[quote1180896852=Coldsaw]
Since all the servers are in the same location, why would the hops differ?
Or are they? ( same server company, different server locations )
newer or older servers? Same location different backbone? Hmm
The gamers need to know
Martin/Coldsaw
[/quote1180896852]
Well, there are several points of failure that each server has to negotiate. Even if we assume that all of the machines are physically located in the same room, or even the same rack for that matter, and remember, I'm just speculating on the following:
1) The server itself. It might be a real honest-to-god rack server with all of the special server do-dahs that go with it, or it might be a plain old Dell machine that someone waved a magic sword over and proclaimed "let thee be a server". A real server will probably have multiple dual-core server CPUs with 8+ gb of ram, a raid setup, and an add-on NIC, while the pseudo server might have a motherboard selected more for price than features/reliability, a consumer-grade dual-core CPU and RAM, and be using the motherboard's on-board NIC.
2) The NIC in the server - add-on or built-on? Add-on should provide slightly better performance, and while I'm not sure, a PCIe NIC should be even better.
3) The Cat5 cable - handmade or "manufactured"? Most of the time, Cat5 in a server room is hand-made (meaning the hardware guys crimp the connectors on. There's also varying qualities of cable. Let's not forget the possibility of having wire that is somehow damaged, or just plain old, or even simply running through a less-that optimum environment (exposed to heat, cold, moisture, etc).
4) The switch - consumer-grade or enterprise-ready? Who configured it, and how? Do all of eGOs servers connect to the same one, or is our new one on its own (less crowded) unit?
5) The router(s) - depending on the topology in the server room, one or more routers could be involved n routing packets to each of our servers.
6) The incoming line - are we on a OC3, a partial/full T1, or what? Are all of the servers being fed by the same incoming line?
7_) The OS - they're Linux servers, right? Are they all using the same distro, or the same version of a single distro?
8 ) The guys working on the servers - everyone has their own way of doing things in terms of hardware ad software setup. If they've had a staff turn-over of any description, some stuff might fall through the cracks, while other stuff suddenly becomes more important.