"Marc-Adrian Napoli" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> I'm the network admin here at CIA.
>
> > > > CIA (Connect Infobahn) and so I've heard, a few others, have been down for
> > > > the last fews days as something went terribly wrong at the Optus exchange in
> > > > the city. I can't give you any more technical details though...
>
> Optus are doing work on their telehoused facility where we host some of our
> servers. One of their techs tripped a power circuit, our servers continued
> to run under UPS until they ran out of power and we were left in the dark.
so no backup generator then obviously?
> > > > Sounds like Optus are going to be in big trouble...
>
> That's correct. We are taking legal action as we have an uptime guarantee to
> our users, which we presented to optus before placing our servers in their
> facilities.
that's well and good but it appears to me that you (meaning CIA
management not you personally) haven't thought that through
properly. What if CIA goes out of business cos none of your
customers can connect before you get any compo out of Optus?
> > > well if what you say is correct then it's CIA's fault for them
> > > being completely off the air. Don't they have any redundancy?
>
> What, a whole set of extra servers in a different location in case something
> which we were promised wouldn't happen happened? A spare 5300 sitting around
> for when Optus decide to break their contract?
so you (CIA) belived optus when they said it can't happen?
I amazed...
> I don't think so.
so it was just a power failure?
not a network connectivity problem?
so everything fails cos of lack of power?
surely a generator would have been obvious?
Extra servers in a different location is probably too expensive
for redundancy but an alternative means of connecting to a single
separate server either in a different location or done in a way
that's independent of the rest would seem to be a fairly cheap and
obvious backup method.
> > > I could understand reduced performance but nothing at all is
> > > unacceptable. This is the problem with "standardising" on
> > > something (anything! and why diversity is good), if it fails,
> > > you're completely stuffed, and although Optus shouldn't completely
> > > fail like that customers of theirs like ISPs (who rely totally on
> > > telecomms infrastructure) who don't have backup arrangements
> > > deserve what they get.
>
> We take every precaution we responsibily can to make sure we have something
> to fall back on:
>
> Daily tape backup, clustered servers, 24/7 monitoring service with pagers,
> UPS, SCSI RAID drives, multiple upstream BGP providers, et al.
>
> Sometimes things happen that are out of our control.
power failure isn't one that's out of your (ie. CIA) control!
If you're telehousing more than just your web site, ie. your
mail server, dialin access lines, the whole lot, then it's
obvious you need extra guarantees over someone who just has
their web site hosted. If you don't then you're completely
at Optus' mercy, ie. putting your businesses balls in their
hands and hoping they're careful with them!
Anyway, gone a bit off topic for slug, I'm just amazed that
anyone would run their business in that way.
Dave.
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