August 1999 - Test - lists.nanog.org

Re: What frame relay switch is causing MCI/Worldcom such grief?
by Vadim Antonov 10 Aug '99

10 Aug '99

The traffic-engineering reason for L2 "routing" is only valid for complex-topology networks. In simple topologies, the penalty for suboptimal paths effectively cancels gains from spreading traffic around. Physical fiber plants do have rather simple topologies (the rich topologies are usually "optical illusions" created by SONET layer). >From a customer's point of view performance of the network is _not_ measured as available bandwidth; but rather as performance of his TCP streams; which depends heavily on latencies and loss. Increasing latency while there's a lossy component in the path (which is increasingly found not in backbone but at ingress tail circuits, and outside of the ISP control) downgrades performance apporximately inversely proportionally to the latency. In other words: excluding grossly overloaded circuits, you want the path with least latency! This is because your performance is limited by the tail-circuit (or exchange point) loss _and_ the backbone latency. MPLS does nothing to help avoid these lossy places (avoiding IXP loss would require propagation of interior routing information into peer backbones). Additionally, suboptimal paths as a rule involve more hops, which increase latency variance proportionally. Now, no matter how one jumps, most congestions only last seconds. Expecting any traffic engineering mechanism to take care of these is unrealistic. A useful time scale for traffic engineering is therefore at least days - which can be perfectly accomodated by capacity planning in fixed topology. At these time scales traffic matrices do not change rapidly. In fact, as long as there are more than three backbones, one can safely assume that most traffic goes from customers (proportionally to size of their pipes) to the nearest exchange point; and from exchange points randomly to all customers (again proportionally to their access pipe sizes). Backbones which neglect the capacity planning because they can "reroute" traffic at L2 level simply cheat their customers. If they _do not_ neglect capacity planning, they do not particularly need the L2 traffic engineering facilities. Anyway, the simplest solution (having enough capacity, and physical topology matching L3 topology) appears to be the sanest way to build a stable and manageable network. Raw capacity is getting cheap fast; engineers aren't. And there is no magic recipe for writing complex _and_ reliable software. The simpler it is, the better it works. --vadim

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At the risk of being on-topic...
by Deepak Jain 10 Aug '99

10 Aug '99

...and the risk of on-topic having changed since the last time I checked. I heard that Ames has quietly implemented a gigabit ethernet switch that is interconnected to the Mae-West fabric. Has anyone starting using it/any details to share? Rumor also has it that Ames requested a 5th OC-3 to connected to the Worldcomm side of Mae-West which was turned down by Worldcomm management. Deepak Jain AiNET

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MCI/Worldcom customer advisory
by Sean Donelan 10 Aug '99

10 Aug '99

Although I said I wouldn't post any more updates about the MCI/Worldcom frame-relay problems, since I said MCI/Worldcom wasn't keeping its customers updated, I should inform you that we received our first 'customer advisory' from MCI/Worldcom at 1:57am CDT this morning. MCI/Worldcom informed us they are 'upgrading' their network, and some customers may see a few service interruptions or congestion. Because MCI/Worldcom's PR department seems determined to declare me a crank posting rumors on the Internet, perhaps other MCI/Worldcom customers carry more weight. http://www.cbot.com/news_views/trading.html I called it a "collapse," MCI/Worldcom's President of operations called it a "meltdown." I think either word communicates the seriousness of the situation better than MCI/Worldcom's PR department calling it an "upgrade." Those that have read my postings over the years know I'm less upset about the actual outage, than I'm angry about the management response to the problem. The entire weekend we couldn't reach anyone with more authority at MCI/Worldcom than the call-taker or first-level tech. The upper management simply vanished. BTW, I think Alan is just worried because Frontier bid on replacing MCI/Worldcom as our frame-relay provider, and he might get me as a customer again. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation

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Re: OUTAGE: MCI/Worldcom frame-relay network
by Alan Hannan 10 Aug '99

10 Aug '99

> I'm confused by your message. Which is more questionable: The MarketWatch > story which was clearly inaccurate -- it didn't even mention impact to the > industry they report on (i.e., CBOT) -- or the messages Sean posted? From > all appearances Sean's messages were timely, highly accurate, and very > informative. This is more than can be said of the news media coverage. > This is the second time I have witnessed you complaining about outage > information being posted and discussed in this forum. Why is information > sharing bad? I don't believe that information sharing is bad. I think it is good. I do not believe NANOG is appropriate for real time operational issues. That's all. -alan PS - sean's messages were not 'highly accurate' as they maintained that WCOM was not reporting on the problems, while they were.

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Register.com (sucks)
by Ehud Gavron 10 Aug '99

10 Aug '99

Operational: New registry fails to be a registry. More of a 'user site registry'. It's been five days and I can't seem to get a human at register.com with a clue. I made a mistake and registered a domain with them instead of netsol. Here's how the nightmare unfolds. 1. They created records (MX and SOA) which cannot be removed via their graphical interface. 2. Despite providing a primary and secondary server, when I changed the primary server it did NOT ever zone xfr the new zone. Customer service says: "Can't mix offsite primaries and secondaries." Right. 3. Customer service won't respond to email. Have to use web form!!! 4. Domain validations require an email to be sent (so far so good) with a URL which is 86+ characters long which must be cut and pasted and used to verify authentication. (You get the feeling I'm on on 80- character terminal window here? Two cut and pastes...) 5. They take 24+ hours to respond to any query. So far... I've done more "changes" and "updates" and "emails" than I've ever had to do... all for one domain name. Anyone have a human contact over there with a clue? Ehud

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Acceptable Use, WAS: Re: OUTAGE: MCI/Worldcom frame-relay network (fwd)
by David Lesher 10 Aug '99

10 Aug '99

Unnamed Administration sources reported that Forrest W. Christian said: > > > Is there ANY topic which is ok to discuss on the nanog list? sex, religion & politics have not been mentioned yet..... -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz(a)nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

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Re: OUTAGE: MCI/Worldcom frame-relay network
by Sean Donelan 10 Aug '99

10 Aug '99

SEAN(a)dra.COM (Sean Donelan) writes: >I'm trying to post no more than once in 12 hours. Its been another twelve hours. Although I don't like all the red on our network map, it is showing how resiliant IP protocols are. My core network uses several different facility providers and technologies, and for those customers who have more than one connection: IP works. How else could I send this e-mail? However, for customers with only one connection, they don't really care how many other connections are working. They only care about their one connection. MCI/Worldcom claims 75% up their frame-relay network is 'up.' This is down from their previous claim on Friday that 90% of the frame-relay network was 'up.' We still see a number of PVCs throughout the US and Canada either completely down, or dropping so many frames as to be unusable. I received similar reports from other MCI/Worldcom frame-relay users throughout the US and even as far away as Germany. To try to figure out what is going on MCI/Worldcom imposed a 'quiet time' on their network, telling their engineers to stop touching things. This helped somewhat. Portions of the network stabilized on its own, but there is still massive congestion. The quiet time is over. Now MCI/Worldcom is trying to reduce the congestion by disconnecting parts of the frame-relay network. Remember this is Sunday, normally a low-traffic day. Monday is underway in Europe, and will be hitting the East Coast of the USA soon. Traffic levels are going to increase on the network, assuming any traffic can get through at all. MCI/Worldcom's web site continues its long silence about this outage. I've got to hand it to MCI/Worldcom; its engineers may have trouble keeping a frame-relay network going, but its PR department has done a great job keeping a lid on the story. Even MCI/Worldcom customers can't find out what is happening. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation

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Re: OUTAGE: MCI/Worldcom frame-relay network
by Sean Donelan 09 Aug '99

09 Aug '99

wb8foz(a)nrk.COM (David Lesher) writes: >Where exactly is this mention on the UUnet page? > >I have yet to find it.... It is normally on http://www.noc.uu.net/ However there seems to be some time-related procedure (cron ?) which clears off 'old' information after a few hours. Since it happened at exactly 12:00, 18:00, I'm assuming some automated procedure. UUNET usually adds the comment back to the page later. Depending on exactly when you look, it may not have been there. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation

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Re: OUTAGE: MCI/Worldcom frame-relay network
by David Lesher 09 Aug '99

09 Aug '99

Where exactly is this mention on the UUnet page? I have yet to find it.... -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz(a)nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

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Frame relay outage
by Tatsuya Kawasaki 09 Aug '99

09 Aug '99

I understand since last Thursday, there is frame rely major? outage in WorldCom. Does anyhone have input on this ??? Tatsuya /_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Tatsuya Kawasaki KIVEX.com Unlock the Power of the Internet URL:www.KIVEX.com Phone 301.215.6777 Fax 301.215.5991 /_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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