Why is whitehouse.gov hosted in GERMANY?

[ml/nj]

Why is whitehouse.gov hosted in GERMANY? I'm asking.

Does anyone have any idea? This question was posed by Scott on a closed list I am on. I think it deserves a wider audience.

The image I've presented here comes from http://en.utrace.de/?query=www.whitehouse.gov

ML/NJ

[mbraynard]

Cause it's not. It's in San Jose right now.

But if you are in GERMANY, they host a version of it in Germany so it isn't so laggy. And when you use an IP lookup site in Germany, it finds the German site.

[angkor]

www.whitehouse.gov uses Akamai which caches multiple live copies of the site across multiple locations (wherever Akamai has a presence, which is everywhere), in order to improve performance. This will obviously produce different traceroutes and pings according to your location.

[HangnJudge]

Lookup has started ...

; <<>> DiG 9.4.2-P2 <<>> whitehouse.gov any +multiline +nocomments +nocmd +noquestion +nostats +search
;; global options: printcmd
whitehouse.gov. 7200 IN A 63.161.169.137
whitehouse.gov. 172800 IN NS use6.akam.net.
whitehouse.gov. 172800 IN NS ns1-176.akam.net.
whitehouse.gov. 172800 IN NS asia9.akam.net.
whitehouse.gov. 172800 IN NS usw6.akam.net.
whitehouse.gov. 172800 IN NS usw5.akam.net.
whitehouse.gov. 172800 IN NS usw1.akam.net.
whitehouse.gov. 172800 IN NS zc.akam.net.
whitehouse.gov. 172800 IN NS ns1-145.akam.net.
whitehouse.gov. 7200 IN SOA ep.eop.gov. postmaster.whitehouse.gov. (
2009033101 ; serial
900 ; refresh (15 minutes)
300 ; retry (5 minutes)
604800 ; expire (1 week)
7200 ; minimum (2 hours)
)
whitehouse.gov. 7200 IN MX 105 mailhub-wh3.whitehouse.gov.
whitehouse.gov. 7200 IN MX 100 mailhub-wh2.whitehouse.gov.
asia9.akam.net. 78208 IN A 220.73.220.2
usw6.akam.net. 89915 IN A 96.17.144.195
usw5.akam.net. 88938 IN A 63.147.175.19
usw1.akam.net. 46957 IN A 96.17.144.195
zc.akam.net. 87809 IN A 64.211.42.196
use6.akam.net. 89003 IN A 208.44.108.136

[angkor]

right.

that long list is the Akamai nameservers, which are clearly in different global regions.

[ml/nj]

But if you are in GERMANY, they host a version of it in Germany so it isn't so laggy.

And that's important because?

ML/NJ

[Creme Brulee]

It’s made in Germany. You know the Germans always make good stuff.

[2harddrive]

They bid cheaper that the Indians! LOL.

[lolwat]

If you click the IP (http://en.utrace.de/whois/92.122.34.135), it shows that the netblock that IP address is from is owned by Akamai Technologies, a company (an American one, by the way) that provides content mirroring services for many large, high-profile sites, apparently including whitehouse.gov for better performance. The site that you used to look it up is hosted in Germany, and thus gets a server hosted in Germany for lower latency.

[KarinG1]

They must have multiple servers. I traced it to 118.215.58.135, which is in Singapore.

http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/118.215.58.135

[HangnJudge]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamai_Technologies

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM),
pronounced [ɑkɑmɑɪ][2], i
s a company that provides a distributed computing platform
for global Internet content and application delivery,
headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts

[OafOfOffice]

Why perhaps?

Dick MORRIS: Yes, Obama. This was so unbelievable. Obama was the one pressing for less regulation and more spending. And he had to convince the Europeans. But eventually -- but Obama himself is a socialist, I believe, and he had no problem really with this.

This truly creates a global economic system. From now on, don't look to Washington for the rule making, look to Brussels.

Gordon Brown announced the creation of a "new world order" after the conclusion of the G20 summit of world leaders in London.

"Today’s decisions, of course, will not immediately solve the crisis. But we have begun the process by which it will be solved," Mr Brown said. "I think a new world order is emerging with the foundation of a new progressive era of international co-operation,"

[gondramB]

>>When I started a traceroute just a moment ago, whitehouse.gov resolved to 96.17.202.135, assigned to Akamai out of Cambridge, Mass. The actual host at the IP looked like it was hanging off a network located in Ashburn, Va. (one of the major Eastern U.S. data centers).<<

In the olden times it was always hosted at MIT in Cambridge - my guess is there may be a European mirror.

[Caesar Soze]

Dude, no need to yell at me. I’m not one of the Fifth Reich-NWO-whitehouse.gov conspiracy theorists.

[angkor]

Dude, no need to yell at me

Not yelling at you.

Sorry that's what it looked like.

THIS IS YELLING.

This is emphasis.

[Calpernia]

A copy cache? It is more than that if the domain is pointing to it. It has to be listed as a name server for the domain to pick up that IP.

[Calpernia]

A mirror that is a listed name server.

[TheRiverNile]

MAYBE THE KEY IS IN GERMANY.

Revelation 2. The throne...is now in Berlin.

[upchuck]

The whois database sez:

Massachusetts - Cambridge - Akamai Technologies

[mbraynard]

Because Wookees are not from Endor.

[Vendome]

My recollection was that Whitehouse.gov was located in Sterling, VA and backed up in other places.

Can’t traceroute through my router without turning things off or I could help.