In my opinion, the SGIX is a critically important public infrastructure for Singapore. We have been relying on the carrier-specific Singtel Internet Exchange for too long.

Why STIX Singtel Internet Exchange Not Good Enough

The problem with STIX is, if you have a server at a data center in Singapore which is not connected to STIX, the traffic will have to be routed to Internet exchanges in Hong Kong(HKIX ) or in Japan(JPIX) or California(Palo Alto Internet Exchange and Los Angeles Equinix Internet Exchange) before coming back to Singapore.

And if you are wondering why Singtel is not peering with other carriers, you might want to read this report: Asia Pacific Peering Ecosystem

Typically, ping to a local server within Singapore is 30ms or less. But a ping will take 100ms or longer if it has to be routed to the nearest public Internet exchange in Hong Kong before coming back to Singapore.

I have been hosting some of my websites on a Rackspace Cloud Server which is located in USA. Average ping to this server is about 300ms, because of the ping latency, I wished I could use a cloud hosting based Singapore.

Last month, I bought a Voxel’s Cloud Server located in Singapore. Voxel servers are housed at Equinix Data Center at Ayer Rajah. I was expecting to connect “directly” to the local server.

But I was wrong.

After 3 days of persistent testing and submitting support tickets to Voxel, I was using SingNet broadband, I was still accessing my local sever at Ayer Rajah via Los Angeles!!! Here’s the traceroute:


traceroute to 180.92.186.210 (180.92.186.210), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254) 5.650 ms 1.605 ms 2.164 ms
2 bb116-14-180-1.singnet.com.sg (116.14.180.1) 19.484 ms 18.894 ms 19.589 ms
3 202.166.121.41 (202.166.121.41) 19.653 ms 18.720 ms 19.741 ms
4 ge-3-0-0-3700.stella.singnt.com.sg (202.166.124.105) 19.378 ms 20.582 ms 19.684 ms
5 xe-0-0-0.singha.singnet.com.sg (202.166.120.13) 19.616 ms 19.120 ms 19.390 ms
6 ae5-0.beck.singnet.com.sg (202.166.126.41) 19.641 ms 18.838 ms 70.760 ms
7 203.208.190.129 (203.208.190.129) 21.733 ms 21.561 ms 31.448 ms
8 xe-1-0-0-0.sngc3-cr1.ix.singtel.com (203.208.183.33) 19.756 ms 19.772 ms 19.535 ms
9 so-2-0-3-0.laxow-cr1.ix.singtel.com (203.208.149.238) 210.768 ms 208.521 ms
so-2-0-1-0.laxow-cr1.ix.singtel.com (203.208.151.114) 309.686 ms
10 ge-6-1-0-0.laxow-dr1.ix.singtel.com (203.208.183.138) 211.167 ms 205.021 ms 209.122 ms
11 ge9-10.br01.lax05.pccwbtn.net (63.218.73.101) 212.366 ms
ge9-11.br01.lax05.pccwbtn.net (63.218.73.105) 200.025 ms
ge9-10.br01.lax05.pccwbtn.net (63.218.73.101) 199.733 ms
12 voxel.ge9-24.br01.sin02.pccwbtn.net (63.218.229.14) 199.791 ms 196.239 ms 197.176 ms
13 21.te1-5.csr1.sin1.sg.voxel.net (72.26.220.18) 195.152 ms 195.408 ms 199.024 ms
14 180.92.186.210 (180.92.186.210) 203.120 ms 201.936 ms 200.206 ms


Taken For A Ride Half Way Around The World

As you can see, SingNet sent me half way around the world before connecting me from Tampines to Ayer Rajah.

And a ping to the local server via this route took about 200ms, that’s nearly 7 times longer than I expected. Apparently, Voxel which uses PCCW network did not peer to STIX.

There is nothing that I can do but terminate the Voxel Singapore server because I am already using 2 different data centers in California, USA. It’s not Voxel’s fault, which is already a member of SGIX. It’s just that our public Internet exchange is not ready yet and has to rely on STIX’s peering.

Hopefully, with the launch of the 2 new nodes, at 1-Net and Global Switch Singapore, surfing to local servers will be faster and I can use any data center in Singapore without worrying of being taken for a ride. Otherwise, even if we have the NBN, accessing local websites will mean wasting time via Hong Kong Internet exchange or worse, like my case, via Los Angeles!

Here’s the list of the 14 SGIX members (as of 8 Apr 2010):

1. 1-Net Singapore Pte. Ltd.
2. Deutsche Telekom Asia Pte. Ltd.
3. France Telecom Long Distance (S) Pte. Ltd.
4. Infocomm Asia Holdings Pte. Ltd.
5. LGA Telecom Pte. Ltd.
6. MobileOne Ltd.
7. New MediaExpress Pte. Ltd.
8. Nucleus Connect Pte. Ltd.
9. PacNet Internet (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
10. Singapore Advanced Research and Education Network (SingAREN)
11. Singapore Telecommunications Ltd.
12. Starhub Ltd.
13. Tata Communications International Pte. Ltd.
14. Voxel Inc

More information(PDF download): IDA’s Media Fact Sheet on SGIX

When I look for VPS hosting, WHM/CPanel is a must because I am used to it and too lazy to learn to use a new hosting control panel.

No Cheap VPS Hosting in Singapore

If you are like me, who have been looking around for cheap VPS hosting in Singapore, you will find that you have to pay S$90 (about US$60) a month for a VPS plan with WHM/CPanel.

As compared with the VPS plan based in the US, the same configuration would probably cost you less than US$30 a month.

Why Look For Cheap VPS Hosting?

But why do you want it cheap.

I wanted VPS hosting because of the root access and ability to customize my own web server applications. Also for the reliability and managed support. I ended up using Essential VPS Plan offered by ServInt after trying testing several other Web hosting services over the past 2 months.

You probably wanted VPS for reliability and stability too. And reliability and stability don’t come cheap.
Higher priced VPS plans are usually more reliable because of less over-selling and better hardware e.g. Dual Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processors, RAID-10/SATA II, Off-site Backup and so on.

However, if you are willing to use a US-based datacenter, you can still look for a bargain at WebHostingTalk’s VPS Hosting Offer Forum.

Why Not Try Data Centers at the West Coast, USA

Make sure you select to host at the data center located in the west coast or Los Angeles, USA. Servint LA is a good choice for you and your visitors. Your websites will get faster response when access from Singapore and other Asia Pacific region compared to data centers located in other part of the USA.

Site owners are concerned if their web servers are fast enough for their customers. To those who run e-commerce sites with shopping cart, how quickly a web page loads up is very important to your visitors.

So How Do You Know If Your e-Commerce Site Is Fast Enough?

You can do this simple benchmark test.

1. Clear or delete all your browser cache.
If you do not know how to clear your browser cache, view these video tutorials:

2. Load up your e-commerce website.
(Time it with a stopwatch if you have to.)

3. Load up Amazon.com.

If you feel your website loads up as fast as Amazon.com then you are ok.

You can also compare the loading time of your site vs your competitors’.

If your web server is slow to response, then you may want to see if your mail server(and anti-virus software) is taking up valuable CPU/RAM resources and consider migrating your email to Google Apps to improve the performance of your web server without upgrading any existing hardware.

We are not only talking about optimizing your website for search engine robots; we are talking about making better for real human visitors – your potential customers.

For the technically inclined, you will understand that the mail server is taking up valuable resources on the machine which you also use to serve Web pages. Such sharing of CPU resources may slow down your website performance.

Website Optimization

Dynamic website using content management systems and blogs will suffer in terms of performance, i.e. how quickly the page is displayed on your visitors’ computer.

Now let say you stop using the mail servers and dedicate all the computing power to your CMS and blogs, then their performance will definitely improve.

Likewise, if you are running a busy e-commerce website with shopping-cart then you definitely want to use all the computing power for a smooth check-out process and give the best customer’s experience.

Stop using your Web server for email hosting, instead use Google Apps for all your business email accounts.

Google Apps Email Features

The biggest advantage is the SPAM and virus filtering.

Can you imagine those emails with virus infected attachment sitting next to your gorgeous Web pages!?

Even with anti-virus software installed, the mail server which comes with your Web hosting account cannot compare to the level of security and the computing which Google can offer.

If you are interested to know more about the fantastic features which Google hosted email for business can offer, visit

http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/security/index.html

And Google gives you 100 free email accounts with 6GB of storage each.

POP3/SMTP for Outlook and Outlook Express

You can access your business email using the familiar GMail webmail interface and/or download your email messages to Outlook or Outlook Express.

Your email address will remain the same, i.e.

yourname@yourcompany.com

And not some esoteric mynamenotavailable@gmail.com

However, in order to use the free Google Apps and your own domain name, you need to edit the DNS/MX settings. For those who have an existing Web hosting, you can get your hosting provider to enter the MX records provided by Google.

Set Up A Domain Just for Google Email Account

If you have an idling domain name or thinking of registering a new one just to take advantage of the email service of Google Apps and not to host a website, then you have to make sure your domain registrar also offers DNS hosting or DNS management.

GoDaddy and many other domain registrars do not offer this option because I guess they want you to also buy hosting from them.

Try Name.com, you can use Google Apps with their domains.

Otherwise you’ll need to register for the free DNS management service at ZoneEdit.com

Set Up SPR Record for Your Google Email Addresses

Last point, you will want to set up a SPF record. At your DNS management, add the following TXT record:

“v=spf1 include:aspmx.googlemail.com ~all”

However, you can hardly find a Singapore web hosting provider offering shared hosting with unlimited domains and 40 GB of web space. Single domain hosting with 100MB space will costs you between S$7 to S$10.

As for the reliability of ResellersPanel servers, I can only say it has been excellent for me.

Disclosure: I have been an affiliate with ResellersPanel for 4 years now, and used the customized reseller’s web page to sell domain and web hosting space.

The domain and web hosting reseller web page residing at their servers has been up 100% of the time for the last 4 years.

You can also register as a web hosting reseller and enjoy huge saving buying hosting and domains for your own use at wholesale price.

If you are looking for new web hosting, I would suggest that you head over to ResellersPanel website and check out their offers.

The pricing is affordable. As for Hosting Zoom service, I have been using their shared hosting for nearly 1 year and am happy with their servers’ stability and reliability.

So, if you are looking to maximize your web server uptime why not try Clustered Failover by Hosting Zoom(aff.)

Yesterday, I came across this Clustered Failover Reseller Hosting from ResellerZoom. I am already using their budget hosting for several months and so far the performance has been excellent.

I was quite tempted to upgrade to the Failover Reseller Hosting. Reseller hosting means you can set up many seperate websites under one master hosting manager account.

I was really attracted by the very affordable pricing. Additionally, it includes private nameservers and dedicated IP address. At $24.95/month, I think it is a pretty good deal if all my websites can have nearly zero downtime.

1. Basic Facts About Business Web Hosting
2. Choosing A Domain Name
3. Choosing Your Web Hosting Plans
4. Difference between Shared and Dedicated Web Hosting?
5. Hosting Your Own Web Server
6. Switching Web Hosting Company – Tips on Trasfer of Web Hosting
7. Unlimited Bandwidth in Web Hosting
8. Web Hosting: 4 Factors in Choosing a Hosting Company
9. 5 Steps to Plan Ahead When Changing to a New Hosting Company

I will be publishing a total of 10 or more articles on how-to guide and tips. I really hope this will help people to make the right decision when choosing their web host and not just select the cheapest web hosting company.