ATTN: Bell South of Telcove
Sent on behalf of the guys over at InterNIC. They probably have better things to do, but it's the least I can do to help. [snip] If anyone who works for or has connections with Bell South or Telcove is reading this, tell us what it's going to take to get those OC3s back up and running. We will try to coordinate and make it happen. [/snip] Apparently they are down to one upstream provider. (as predicted they would loose them earlier on the list) Also: [snip] Huge convoy of fuel and generator engineer types affiliated with Bell South just moved down the street toward their building. That's where 2 of our OC3s that went down are at Bell's main. [/snip] Best of luck to everyone. -- Regards, Chris Gilbert
Re: Katrina: directNIC Stays Online - Blog + Images
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >We know from the Mississippi river floods from a few >years ago, that diesel generators are not sufficient >in a major flood. The problem is that the diesel gets >burned up before the roads are opened to resupply the >fuel. It is too early to tell whether these guys can >survive a major disaster. > >There is also the problem of water borne diseases, >mosquitoes, and shift changes. The problems in >New Orleans are just beginning. > >--Michael Dillon > > > I agree with your point on that we don't know if they will last the entire length of the ordeal. I was mostly pointing that they have survived the initial "brunt" of the ordeal, which IMHO is a pretty amazing accomplishment considering that POTS/Power/Cell have all gone down (or at least gone to hell) over there. As far as the fuel situation goes... [snip] /5:04 pm/ One of our employee's uncle has some kind of huge boat and he donated his diesel reserves to our cause. We're set for the time being as far as that goes. [/snip] Not very specific, but I suppose in the case of a flood this kind of thing would be immensely useful. It's not very applicable to the kind of disaster Marshall brought up, but in the case of a flood, moving diesel into the facility via boat seems to be a viable option. (For the time being) My main concern at this point is getting these guys food/water reliably. They can have all the diesel fuel in the world, but if they don't have supplies to live off of then it isn't going to make any difference. To me, this is a major area of interest as there seems to be a large amount of service convergence going on. People are moving from POTS onto VoIP, more and more formerly isolated long-distance networks are being moved onto the Internet, etc. What kind of operating protocols are being established for critical network infrastructure points? Suppose a major earthquake was to hit San Jose and take out fiber. How would that effect Arizona or Washington... what about Japan? Granted there are a lot of things that go into this. In a disaster situation, it's important to make sure that your machines and network continue operating, but what about provisioning to make sure you can keep NOC staff there? But that brings the question, just _how_important_ is the Internet and other networks? Should we go for far out of the way as to build NORAD style datacenters to protect our infrastructure... or are we willing to deal with a certain amount of network failure if the cost of mitigating it is over X amount? Just some food for thought. -- Regards, Chris Gilbert
Katrina: directNIC Stays Online - Blog + Images
For those that don't know, directNIC as well as some other NOCs are located together in a high-rise in New Orleans. Despite everyone's warnings (including my own!) some tough-as-nails guys from directNIC stayed behind to battle the hurricane and keep the networks online. [snip] While the safety of our staff is paramount and most were safely evacuated, a small group of key personnel stayed behind to safeguard our data center and make sure that all of our services remained online and stable. During this time, while we spent a great deal of effort battling broken windows, incoming water, and flying debris, our hosting and registration services remained online and worked flawlessly. [/snip] Link: http://www.directnic.com/katrina.php (Pictures too!) It also mentions the power shortage, and that they are using diesel generated power. I remember a week or two ago people were talking about building redundant datacenters, off-grid power, failure mitigation, etc. I think if nothing else, this is at least a success story of building a NOC which can provide critical infrastructure that will survive major disasters. -- Regards, Chris Gilbert
TIA-942 Datacenter Standardization
[snip] The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) -- the people who brought you the CAT standards for unshielded twisted pair cabling -- recently undertook a vast challenge to publish a definitive document encompassing best practices and design considerations for every single aspect of the modern data center. The standard, entitled Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers, TIA-942, weighs in at 148 pages, and covers everything from site selection to rack mounting methods. [/snip] Link: http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid80_gci1120625,00.html Also: http://www.tiaonline.org/media/press_releases/index.cfm?parelease=05-46 I seem to remember some folks asking questions about such a thing here in the past... so I hope this isn't a duplicate of an old thread. In any case, has anyone here looked over the documents and/or have any comments on them? It seems to me (however I have not yet read it) that something such as this could be quite useful to IT students and others who don't have the field experience. -- Regards Chris Gilbert
Re: Katrina could inundate New Orleans
On Monday 29 August 2005 06:21, Dave Stewart wrote: > Granted, it'll be interesting to see how things shake out - but I just > can't buy that getting the Internet working should/will be a really high > priority. Well being as for most intents and purposes, internet access is dependant on power and telco... I think it will certainly be secondary. Even if the infrastructure is lit up and working, it isn't going to do residents or local businesses one bit of good unless they can access it. (And that requires power and a way to connect to it) And in all honesty, I think the focus there will be on whatever helps the locals the most, as opposed to getting someone's colo box back online. (As well it should be IMHO) However, what kind of impact could this have for people peering through this region? Anyone familiar enough with the network topology related to this region to chime in on this? I think it would be good for the operations community to have some heads up if we should expect some routing issues elsewere as a result. It could save people from trying to chase down false leads if/when things start to go awry. And finally, if you are reading this from inside said area... get the hell out of there! -- Regards, Chris Gilbert
Re: Cisco crapaganda
Given the term "Crapaganda" I couldn't help but share this when I ran across it today: http://www.cisco.com/edu/peterpacket Enjoy :) Also, > Of course, in the end, Juniper is also vulnerable. ... Now I > believe that Open Source software techniques can solve this root > problem because many eyes can find more bugs. This doesn't just > mean *BSD and Linux. There are also systems like OSKit > http://www.cs.utah.edu/flux/oskit/ and RTAI http://www.rtai.org/ > that are more appropriate for building things like routers. But in some ways, aren't those Open Source software techniques also assisting Juniper, as JunOS is based in no small part on FreeBSD? Perhaps their hybrid of Open-Source adoption and proprietary development will take the benefits from both worlds and prove an effective method for maintaining a high level of software security. Also, what about DoD Orange Book certification? Can this kind of testing methodology be applied to routing systems as well, such as IOS? In recent years Microsoft has been releasing code for internal security audits to special customers such as large corporate partners and government. I wonder if infrastructure customers should, or could be getting similar treatment from Cisco in regards to IOS, for them to better protect their customers. (Government would apply here too.) -- Regards, Chris Gilbert IO Interactive A/S
