Network Design and Redundancy
Skyway West Network Diagram [opens in a pop-up window]
Skyway West's network is engineered to provide businesses stable and reliable Internet and private networking services.
We use three upstream providers and if one or more experience problems our customer's Internet traffic automatically routes through the remaining providers. The three providers are:
* Telus
* Bell Canada
* Peer 1
Connecting to multiple providers ensures that our Internet traffic is sent/received through the shortest path from/into our network. The result is faster connections and lower latency critical for many business applications (e.g., file server, VPN, VOIP). Our choice of upstream providers gives our customers excellent connectivity from our network to locations served by Telus, Bell Canada, AT&T Canada, Sprint, Shaw and others.
Our three upstream providers are each connected to a primary and back up Internet gateway BGP router. The back up BGP router automatically takes over routing traffice to/from the Internet if our primary BGP router fails.
Our Internet access customers are also supported by primary and back up Customer Distribution routers responsible for routing traffic between Skyway customers and to the Internet BGP routers. If the primary Customer Distribution router fails, the back up router takes over within seconds.
Skyway utilizes backup machines in other areas critical to business. For example, our VPN server which allows secure connections into our private network is backed up by another machine.
All of Skyways equipment, routers, and servers are connected to UPS's with each UPS connected to separate emergency power generator circuits. The emergency generator kicks in within seconds of a power loss to the building.
Skyway's primary and backup routers are connected to two separate UPS's. If a UPS fails and brings down a primary router, the secondary UPS and backup router immediately take over.
Choose from the links at left to learn about our network and the reasons we believe it is second to none.
Static IP Addresses
Static IP addresses are included with all our Business Class Internet services. Some of our competitors use Dynamic IP addresses. Dynamic IP addresses result in unreliable and interrupted service, therefore, we do not use them with our business class services.Static IP addresses are essential if you host your own mail or web server and also necessary to make an application like a corporate database or accounting program accessible over the Internet.
Static IP addresses make it possible to connect branch offices, home users and remote employees to your LAN. Network administrators using PC Anywhere or a similar application can connect to the office servers and maintain them from home. Remote users can authenticate their access to the office network.
We can help you set up a VPN. This is an inexpensive way to securely connect outside users to your company's internal network. Learn more about setting up your VPN.
MORE NETWORK FEATURES
Network Security: Basic network security is applied throughout our network. Connections include Internet Protocol Routing security options such as address or protocol blocking.
Enhanced network security is available. Inquire about firewalls, proxy servers and Virtual Private Networks using ADSL, Wireless or ISDN technology.
Web Server: Our web server is a high performance machine running the latest software. We offer security certificates, programming and database support. More information can be found here.
Mail Server: Our mail server uses the new Internet Standard Mailserver Postfix. Postfix offers high security, high availability, and far more features than the old standard, Sendmail. More information can be found here.
We offer Anti-Virus products from commercial vendors like Trend Micro along with leading Open Source Anti-Spam tools like SpamAssassin.
Our Webmail solution uses the high-performance Squirrelmail.
QUALITY OF SERVICE AND SPEED TESTS
Although Quality of Service is tricky to measure because numerous interconnected networks comprise the Internet. Problems can range from a bad cable to a backbone router failure 6,000 miles away. Learn more about Quality of Service here.
From time to time you may want to test the speed of your Internet connection. Learn how to do this using our Speed Test.