# Ransom IT announces 3rd Australian POP (Melbourne/SoftLayer) and other upgrades



## Oliver (Oct 18, 2014)

Hi VPS Boarder's  I have moved the Ransom IT Sydney services to a new upstream provider and established a presence with SoftLayer down in Melbourne. Plans have been simplified a bit as well with the same offerings available in Sydney and Adelaide for KVM services. Copied below is the announcement from the Ransom IT website.

Let me know if you have any questions. I have one more unique location to add which I am hoping to get prepared before the end of the year which I suspect will be more exciting for many people here. 



Sydney Network Upgrade
This has been an exciting month at Ransom IT. We have improved our Sydney services substantially by moving our equipment to the Vibe Communications network (AS45177). As a result network latency, performance and reliability will be substantially improved over our old upstream provider which will result in superior service for all customers in this location. Our Sydney Looking Glass can be used to test latency and network routes to and from the new network. Some benefits/highlights included are:


Direct connectivity in CoreSite at San Jose, resulting in improved latency to many US based networks
Direct connectivity in the London Internet Exchange (LINX) resulting in much reduced latency to European locations
Direct connectivity to the Auckland Peering Exchange resulting in improved connectivity to New Zealand based customers
Improved handling and reporting of DDoS incidents thanks to our providers in-house NSFOCUS powered mitigation platform
Improved network throughput and reliability to all locations thanks to a less congested and more reliable upstream network
 Melbourne Expansion for OpenVZ services
A presence has been established in Melbourne for OpenVZ services only at this stage. We are utilising the new SoftLayer datacentre to offer OpenVZ services from the incredibly well connected SoftLayer network (AS36351). This location is particularly attractive for customers in the Asia region thanks to excellent connectivity on the SoftLayer network into Asia via Tokyo and Hong Kong. Our Melbourne Looking Glass can be used to test routes to and from the new network.

If you have any questions about our services or locations please feel free to contact us.

Simplified KVM Plan Structure
To simplify services our KVM plans have been merged and we are now offering the same competitive KVM VPS plans in both Adelaide and Sydney.

To view our new range of VPS plans please visit our VPS plans page here.


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## AutoSnipe (Oct 18, 2014)

Absolutely Awsome Oliver, Unfortunately latency is better Adel -> Sydney then Adel -> Melbourne but hopefully this may change soon


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## Oliver (Oct 18, 2014)

I have a ticket open with SoftLayer about some routing issues. I expect they will join some more domestic peering networks soon then latency will improve.

Their peering personnel are aware of the issues though so I am pretty confident it's being looked at (in fact routes from Melbourne to Sydney were going via Chicago and London or something crazy a few days ago till I encouraged the two providers to get it fixed).


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## Nett (Oct 18, 2014)

I'm in Sydney but:


```
$> ping -c5 sydney-lg.ransomit.com.au
PING sydney-lg.ransomit.com.au (103.25.58.100): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 103.25.58.100: icmp_seq=0 ttl=54 time=43.763 ms
64 bytes from 103.25.58.100: icmp_seq=1 ttl=54 time=42.025 ms
64 bytes from 103.25.58.100: icmp_seq=2 ttl=54 time=43.693 ms
64 bytes from 103.25.58.100: icmp_seq=3 ttl=54 time=43.479 ms
64 bytes from 103.25.58.100: icmp_seq=4 ttl=54 time=45.384 ms

--- sydney-lg.ransomit.com.au ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 42.025/43.669/45.384/1.067 ms
```


```
$> ping -c5 syd-au-ping.vultr.com
PING syd-au-ping.vultr.com (108.61.212.117): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 108.61.212.117: icmp_seq=0 ttl=54 time=19.618 ms
64 bytes from 108.61.212.117: icmp_seq=1 ttl=54 time=19.462 ms
64 bytes from 108.61.212.117: icmp_seq=2 ttl=54 time=20.443 ms
64 bytes from 108.61.212.117: icmp_seq=3 ttl=54 time=19.005 ms
64 bytes from 108.61.212.117: icmp_seq=4 ttl=54 time=20.163 ms

--- syd-au-ping.vultr.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 19.005/19.738/20.443/0.511 ms
```


```
$> ping -c5 melbourne-lg.ransomit.com.au
PING melbourne-lg.ransomit.com.au (168.1.71.36): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 168.1.71.36: icmp_seq=0 ttl=56 time=32.104 ms
64 bytes from 168.1.71.36: icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=30.141 ms
64 bytes from 168.1.71.36: icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=30.779 ms
64 bytes from 168.1.71.36: icmp_seq=3 ttl=56 time=31.072 ms
64 bytes from 168.1.71.36: icmp_seq=4 ttl=56 time=30.673 ms

--- melbourne-lg.ransomit.com.au ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 30.141/30.954/32.104/0.649 ms
```


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## Oliver (Oct 18, 2014)

@Nett Can you post traceroutes please? The Melbourne link looks OK but the Sydney one could surely be better. I will guess you are with Telstra or one of the big4 ISPs?

Cheers


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## Nett (Oct 18, 2014)

@Oliver Check your PM.


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## Oliver (Oct 18, 2014)

Thank you!


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## AutoSnipe (Oct 18, 2014)

Wow sounds like a hetzner route lol.


Two machines in their DC16 ping to each other and went falkenstein -> frankfurt->ashburn->london->frankfurt->amsterdam->falkenstein.


I sent nett the traceroute the other day and had a good laugh.


But good to hear that local peering will improve never new there was a SL DC in Melbourne


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## Oliver (Oct 18, 2014)

I have got the info needed from Nett and emailed the NOC so I expect this issue can be resolved. 

The SL DC in Melbourne is pretty new; http://www.afr.com/p/technology/ibm_opens_data_centre_in_melbourne_8EJHXPvO6ftTZmDYfahSYP


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## Nett (Oct 18, 2014)

Issue solved  Great job done by @Oliver in a fast & professional manner.


```
$> ping -c5 sydney-lg.ransomit.com.au
PING sydney-lg.ransomit.com.au (103.25.58.100): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 103.25.58.100: icmp_seq=0 ttl=54 time=22.346 ms
64 bytes from 103.25.58.100: icmp_seq=1 ttl=54 time=18.990 ms
64 bytes from 103.25.58.100: icmp_seq=2 ttl=54 time=19.721 ms
64 bytes from 103.25.58.100: icmp_seq=3 ttl=54 time=19.623 ms
64 bytes from 103.25.58.100: icmp_seq=4 ttl=54 time=18.908 ms

--- sydney-lg.ransomit.com.au ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 18.908/19.918/22.346/1.257 ms
```


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## trewq (Oct 18, 2014)

Nett said:


> Issue solved  Great job done by @Oliver in a fast & professional manner.
> 
> 
> $> ping -c5 sydney-lg.ransomit.com.au
> ...


What sort of connection are you on?


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## Nick (Oct 19, 2014)

Looks great. May have to pick one of these up.


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## Neo (Oct 19, 2014)

nice and shiny, ransomit.


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## imperio (Oct 19, 2014)

Telstra routes Softlayer Melbourne via HK from Amazon Sydney.



> 1. ***                                                                                                                              0.0%     6    0.6   0.6   0.5   0.8   0.1
> 2. 54.240.192.108                                                                                                         0.0%     6    2.1   2.3   2.1   2.4   0.1
> 3. 54.240.192.72                                                                                                          0.0%     6    2.1   2.4   2.1   3.0   0.3
> 4. i-0-11-0-0.sydp01.bi.telstraglobal.net                                                                                 0.0%     6    4.0   4.2   3.2   5.4   1.0
> ...


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## Oliver (Oct 19, 2014)

Thanks for the heads up. I will add this information to my open ticket with them regarding peering/domestic connectivity and see what they can do about it. They are aware of these issues but more information helps.

Cheers,

Oliver


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## Dan (Oct 19, 2014)

@Oliver

Great to see you on VPSBoard!

Any plans to move the LES boxes onto SL ?


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## Oliver (Oct 19, 2014)

@Dan thanks; it's not planned. I don't think it's viable really with the cost of dedicated SL boxes...


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## Oliver (Oct 20, 2014)

FYI I got an update on the peering situation:



> For peering we are connected to Pipe-IX in Sydney and Melbourne. We're also connected to Equinix IX in Sydney. We have reached out to Amazon to establish peering at one of our common peering points and are looking into peering with all the local networks that we exchange traffic with to better our customer's experience.


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