# Which location would you choose?



## Mike (Jun 5, 2014)

Hey all,

I'm looking to setup a server somewhere and I'm looking for the communities view.

Basically I won't be using a CDN but I want my website to be accessed quickly by everyone in the world.  With that in mind, which server location would you choose and why?  With location I mean like which continent/state etc.

Some people may say in the UK because it's in the center of Europe offering low latency to the US and Europe etc.

What's your thoughts?

Thanks, Mike.


----------



## Nett (Jun 5, 2014)

Choose a location close to your website visitor's location.

East coast US (NY/NJ) and UK/FR are good locations for US/EU visitors, a eastern EU location would be good for EU/Western Asia visitors, and a Asia location (eg. Singapore/HK/Japan) or western USA location (LAX,SJC,SEA) would be good for visitors from APAC.


----------



## Mike (Jun 5, 2014)

I'm looking for just one location that provides good latency throughout the world.


----------



## Nett (Jun 5, 2014)

Use cloudflare.


----------



## Mike (Jun 5, 2014)

Read the post before replying.


----------



## Nett (Jun 5, 2014)

Mike said:


> I'm looking for just one location that provides good latency throughout the world.


This is impossible unless you get a distributed CDN.

For example, you have a visitor in Asia and another in Europe. If your server is located in EU it would benefit the EU visitor but not the Asia visitor, and vise versa.


----------



## Mike (Jun 5, 2014)

Anything is possible.  I'm looking for good latency for all visitors without the need of a CDN, I don't need absolute amazing speed for every single visitor, just a location that'll provide good latency for all visitors.


----------



## Nett (Jun 5, 2014)

Dallas/Chicago.


----------



## HalfEatenPie (Jun 5, 2014)

No matter what you're going to be in a location that favors another continent over another, so honestly what @Nett said with Cloudflare isn't that bad (unless Cloudflare screws with certain aspects of the site like it did with vpsBoard).  

Honestly give it a shot.  If not and you want international-focus without giving Europe or Asia a priority, Dallas, Texas is probably what you'll want.  It's not great to Asia, but it's not as bad as East Coast USA.  Same for Europe.

From Asia, Dallas (at least Incero for me) is around 170/180 ms on a good day.  East Coast USA is around 200/220ms.  Then my Europe VMs are like 300-400ms.  

Like I said before, those are usually during the good days.  During major congestion time periods it's around 250ms to Dallas (200ms alone to Quadranet).


----------



## Mike (Jun 5, 2014)

The main reason I don't want to use CloudFlare is because they charge $20 to use a single SSL.  I have multiple sub-domains that would use SSL and it just doesn't seem worth it to be paying someone roughly $60+ a month just to use SSL.  I have considered using MaxCDN but it's still in the pipeline.

Does it make a difference what location I choose if I were to use, say MaxCDN as a CDN?

Any suggestions on a CDN over MaxCDN?


----------



## Nett (Jun 5, 2014)

Host html files on a regular server (with SSL) and all css/js/images on the CDN.

But really, the location won't really matter, the latency is counted in *milli*seconds not seconds and the link speed of your visitor is the thing that really matters.

I see no difference (in speed) visiting google or vpsboard.


----------



## Mike (Jun 5, 2014)

Nett said:


> Host html files on a regular server (with SSL) and all css/js/images on the CDN.


In doing that, wouldn't it produce an SSL warning that some aspects of the page aren't secure?

With MaxCDN, they provide a free shared SSL.


----------



## Nett (Jun 5, 2014)

Mike said:


> In doing that, wouldn't it produce an SSL warning that some aspects of the page aren't secure?
> 
> With MaxCDN, they provide a free shared SSL.


As long as both your website and the CDN is secured by SSL, you are fine.


----------



## datarealm (Jun 5, 2014)

Based off your original post I'd tend to agree with Nett that central US would fare well.  From there you should have similar access to both Europe and Asia.

Using that logic though, I'd probably try to make an educated guess where you expect the majority of your traffic to be and centralize your server in that location.  If you expect more traffic from Europe than the US, it doesn't make sense to locate your server in the middle of the US...


----------



## MannDude (Jun 5, 2014)

I'd say central USA, then. Chicago or Dallas. Avoid the cheapest of the cheap, but generally speaking it shouldn't be _too bad_ for Asia (for example), shouldn't be _too bad _for Europe, and other parts of the world, either. It'll be acceptable for most locations, just not optimal for most.

It's the cheese pizza of the pizza party. It's acceptable.


----------



## notFound (Jun 5, 2014)

You won't find a provider that has good connectivity to every single part of the world, realistically. The UK won't be amazing for Asia although it will be acceptable, but it really depends on the individual provider and how well connected they are.


----------



## DomainBop (Jun 5, 2014)

> Central USA location is the bestest!!!!


Physical distance from Point A to Point B often bears little resemblance to Internet Routing distance from Point A to Point B. 

Three examples:


Milan, Italy to Cairo Egypt: physical distance 2,300 miles. Internet routing distance over 10,000 miles (Milan > Frankfurt > London > New York City > Cairo)


Santiago, Chile to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: physical distance 2,300 miles.  Internet routing distance almost 9,000 miles (Chile > Miami, USA > Brazil)


Asia Country A to nearby Asia Country B: physical distance a few hundred miles.  Internet routing distance over 14,000 miles Point A > Los Angeles > Point B

tl;dr there is no ideal location for your "_website to be accessed quickly by everyone in the world"_



> just a location that'll provide good latency for all visitors.


See the examples above.  We're probably 15-20 years away from the time when global infrastructure will have improved enough that using just one location will be able to provide good latency to all visitors.



> $60+ a month just to use SSL


If the $60 is a concern then you probably don't have the traffic yet to justify the added expense of paying for a CDN because the cost to benefit ratio will still be negative at this point even if you use the cheapest MaxCDN or paid CloudFlare CDN plan.  Lower cost CDN's tend to be a waste of money for smaller websites because the $$ value of  the benefits they provide is negligible at low traffic levels (and many of the free and cheaper CDN's suffer from performance and stability problems and end up doing more harm than good).



> Max CDN alternatives


I use Level 3 CDN via CloudVPS.  93 global pops.  (CloudVPS also offer a free version but you have to pay if you want the SSL version http://www.cloudvps.com/openstack/cdn-acceleration ...SSL version is not cheap)


----------



## jvkz (Jun 8, 2014)

Out favorite location are France and Netherlands because both locations have good ping from asia/middle east and usa.


----------



## W3Space (Jun 12, 2014)

You can go with eu location, but you should go with a cdn, that will boost your site. cloudflare is nice option. its free to..


----------



## drmike (Jun 13, 2014)

Yeah, there is no center of the internet.   Even playing the US central corridor game is highly flawed.  Routes in the US are utter garbage and vary greatly depending on upstream.

This is scenario CDN was created to address.   BUT! Depends on nature of your content.   If you are average small site, a CDN is useless moreless and performance of CDN often is blah for web stuff.  If you are pushing video and big downloads, well CDN or bunch of end nodes sprinkled that you control with a GEODNS top layer on DNS.

Biggest thing you can do to improve generally and this applies to everyone, is stop using dynamic generated app data.  90% of people just don't need the slow experience of PHP or other app layer generating pages.

Rip pages to flat files.  Enable proper caching.. Have lots of pages (thousands) then do this and shove it up to CDN + cache.  Has downsides (losing tracking per se depending on what company/CDN serves the docs).

All that said, playing along purely for OP's entertainment:

Los Angeles, California

Chicago, Illinois

New York metro

London or Amsterdam

Hong Kong

That's where I'd start.  1 won't cut it.  But playing along again, Amsterdam.


----------



## devonblzx (Jun 14, 2014)

Judging from my atlas, Los Angeles would be horrible for Australia and Asia, it is on the opposite side of the map. (</sarcasm>).

In all seriousness, there is no ideal location for everyone on Earth, the Earth is round and one point is always going to be farthest away from another point.  I guess the only thing you can bet on is that there are more people in the Northern hemisphere  than the Southern hemisphere and Eastern hemisphere than the Western hemisphere.  So if you're really trying for a global reach with the most population, Asia would be the best choice.  However, it would not be ideal for Eastern US / Western Europe users so you really have to analyze your target market. Other than that, any big POP in the Northern hemisphere as drmike suggested above.


----------



## Shados (Jun 14, 2014)

devonblzx said:


> Judging from my atlas, Los Angeles would be horrible for Australia and Asia, it is on the opposite side of the map. (</sarcasm>).


Speaking as an Australian, LA is actually kind of crap for us on anything real-time (e.g. computer games ). Obviously it's better than most of the rest of the US, and certainly fine for websites etc., but I wouldn't describe it as 'good'.


----------



## BrianHarrison (Jun 18, 2014)

We put a lot of thought and research into this same question. We ultimately went with Seattle, WA in the Westin Building and with a lot of NTT bandwidth in our BGP mix.

If you want to best serve the all the major markets in the world from a single location, then you cannot ignore Asia.

From Seattle with NTT you can reach the entire United States under 80ms, London in ~130ms, and Tokyo in ~117ms -- all very reasonable ping times. 

If you go with London, you'll be able to serve all of Europe very well, North America well but Asia will suffer. I ran a few ping tests from the NTT looking glass servers to the BBC servers in the UK: ~250ms to Tokyo, ~260ms to Hong Kong and ~290ms to Seoul. Those are pings times that customers will complain about.

Los Angeles would be another location I'd consider, but choose your upstream provider carefully -- there are a lot of congested links running in and out of LA.


----------



## BrianHarrison (Jun 18, 2014)

drmike said:


> Yeah, there is no center of the internet.   Even playing the US central corridor game is highly flawed.  Routes in the US are utter garbage and vary greatly depending on upstream.


One could argue over the definition of the word "center", but clearly there is one geographic area through which the majority of Internet traffic flows: the USA. A little bit old, but still very relevant: http://www.telegeography.com/assets/website/images/maps/global-traffic-map-2010/global-traffic-map-2010-wp1600.jpeg

If you want to best serve all the major markets from a single location, then you need to be in the United States. Given the history of the Internet, this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

Sure there are poor routes in the USA, but you wouldn't use something like Cogent for your latency-sensitive international links. Use a quality carrier like Level3 or NTT when you have to cross an ocean.


----------



## OSTKCabal (Jun 20, 2014)

I'd dare say that it greatly depends on the blend of the network. For example, some providers don't have fiber that goes all the way through the continuous United States. Some stop right at the major exchange regions like New York, Atlanta, or Los Angeles.

I'd highly recommend nearly anything with NTT or Level(3) to serve an international market. I've personally never had a client complain about PCCW Global transit, but they're one of the ones I mentioned that doesn't have their own fiber through the entirety of the U.S. (As seen at http://map.pccwglobal.com/)

The U.S. is, as some have said, a major peering and transit point for global telecommunications.

Just something to consider. New York is a popular choice for people who want to serve the U.S. and Europe well. Asia and the West Coast might hurt a little bit, but nowhere near as much as having the infrastructure set up in the UK.


----------



## irishwill2008 (Jun 28, 2014)

In my opinion i would highly choose somewhere in the middle of the world so its easy access and fast speeds for those worldwide. France is a decent enough location, Netherlands also.

But it is truly up to yourself rather or not you want them.

Thank you.


----------



## sz1hosting (Jun 29, 2014)

*UK would prob be the best for covering all locations.*


----------



## AThomasHowe (Jun 29, 2014)

At one point last year CloudFlare said they were going to add free SSL for all, not sure what's happening with it now though, slated for Q1 2014. There are work arounds though.


----------



## Alex (Jun 29, 2014)

I suggest you France as It helps you connect Europe ,Middle East ,America,Asia.


----------



## BrianHarrison (Jun 29, 2014)

Alex said:


> I suggest you France as It helps you connect Europe ,Middle East ,America,Asia.


Services hosted in France would definitely have high latency to southeast Asia.


----------



## TheTalentedMrColo (Jul 1, 2014)

I'd go dallas, but I agree with with the people saying you need distribution. It's a speed of light issue. It's only going to so fast.


----------

