Technology

Data centers

  • More than 80 servers distributed over 10 data centres.
  • Main data centre in Dallas, Texas (SoftLayer).
  • Other centres: London, Madrid, Buenos Aires (x2), Santiago de Chile, Miami, Bogota, Seattle, Washington DC, Munich (ITEN - Deutsch Telecom).
  • UPS and diesel-generator backups with a 3-weeks capacity and diesel supply contracts.
  • Earthquake-resistant buildings, access control.

Connectivity

  • The ads are served from the closest point to the user.
  • Suppliers: Global Crossing, Verio, InterNAP, Savvis, Level3, Telia.
  • In Buenos Aires, connection with G4 and Cabase.
  • In Santiago de Chile, GTD Internet.
  • Network Connections of 100Mbps or 1Gbps.
  • First-class CDN, where we do not have our own servers (Akamai).
  • Protection against DdoS.

DNS

  • Distributed DNS services, minimizing inquiry loss due to DNS faults.
  • Boost DNS query response speed to e-planning.net, by having dozens of servers distributed worldwide.

Servers

  • Renting out of servers to different suppliers.
  • Scalability: the installation time of new servers is of less than 24 hours.
  • Automated server configuration platform, to speed up the installation process.
  • All servers have at least 2 cores or 2 CPUs, always using less than 25% CPU.

System

  • Linux.
  • MySQL database.
  • The ad serving engine is developed in C language in a highly efficient way.
  • Combination of Apache and nginx as web servers.

Redundancy

  • Load balancers to obtain redundancy and distribute the load (1 active load balancer + 1 backup on stand-by).
  • Database replication in real time on at least 3 servers.
  • Remote backup of data on a daily basis, in two different physical locations, via network without tapes or manual media.

Monitoring

  • Continuous monitoring of servers (database, ping, HTTP, etc. averaging 103 variables).
  • Permanent monitoring of ad download time from different parts of the world and also boasts an external monitoring service to ensure the transparency of the data.
  • System of alerts by pager, beeper and cell phones.

Availability

  • 99.9% monthly average availability guaranteed for downloading of ads. Effective availability during 2009 was of 99.905% (figures from hyperspin.com), and actual availability which can be viewed online at any moment, at grabperf.org.
  • The redundant system allows us to make escalating upgrades, while still providing a continuous service.

Processes

  • The supply processes for new servers, management, monitoring and care alerts are certified under ISO 9001:2000 quality standard.
  • ISO 17799/27001 standard – with reference to the security and confidentiality of information in the implementation process.