Path Network PoP expansion: Chicago, Dallas, Future Plans
Chicago and Dallas are the newest addition to Path Network’s server locations along with our previously existing Point-of-Presences (PoPs) at Los Angeles, New York, and Amsterdam.
Path Network utilizes Anycast Routing, every Path Network PoP will be interpreted by a user’s router as having the same IP as each other. The user’s router will automatically choose the Path Anycast node closest to their location greatly reducing the Time To First Byte and optimizing load speeds for the user regardless of where they send their request from. Having our own PoPs in the central United States will give us enhanced peering options, allowing us to rely less on transit providers. Users in the central United States will see the biggest change in latency on any service protected by Path Network. With the addition of Chicago and Dallas, the maximum travel distance to reach a Path node will be reduced by at least half if not more.
In addition to speed optimization, Anycast allows for both redundancy and load balancing. In a network, each network edge has a total capacity it can handle equal to the maximum flow that the network edge can process at any given time. If a network edge becomes overwhelmed, services become slow and/or unresponsive. If any particular node in the Anycast group goes down, traffic will automatically get routed to the next closest and available node without any downtime at all. But a server going down isn’t ideal, especially if it’s due to a DDoS attack. Anycast allows for traffic to be diverted between the nodes in a network so that no specific edge is able to be easily overwhelmed by a brute force attack. Chicago and Dallas will double our network capacity, greatly enhancing our ability to monitor, analyze, and mitigate DDoS attacks.
Path Network’s proprietary enterprise monitoring and mitigation methods allow us to handle all kinds of DDoS attacks but without the PoPs in the right places, users may not be getting the most optimal experience due to latency issues. That’s why we’re always looking to expand our network, and we have our eyes set on Australia and Japan next!