Ever wondered where your cloud instance is physically located? Whether you're troubleshooting latency issues or exploring network paths, tools like tracert (on Windows) and IP2Location can help you trace and identify the location of cloud servers such as those hosted by Google, AWS, Azure, or any major provider.
📌 Step 1: Run tracert in Command Prompt
Open your Windows Command Prompt and type the following command to trace the route to a domain, for example, google.com:
tracert google.com
This will show all the network hops your request takes until it reaches the destination. The last hop gives a hint about the physical data center handling the request.
Example output:
From the above output, the last hop before reaching Google resolves to:
hkg07s23-in-f14.1e100.net [172.217.24.46]
🧭 Step 2: Use IP2Location to Identify Server Location
Next, go to IP2Location Demo Tool and enter the final IP address from your trace (in our case, 172.217.24.46).
This tool gives you detailed geolocation info including:
- 📍 City & Country
- 🕵️♂️ Proxy Type
- 🏢 ISP & Domain Info
- 📡 Hosting Usage
Example Output for 172.217.24.46:
This indicates that the Google server IP is located in Hong Kong 🌏 and is owned by Google LLC. It also confirms that this is a Data Center/Transit IP, not a residential or proxy network.
🎯 Summary
✅ tracert helps trace the path from your device to a remote server.
✅ IP2Location reveals where the final server resides geographically.
✅ Useful for troubleshooting latency, content delivery, or regional routing.
🔒 This approach is simple, effective, and requires no advanced tools — perfect for students, network admins, and cybersecurity analysts!
Article by the Australian Journal of Wireless Technologies, Mobility and Security - ausjournal.com