ip on the other end of a connection

Hi

I have a library provided by Big Buck Inc, I used it to connect to a
server serving their application.
I need to get my application hosted by a company physically close to
them in-order to minimize communication disruption.

using whois database web lookup, I get their IP address but it is
possible that they don't host their own application and have delegated
that to another company.
is there a way of knowing what are the ip address a connection is
traversing to reach its destination and back?

then simply I can find some ISPs or servers near by according to their
application server IP address and shop around for one to host my
application.

I am very new in this so any guide/help/idea/ would be appreciated.

thanks

On 19 Dec 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.networking, in article
<(E-Mail Removed)>, Gary Wessle wrote:

>I have a library provided by Big Buck Inc, I used it to connect to a
>server serving their application.

A quick google doesn't provide any clue about this.

>I need to get my application hosted by a company physically close to
>them in-order to minimize communication disruption.

Physical distance is less important than (and may be totally unrelated
to) network distance. I have four ISPs, three of which are located in
the same metropolitan area (about 8 miles between the furthest pair)
yet the network distance (where the packets are routed) spans nearly
half of the _country_ (how about Phoenix to Seattle to Los Angeles to
Phoenix in one direction, Phoenix to Salt Lake City to Dallas to Phoenix
in the other) passing nine to twelve routers. Get a map out if you are
not familiar with the location of those cities.

>using whois database web lookup, I get their IP address but it is
>possible that they don't host their own application and have delegated
>that to another company.

Use a DNS query tool, such as

[compton ~]$ whatis dig dnsquery host nslookup
dig (1) - send domain name query packets to name servers
dnsquery (1) - query domain name servers using resolver
host (1) - look up host names using domain server
nslookup (8) - query Internet name servers interactively
[compton ~]$

but the real answer would be to ask Big Buck Inc. Distributed servers
such as google, yahoo, or even spamazon often try to provide a DNS
answer based on a lookup table of where you are querying from. Sometimes
this works well.

>is there a way of knowing what are the ip address a connection is
>traversing to reach its destination and back?

"Maybe". You can use a traceroute type program to see how your packets
are routed _to_ their server, but there is no guarantee that their packets
will be routed in the same way back to you. As noted above, routing does
not have to be (and often is not) symmetrical. A second problem is that
the typical traceroute (UNIX style program) uses UDP packets (the microsoft
toy version uses ICMP echos) while your application uses TCP. Router
policy settings _may_ result in the different protocols using different
routes. Additionally, routing may change as a function of time-of-day,
or traffic loading of the intermediate links.

>then simply I can find some ISPs or servers near by according to their
>application server IP address and shop around for one to host my
>application.

The only method with any chance of relevance would be to try a traceroute
from their application server AND your proposed hosting services, and I'm
not even sure how long that information would be valid, or even how
accurate it might be.

>I am very new in this so any guide/help/idea/ would be appreciated.

I'm curious how you have determined that this is even necessary. If this
is some real-time video application (for example), it would probably be
more suitable for you to have all components of your hosted data on a
single source, rather than try to piece stuff together across a dynamic
world. If on the other hand, the 'assembly' of the data is to occur on
some client's system remote from the application server and your own, then
you are in even deeper weeds because the chance that everyone will have
the same routes to these servers is quite poor.

Old guy.

thanks for the long replay, you turned some lights one here.
"Big Buck Inc" uses http://www.servervault.com/ to host their mission
critical application. BBI supplies me with a library to connect to
their server hosted by said company. I am in another Continent across
the globe and wanting to minimize communication hiccups, a quick
web search revealed the IP of the hosting company to be
216.12.128.75
216.134.219.11
now, I am wondering what ISP should I select to host my application,
such ISP need to have a low network distance from servervault.
can they "servervault" host it? yes, but too much $$$$$.
thanks alot for you input.

On 20 Dec 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.networking, in article
<(E-Mail Removed)>, Gary Wessle wrote:

>thanks for the long replay, you turned some lights one here.

That's the whole idea ;-)

>"Big Buck Inc" uses http://www.servervault.com/ to host their mission
>critical application. BBI supplies me with a library to connect to
>their server hosted by said company. I am in another Continent across
>the globe and wanting to minimize communication hiccups

That's going to be interesting. At least there are multiple links
across the Pacific. Why do you feel this would be a problem?

>a quick web search revealed the IP of the hosting company to be
>216.12.128.75
>216.134.219.11

Those are just the primary name servers, but they "own" 216.12.128.0 to
216.12.159.255, which seems to be a few miles West of Washington DC,
and they rent 216.134.218.0 - 216.134.219.255 (and 66.129.99.0 -
66.129.99.255 and 66.129.103.192 - 66.129.103.207) from 'Peak 10' in
Charlotte NC, which is about 330 miles SW of Washington, and on a
completely different routing. They also have a chunk of IPv6 space,
but I'm not sure where it is located (physically or network-wise).

>now, I am wondering what ISP should I select to host my application,
>such ISP need to have a low network distance from servervault.
>can they "servervault" host it? yes, but too much $$$$$.

You'd have to find out which datacenter they are located in. The
Washington location seems to have good links to AboveNet, while Charlotte
seems to be getting connectivity through TimeWarner (though from an ELI
server, there seems to be little _difference_ in network delay to the
two sites). But there are (literally) thousands of providers that are
within a few hops of either site (AboveNet, ELI, and TWC are backbone
providers). What would probably be more important is to see if they are
on any of the numerous block lists.

Old guy

(E-Mail Removed) (Moe Trin) writes:

> On 20 Dec 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.networking, in article
> <(E-Mail Removed)>, Gary Wessle wrote:
>
> >thanks for the long replay, you turned some lights one here.
>
> That's the whole idea ;-)
>
> >"Big Buck Inc" uses http://www.servervault.com/ to host their mission
> >critical application. BBI supplies me with a library to connect to
> >their server hosted by said company. I am in another Continent across
> >the globe and wanting to minimize communication hiccups
>
> That's going to be interesting. At least there are multiple links
> across the Pacific. Why do you feel this would be a problem?
>
> >a quick web search revealed the IP of the hosting company to be
> >216.12.128.75
> >216.134.219.11
>
> Those are just the primary name servers, but they "own" 216.12.128.0 to
> 216.12.159.255, which seems to be a few miles West of Washington DC,
> and they rent 216.134.218.0 - 216.134.219.255 (and 66.129.99.0 -
> 66.129.99.255 and 66.129.103.192 - 66.129.103.207) from 'Peak 10' in
> Charlotte NC, which is about 330 miles SW of Washington, and on a
> completely different routing. They also have a chunk of IPv6 space,
> but I'm not sure where it is located (physically or network-wise).
>
> >now, I am wondering what ISP should I select to host my application,
> >such ISP need to have a low network distance from servervault.
> >can they "servervault" host it? yes, but too much $$$$$.
>
> You'd have to find out which datacenter they are located in. The
> Washington location seems to have good links to AboveNet, while Charlotte
> seems to be getting connectivity through TimeWarner (though from an ELI
> server, there seems to be little _difference_ in network delay to the
> two sites). But there are (literally) thousands of providers that are
> within a few hops of either site (AboveNet, ELI, and TWC are backbone
> providers). What would probably be more important is to see if they are
> on any of the numerous block lists.
>
> Old guy

what is "block lists" and why is it more important?
google tells me something about block list, spam contexts, I don't get
it.

thanks

On 24 Dec 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.networking, in article
<(E-Mail Removed)>, Gary Wessle wrote:

>(E-Mail Removed) (Moe Trin) writes:

>> What would probably be more important is to see if they are on any
>> of the numerous block lists.

>what is "block lists" and why is it more important?
>google tells me something about block list, spam contexts, I don't get
>it.

There are quite a few blocklists out there - _many_ (but not all) of
them related to spam. Those that do not relate to spam may be listing
addresses by country, or by domain, or listing addresses with address
problems (generic addresses, addresses that don't have proper PTR
records or have low TTLs, and so on), or domains that don't "follow the
rules" (rfc-ignorant.org).

It _really_ is a good idea before you sign any contract to find out what
address(es) you might receive, and look for them (and the provider) in
the Usenet hierarchy 'news.admin.net-abuse.*' (search on groups.google.com)
and the various blocklist search engines.

Old guy