterdam isn't that far latency-wise from the UK, there are locations in other parts of the world I'd rather see first.


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## peterw (Mar 31, 2014)

DomainBop said:


> tl;dr Amsterdam isn't that far latency-wise from the UK, there are locations in other parts of the world I'd rather see first.


I don't need another UK host. They have to invest into their ddos protection.


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## MannDude (Mar 31, 2014)

peterw said:


> I don't need another UK host. They have to invest into their ddos protection.


Thats what I was thinking... UK market can be rough. Got some _real shitty_ competition there. As in, DDoS you non-stop type of competition.


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## rds100 (Mar 31, 2014)

I was thinking the same. Hopefully DO has some more levers it can pull and the DDoSer will be caught and then...


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## Nett (Mar 31, 2014)

I want a location in the southern hemisphere.


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## WebSearchingPro (Mar 31, 2014)

Hm, If you notice the wording "investigating opening up a DC in the UK region.". That seems like they intend to open their own datacenter with their own infrastructure and space. Unless that's just misleading marketing speak.


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## josephb (Mar 31, 2014)

WebSearchingPro said:


> Hm, If you notice the wording "investigating opening up a DC in the UK region.". That seems like they intend to open their own datacenter with their own infrastructure and space. Unless that's just misleading marketing speak.


They rent/lease space in data centres, like Equinix.

DO don't build their own facilities.


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## D. Strout (Mar 31, 2014)

MannDude said:


> Got some _real shitty_ competition there. As in, DDoS you non-stop type of competition.


Seriously? Competing providers will DDoS new ones? That's low.


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## drmike (Mar 31, 2014)

Dumbest location launch in eons.

I see little to no action on a UK launch.  Way to close to existing Amsterdam DC.


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## ocitysolutions (Mar 31, 2014)

Personally I think they should focus on a few things before adding new locations:


Stabilize network in existing locations. This included DDoS mitigation.
Implement IPv6 across their locations.
Add a location in the central US (ie Texas) or in the Southern Hemisphere.
I think there are better location choices considering they already have Amsterdam.


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## Exelion (Apr 1, 2014)

Why do so many companies want UK locations? Is interconnectivity to other parts of Europe that bad that a German or NL or French POP wouldn't serve them better?


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## rds100 (Apr 1, 2014)

Maybe they are fans of Her Majesty?

Maybe because they don't speak German, Dutch or French, but speak English?


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## tchen (Apr 1, 2014)

I would have pegged it as the converse reason why NY is chosen as a good half-way point to serve both EU/US markets.


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## thedediguy (Apr 1, 2014)

Good stuff! I have heard a lot of good things about Digital ocean lately


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## Abydon (Apr 5, 2014)

Ya, they need to focus on features....not new datacenters.


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## tchen (Apr 5, 2014)

I actually welcome the new series of regional DCs. If you don't know, AMS1/2 are almost literally across the street from each other. MultiDC replication in that case covers a few things, but the risks of simultaneous outage is still rather high. The UK DC at least offers a medium latency repl setup.


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## Abydon (Apr 5, 2014)

tchen said:


> I actually welcome the new series of regional DCs. If you don't know, AMS1/2 are almost literally across the street from each other. MultiDC replication in that case covers a few things, but the risks of simultaneous outage is still rather high. The UK DC at least offers a medium latency repl setup.


The replication lag I saw was about 60ms to NY2 when I was messing around with them. Then again I have a weird 'if I want to back things up, it goes to the other end of the continent at a minimum' fetish.


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## peterw (Apr 7, 2014)

Abydon said:


> Ya, they need to focus on features....not new datacenters.


True. They open new tasks instead of finishing the old ones.


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## tchen (Apr 7, 2014)

Abydon said:


> The replication lag I saw was about 60ms to NY2 when I was messing around with them. Then again I have a weird 'if I want to back things up, it goes to the other end of the continent at a minimum' fetish.


Interesting 60ms.  New underwater cable route?  But ya, people with DR needs in the EU were kinda stuck up a boat without a paddle if they also had EU data protection requirements to meet.  Now they have no excuse.


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## Abydon (Apr 7, 2014)

tchen said:


> Interesting 60ms.  New underwater cable route?  But ya, people with DR needs in the EU were kinda stuck up a boat without a paddle if they also had EU data protection requirements to meet.  Now they have no excuse.


It is possible I misremembered the ms. This was like 6 months ago. My point was more it was not awful. 

Also true.


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## ocitysolutions (May 2, 2014)

New update:




> Hi folks,
> 
> Wanted to provide another update on the UK datacenter. We are beginning work on contracts with a UK datacenter provider and we hope to have this region launched within in the next [SIZE=inherit]2-4[/SIZE] months.
> 
> ...


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## VPN.SH (May 2, 2014)

Regardless of whether or not it's the most logical location they could open, it's probably going to make them more sales than opening up another USA location, or somewhere further East. Also, regardless of whether or not there are other things that should be worked on, opening up an additional location surely isn't a _negative_ thing?

They've given themselves a few months to roll this out, and I'm sure DO is large enough to work on more than one thing at once, meaning that they won't work solely on getting an additional location up and running, as they'd most probably be working on improving their service in other areas simultaneously.

Either way, props to Digital Ocean for continuing to stretch their locations, and I personally believe that this is good progress. It'd be nice to see some more locations that are further away in terms of latency, to give them a better global stance, but this is still progress and my personal thoughts are that they should be praised for stretching themselves a little further.


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## udk (Jun 13, 2014)

I, for one, welcome DigitalOcean to the UK market after being somewhat disappointed by the Vultr launch there (in terms of connectivity.)


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## notFound (Jun 13, 2014)

udk said:


> I, for one, welcome DigitalOcean to the UK market after being somewhat disappointed by the Vultr launch there (in terms of connectivity.)


What is bad about Vultr's UK location? Apart from being single-homed, which I don't like the connectivity is pretty good.


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## Lee (Jun 14, 2014)

For DO a London option makes sense, to them if not to others.  London, the UK in general is a strong market and there is money in it which is always going to be an attraction.  There is a draw to this type of service rather than your more common VPS provider because DO is perceived to be more trusted by the people they want.

I don't envisage DDoS issues being focused on them, certainly not by whoever has been causing issues for other providers in the past however if they were I am sure that kind of thing is a consideration in every location they look at.


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## sundaymouse (Jun 15, 2014)

Any progress?


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## Jack (Jul 12, 2014)

sundaymouse said:


> Any progress?


http://bgp.he.net/net/178.62.0.0/18


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## rmlhhd (Jul 12, 2014)

They've announced a v6 block in the UK too.


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## Jack (Jul 12, 2014)

Servaman said:


> They've announced a v6 block in the UK too.


They seem to have difference ASN per Location...

http://bgp.he.net/AS202109#_asinfo


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## AThomasHowe (Jul 12, 2014)

Meh. If you like waiting years for features, a pretty web panel and having less choice of location stick to DO.

I don't think I'll be putting any more credit into my DO account once it runs out with Vultr about. Like everyone I was weary at first (that shitty name) but they're really proving themselves. Just hope they don't go basically stagnant too.


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## D. Strout (Jul 15, 2014)

London has officially arrived! From the e-mail:



> Today we are thrilled to announce that developers can now launch Droplets in our newest region: London, United Kingdom.
> 
> Our community has been requesting a UK region for a while now, and we’re excited to finally announce that it is now available. It is through our users’ support that we have now been able to expand to five regions globally.
> 
> IPv6 and private networking are available for Droplets deployed in the new London region. We are excited to see what is developed in the London datacenter and look forward to offering more DigitalOcean regions around the world as we continue to grow.


Full blog post

I'm glad to see they have IPv6. Hope that gets "spread around" to their other locations soon! Have a read of the comments on the blog post though - some interesting discussions going on there about future locations and VAT compliance.


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## notFound (Jul 15, 2014)

The network is quite poor imo, NTT and Telia, most routes I've tried go over NTT which has quite crappy routing and latency which is noticeable within UK/London.


Even though Vultr is singlehomed their network easily beats DO.


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## DomainBop (Jul 15, 2014)

notFound said:


> The network is quite poor imo, NTT and Telia, most routes I've tried go over NTT which has quite crappy routing and latency which is noticeable within UK/London.
> 
> 
> Even though Vultr is singlehomed their network easily beats DO.


DO's London network is optimized for people in the Dunkirk/Gravelines area.

--- speedtest-lon1.digitalocean.com ping statistics ---


6 packets transmitted, 6 received, 0% packet loss, time 5003ms


rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 4.196/4.261/4.442/0.105 ms

--- lon-gb-ping.vultr.com ping statistics ---


5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4003ms


rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 7.566/7.718/8.064/0.194 ms


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## Jack (Jul 15, 2014)

notFound said:


> The network is quite poor imo, NTT and Telia, most routes I've tried go over NTT which has quite crappy routing and latency which is noticeable within UK/London.
> 
> 
> Even though Vultr is singlehomed their network easily beats DO.


Slough isn't London it's Berkshire ;-) ;-)


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## cspacews (Jul 15, 2014)

D. Strout said:


> Seriously? Competing providers will DDoS new ones? That's low.


I think its "OVH" your refering to in competition with DO?


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## notFound (Jul 16, 2014)

Jack said:


> Slough isn't London it's Berkshire ;-) ;-)


I'm aware, part of the reason it's crap. At least Rapidswitch has good links to their Central London PoP's and LINX etc.

This is just pure crap transit I'm afraid, but it's going to sell to people who wouldn't know better.


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## syncrohost (Jul 25, 2014)

I'm sure they are working the IPv6 in the backend since IPv4 will likely be out soon.


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