On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 04:33:30PM -0500, Jay Ashworth wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Valdis Kletnieks" <valdis.kletni...@vt.edu> > > > > Why the hostility, Valdis? > > > > As I said several times - it's not hard to be 98% or 99% sure you can make > > all your commitments. However, since predicting the future is an inexact > > science, > > it's really hard to provide a *100% guarantee* that you'll have enough > > contended capacity to make all the performance targets even if every > > single occasional customer shows up at once. As Jay pointed out in his > > follow-up note, his backup strategy is "scramble around and hope another > > provider can > > come through in time", which is OK if you *know* that's your strategy > > and are OK on it. However, blindly going along with "my usual provider > > guaranteed 100% availability" is a bad idea. > > I don't think Kelly is on his first rodeo, and I know I'm not. > > "scramble around" is a bit pejorative as descriptions for my booking > strategy go, but everyone has a cranky day every so often, not least me. > > :-) > > And note that I *also* pointed out that carrier statmuxing on the > transport is a valid strategy for capacity elasticity, in that particular > environment. > > > Remember, we're coming out of a solar minimum. ;) > > Are we in fact coming out of it yet? I heard it was getting deeper, > and that we were looking at a Dalton, if not another Maunder.
I'll have to find the paper I read yesterday that said we should expect to wait a long time before we see sunspot counts back where they should be. ... Try this: <http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/09/say-goodbye-to-sunspots.html> -- Mike Andrews, W5EGO mi...@mikea.ath.cx Tired old sysadmin