August 2003 - NANOG - lists.nanog.org

Natural Gas Generator manufacturer opinions? (might be off topic? )
by Drew Weaver 18 Aug '03

18 Aug '03

Hi, we're looking to purchase our 3rd natural gas generator and need some opinions about the different manufacturers, off-list is fine if you like. Thanks, -Drew

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Re: East Coast outage?
by Michael.Dillon＠radianz.com 18 Aug '03

18 Aug '03

>Perhaps the lesson to learn is that very large networks don't always >lead to very high stability. A much larger number of smaller, more >autonomous generation and transmission facilities might have much more >reasonable interconnection requirements, and hence less wide-ranging >failure modes. And if we extrapolate that lesson to IP networks it implies that any medium to large sized organization should do their own BGP peering and multihome to 3 or more upstream network providers. On the other hand, if you understand why electrical networks shed load and develop their cascading failures, you might see some parallels between "load" and the propagation of BGP announcements which are worrying. Perhaps we should start working on a hierarchical routing system in which the concept of a "global routing table" cannot develop. Perhaps announcements and withdraws should have a TTL so that they never propogate very far from their source AS? --Michael Dillon

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NYC 9-1-1 problems due to generator/Cable modems affect police
by Sean Donelan 17 Aug '03

17 Aug '03

City to Investigate 911 Outages During Blackout By LUKAS I. ALPERT Associated Press Writer August 17, 2003, 3:37 PM EDT Problems with the system's telephone service provider caused disruptions of up to 14 minutes. "We've got to make sure that doesn't happen again," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday. [...] The disruptions were caused by the failure of a backup diesel generator at the Verizon Communications office that supplies power to the city's 911 headquarters in downtown Brooklyn, company spokesman John Bonomo said. [...] On Sunday, nine police precincts were still experiencing problems connecting to the department's main computer system, stemming from disruptions with their cable modem connections.

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RE: Did Sean Gorman's maps show the cascading vulnerability in Ohio?
by McBurnett, Jim 17 Aug '03

17 Aug '03

-So, the US Government wants to classify Sean Gorman's student project. -The question is did Mr. Gorman's maps divulge the vulnerability in the -East Coast power grid that resulted in the blackouts this week? -Would it be better to know about these vulnerabilities, and do something -about them; or is it better to keep them secret until they fail in a -catastrophic way? This is a question whose answer I am willing to bet will remain classified should his research be classified. J

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Availability of Natural Gas during Blackout
by Randy Neals (ORION) 17 Aug '03

17 Aug '03

Some weeks back there was a dicussion on the merits of naural gas versus diesel generators. It is my observation that Natural Gas continued to be available throught this recent blackout. In speaking to a friend who works for the gas company he informed me that the compressor stations on the main pipelines are driven by gas turbines, thus they don't require electrical power to operate. All telemetering/control equipment on the distribution network is either passive, or equipped with natural gas generators to ensure it operates. Did others notice if there was a gas interuption in your area during the blackout ? (A lot of people here were cooking on their Nat. gas bbque here) This was an exceptionally long blackout, did people have trouble getting diesel fuel replenished? Fuel trucks where no doubt having difficulty with traffic congestion due to traffic lights not working. Regards, Randy

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Microsoft to ship new versions with firewall enabled
by Sean Donelan 17 Aug '03

17 Aug '03

John Markoff reports in the New York Times that Microsoft plans to change how it ships Windows XP due to the worm. In the future Microsoft will ship both business and consumer verisons of Windows XP with the included firewall enabled by default.

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RE: East Coast outage?
by McBurnett, Jim 17 Aug '03

17 Aug '03

--Huh ? Where in the physics of ohms law is Hz a factor ? Having lived off --the grid, where systems are often at max 48v, yes the wires have to be --several 0's of gage to carry the lagre amperages. Much the same in A/B DC legs in --a colo. Up the volts and the amps go down to produce the same power (watts --or work). HMM, it's been a LONG time but I remember high amp, low voltage The formula makes it a swap out. Raise the voltage drop the current, or lower the voltage and raise the current if the resistance stays constant. --I am a little rusty on this one, but I seem to remember that AC travels --only on the outside skin of the wire but DC uses all the wire. This is called the skin effect, and from my RF days we did not consider it to be an issue until you get to close the KHz range. In high voltage transmission lines it may get a little higher than 60 Hz, but I don't think by much. I have many UPS that track HZ and I have seen it coming in from 59.8 to 60.2. The skin effect was a really big deal in the L band systems where I used to work. 1.2 GHz to 1.6 GHz. And in the S Band we had to use pressurized dehumidified transmission Waveguide due to freq and power levels (2 Megawatts). We did AC/DC conversion and worked with 400 Hz power for those systems, and we were not concerned with skin effect at all. But we were concerned with RF induction into the power systems supply lines that could dirty up the power input and create problems for the ac/dc conversion for the discrete electronics. anyway-it's been awhile... J

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RE: MPLS ICMP Extensions
by Mike Bernico 17 Aug '03

17 Aug '03

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought that the extended MPLS info only showed up when the trace was started on a PE or P router. Is that right? If customers or others outside the MPLS domain can see that info I'd definitely agree with you. Mike -----Original Message----- From: Leo Bicknell [mailto:bicknell@ufp.org] Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 12:40 PM To: nanog(a)merit.edu Subject: MPLS ICMP Extensions I wanted to get some other opinions on some new features that have appeared in recent code from the popular vendors. It appears there is a new draft, a copy of which can be found at http://www.watersprings.org/links/mlr/id/draft-ietf-mpls-icmp-01.txt that allows MPLS enabled boxes to return some additonal information in a traceroute packet. That's all well and good, and I can see how that might be amazingly useful to someone running an MPLS network, however, it seems to expose data much further than the local network. Here's a random example from a traceroute I recently performed (on a Juniper): traceroute wcg.net [snip] 11 hrndva1wcx3-oc48.wcg.net (64.200.95.117) 91.935 ms 102.652 ms 92.960 ms MPLS Label=13198 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1 12 hrndva1wcx2-oc48.wcg.net (64.200.95.77) 92.593 ms 92.785 ms 93.119 ms MPLS Label=12676 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1 13 nycmny2wcx2-oc48.wcg.net (64.200.240.45) 93.273 ms 93.121 ms 93.067 ms MPLS Label=12632 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1 14 nycmny2wcx3-oc48.wcg.net (64.200.87.78) 104.755 ms 91.949 ms 92.169 ms MPLS Label=12672 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1 15 chcgil1wcx3-oc48.wcg.net (64.200.240.37) 92.021 ms 91.737 ms 91.684 ms MPLS Label=12592 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1 16 chcgil1wcx3-pos5-0.wcg.net (64.200.210.114) 175.907 ms 278.144 ms 203.763 ms MPLS Label=12695 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1 17 chcgil1wcx2-oc48.wcg.net (64.200.103.73) 93.286 ms 93.230 ms 93.593 ms MPLS Label=13506 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1 18 stlsmo3wcf1-atm.wcg.net (64.200.210.158) 92.780 ms 92.344 ms 92.596 ms It appears both Cisco and Juniper support this new feature. The question I quickly asked both vendors is how do you turn this behavior off, so the traceroutes appear as they did before this feature was introduced. The answer, apparently, is you don't. You can either disable TTL processing on your MPLS tunnels (in effect disabling traceroute), or you can have it output all this extra information. The response I'm getting so far from each vendor is they believe this are the right two options to offer. Thus, my post here. I think there are more people out there who would like to not expose their MPLS labels, Class of Service info, or anything else this feature can provide (because, I don't know all of what it can display), but still allow traceroute to work normally. If I'm off in the deep end, please tell me so, if not, please tell your vendor rep you'd like the "icmp no mpls info" knob. -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell(a)ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ Read TMBG List - tmbg-list-request(a)tmbg.org, www.tmbg.org

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Re: But few companies say that they are as fully prepared as Equinix
by ren 16 Aug '03

16 Aug '03

As an Equinix-Newark customer I can say the periodic informational update efforts were appreciated as well. Mission critical services never noticed the blip in their facilities. -ren At 03:43 PM 8/16/2003 -0400, Sean Donelan wrote: >AT&T reported 97 out of 100 generators worked in their network. MCI had >one generator fail due to a burned out part. Two carrier hotels had >problems with backup generators. > >For backup generators that is an excellent performance. The Department >of Energy study found typically fewer backup generators have a successful >start during a blackout. Even with perfect planning, maintenance and >testing; its often a roll of dice which generators will start. > > >New York Times August 16 2003 >Good Day for Concerns That Help Save Data >By JOHN SCHWARTZ > >http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/16/technology/16BACK.html > >Companies that have made serious investments in disaster preparation said >that they came through the day without a bump. > >"I'm happy to say we executed flawlessly yesterday," said Margie Backaus, >the chief business officer for Equinix, which maintains data centers and >helps large Internet networks exchange data traffic. The company's major >computing centers in Newark and Secaucus, N.J., each receive power from >two substations to ensure a steady flow of electricity. But when the >regional grid failed, both Equinix centers went to battery power and then >to diesel generators automatically, and the packets of data continued >their passage across the Internet unhindered, she said. "Everything fell >into place."

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But few companies say that they are as fully prepared as Equinix
by Sean Donelan 16 Aug '03

16 Aug '03

AT&T reported 97 out of 100 generators worked in their network. MCI had one generator fail due to a burned out part. Two carrier hotels had problems with backup generators. For backup generators that is an excellent performance. The Department of Energy study found typically fewer backup generators have a successful start during a blackout. Even with perfect planning, maintenance and testing; its often a roll of dice which generators will start. New York Times August 16 2003 Good Day for Concerns That Help Save Data By JOHN SCHWARTZ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/16/technology/16BACK.html Companies that have made serious investments in disaster preparation said that they came through the day without a bump. "I'm happy to say we executed flawlessly yesterday," said Margie Backaus, the chief business officer for Equinix, which maintains data centers and helps large Internet networks exchange data traffic. The company's major computing centers in Newark and Secaucus, N.J., each receive power from two substations to ensure a steady flow of electricity. But when the regional grid failed, both Equinix centers went to battery power and then to diesel generators automatically, and the packets of data continued their passage across the Internet unhindered, she said. "Everything fell into place."

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