The CNET web server has been online since Dec 5, 1996. And, is powered by -

Internet Connection:

CNET Co is currently connected to Oso Grande Technologies in Albuquerque, NM. CNET Co.'s design goal was to, "the find the best cost effective bandwidth provider" - Oso Grande (formerly TFP Inc.) was awarded the bid in Dec of 96. The first connection was a full Frame Relay T1 connection using US West as the Telco local loop carrier. This T1 had served CNET Co. until Nov of 2000, when the connection was upgraded from the T1 to an ATM DS3. However, only a 6 Mbps data pipe was established with Oso Grande. But, the system is scalable in 3 Mbps increments. Again, CNET Co had to use Qwest as its' carrier - the second DS3 on CNET Co's Fiber Optics OC-3 connection was activated for this purpose.
In addition to the Telephone carrier services, we use Cisco hardware to terminate these connections. Our main router is a Cisco 3662 with added memory and other Wide Area Network modules. The new DS3 ATM circuit will be terminated by this router using a NM-1A-T3 module. This is a medium duty router that provides all our services.
Oso Grande Technologies (aka NM TechNet) is connected to UUNet with a full DS3 out of the Phoenix, AZ POP. As a backup feed, Oso Grande has a 30 Mbps fraction feed to Qwest. With the two feeds, Oso Grande has a 75 Mbps total bandwidth feed capability.



Facilities/Telco Access:

In December of 1999, CNET Co. started the installation process of bring in the Fiber Optics OC-3 carrier into it's building. By the end of May 2000, the construction was complete - but the loop was not activated by Qwest until early August. The reason the CNET Co. had to move in this direction is that the availability of copper phone line pairs had run out. So in order to continue with any growth pattern CNET Co had no choice but to install the conduit for the fiber optics line. Now CNET Co. can add circuits without having to wait for line conditioning, which usually added about 4 weeks to the install lead time. Currently CNET Co own the OC-3 fiber optics line into its' facilities - this line carries three DS3s, and each DS3 is capable or running at a single channel speed of 45M bps or is can be channelized into carrying 28 DS1s. Each "channelized" DS1 can carry 24 phone lines (DS0) for dialin access.
The Fiber Optics cable installed by QWest contained four bundles of 6 or 24 total strands of single modem fiber. Four of the strands were terminated with SC connectors, that connected the redundant fiber lines into a Fujitsu FLM150 Multiplexer. This mux is used to convert the OC-3 carrier into the three separate DS3 channels. Where one channel is handed off through a coax cable to a different Mux (generally referred to as a M1/3 Mux) which is used to split a DS3 into 28 DS1s. Once at this level, these T1s can be directly connected into the ISP equipment. CNET Co uses ADC Kentrox's EZT3 for this purpose.
The second DS3 will be used to connect into QWest's ATM data services cloud. This will give CNET Co a scalability in connection speed to its' service provider, DSL customers, or downstream customers.



Web Server:

CNET Co's Web site is powered by BSDI's Internet Super Server 4.1 Unix Operating System with the Apache Web Server. The E-Mail portion is handled by Sendmail, along with Domain Name Services using BIND. For the hardware side, the machine was custom built using a dual process mother board (S1832DL) made by Tyan Corp. It's loaded with twin 800 MHZ Intel PIII SECC2 processors, with 512 MB of PC100 SDRAM Memory. The hard drive sub-system uses an Adaptec 2940U2W SCSI card connected to a Fast Seagate Hard Drive. The BSDI partitions have been systematically laid out on this 36.2 GB hard drive to provide optimum performance. All information is automatically backup up nightly onto a HP DDS4 SCSI tape drive. A Dual Fast Ethernet card was installed to provide a multi-homed access paths to the Server.


BSDI OS -

CNET Co started with BSDI 2.1 and has progressed with the released versions. This software package has been one of the most stable OSs around. During one time period, the server had and accumlated run time of one year and 6 months without a reboot or power down of the server.

Apache Web Server -

CNET Co.'s staff has custom tailored the configuration to allow the use of CGI scripts and Server Side Includes in web pages hosted on this Server.



News Server:

CNET Co's News Server was model after its' main server. It's powered by a 64 User BSDI's Internet Super Server 4.1 Unix Operating System with NNTP activated for News feed services. For the hardware side, the machine was custom built using a dual process mother board (S1832DL) made by Tyan Corp. It's loaded with twin 800 MHZ Intel PIII SECC2 processors, with 512 MB of PC100 SDRAM Memory. The hard drive sub-system uses an Adaptec 29160 SCSI card connected to large Ultra-160 Fast Seagate Hard Drives. In order to provide space for the accumulated news groups, five 73 GB drives were cascaded together to form a single large drive. The BSDI news partitions have been systematically laid out on this 330 GB hard drive to provide optimum performance. On this unit, only the program information is automatically backup up nightly onto a HP DD3 SCSI tape drive. A Dual Fast Ethernet card was installed to provide a multi-homed access paths to the Server. Our news feed is provide by Cidera Corporation via a satellite Downlink using a 1.5 meter dish, receiver unit, and a PC Service Adapter unit. This method was chosen because of the "fast access" philosophy that is promoted in our site design - " not to imped the incoming or out going traffic". This alternate route type of feed has saved the main T1 for "real traffic". Plus the amount of data transmitted daily would have required additional T1s.



Modem Banks:

CNET Co uses LanRover Access Switches built by Shiva/Intel Corporation. Each box can hold 144 modems, and 6 T1s. Each box is capable of handling ISDN or Analog incoming data calls. These boxes were chosen for their dual processor design, and high throughput capability under heavy loads. The dedicated ethernet card autodetects 10MB or 100MB network interface and adjusts accordingly. The High density digital modem cards have increased the analog capacity from 72 modem per box, to 144 modem per box. And the V.90/56K digital modems process the incoming analog data and switch it directly to the LAN, resulting in low latency, high performance analog access. Each dedicated microprocessor on the modem cards ensure increased processing as modem capacity increases.