The company adds two new modules to the two Cisco CRS-1 routers in the backbone of its global hosting network.

LeaseWeb, a hosting provider, today announced that it has added two new modules to the two Cisco CRS-1 routers in the backbone of its global hosting network. The company says that the cost of these modules is USD 790,000. It avers that the two Cisco CRS-1 units - non-stop devices with a basic purchase value of 1.6 million euros - are a crucial element in its global hosting network.
 
The compay explains that they link the four data centers in its network with telecom carriers and a multitude of internet exchanges, including LINX (London), DE-CIX (Frankfurt), AMS-IX (Amsterdam) and NYIIX (New York). It specifically uses two Cisco CRS-1 units because they provide the best guarantee for uptime in the hosting network.

"They are plates of approximately 70 by 70 centimeters that can be slid vertically into the CRS-1 chassis," says Bastiaan Spandaw, LeaseWeb's Network Architect. "These Modular Services Cards (MSC) and related Physical Layer Interface Modules (PLIM) allow us to create a large amount of additional port capacity in our network, external connections with telecom carriers and Internet exchanges as well as internal connections through various Cisco Catalyst 6500 switches with customers' equipment."

The company further states that although it has chosen to use 10-Gigabit Ethernet connections for the added modules, it hopes to be able to use 100-Gigabit Ethernet modules for future expansion of the CRS-1 units. Spandaw continues, "Due to the rapid growth of our network, we really need those 100-Gigabit Ethernet connections. I understand that Cisco is planning to introduce these new modules in Q1 or Q2 of 2010. This will make it easier for us to further upscale our backbone capacity."

"In April 2009, our customers used 300 Gigabits per second," says Rolph Haspers, Operations Director of LeaseWeb. "And in November 2009, bandwidth usage had increased to even more than 500 Gbps. In view of our policy of maintaining double the amount of bandwidth that customers actually use, this requires significant, easily scalable capacity in our network."

Haspers continues, "Many of our customers are resellers such as webhosting providers, system integrators, web designers, and application developers. These customers each have several customers of their own, which can really accelerate bandwidth growth per LeaseWeb customer. In addition, we notice that the amount of bandwidth in our network automatically attracts new customers who find this very useful for purposes such as streaming. This has a flywheel effect in the growth of our Internet traffic."