Re: outages, quality monitoring, trouble tickets, etc
OK. I am a small network service provider and I have two customers. One has service that is available 100% of the time. The other has service that due to various problems is available only 50% of the time (not sure why they stay with me, but I am happy to take their money). So what is the availability that I should report to potential new customers? 100% 50% or 75% Does it matter that the reason the one customer has only 50% availability is that the room where the router at that customer's site is underwater every other day due to no fault of my own? It is because of these sorts of questions that I never know what it means when someone says that their network is available 99.9% of the time. Hell at least part of MichNet is available 100% of the time, but that never seems to cut it with the folks who don't have service right now. -Jeff Ogden Merit/MichNet
available *to* whom? the customer themself? other customers of the same local provider? other customers of the same regional provider? of one of their local/regional peers? to my friend Serge in Odessa Ukraine? randy
service that due to various problems is available only 50% of the time. So what is the availability that I should report to potential new customers? 100% 50% or 75% Does it matter that the reason the one customer has only 50% availability is that the room where the router at that customer's site is underwater every other day due to no fault of my own?
It is because of these sorts of questions that I never know what it means when someone says that their network is available 99.9%
Problems with CPE is usually not figured into network uptime. Now, if it was *your* router at the customer prem, then it would be your responsibility that you allowed your equipment to, uh, become waterlogged. ;-) Dave -- Dave Siegel President, RTD Systems & Networking, Inc. (520)623-9663 Network Engineer -- Regional/National NSPs (Cisco) dsiegel@rtd.com User Tracking & Acctg -- "Written by an ISP, http://www.rtd.com/~dsiegel/ for an ISP."
On Mon, 27 Nov 1995, Dave Siegel wrote:
Now, if it was *your* router at the customer prem, then it would be your responsibility that you allowed your equipment to, uh, become waterlogged. ;-)
I don't know. One of the most frequent problem I see is power outages at the sites. I don't think any ISP can be responsible for things like that. How about tornado nocking out much of a building including your CPE? How should such things be counted? <this did actually happen, btw> -dorian ______________________________________________________________________________ Dorian Kim Email: dorian@cic.net 2901 Hubbard Drive Network Engineer Phone: (313)998-6976 Ann Arbor MI 48105 CICNet Network Systems Fax: (313)998-6105 http://www.cic.net/~dorian
Now, if it was *your* router at the customer prem, then it would be your responsibility that you allowed your equipment to, uh, become waterlogged. ;-)
I don't know. One of the most frequent problem I see is power outages at the sites. I don't think any ISP can be responsible for things like that.
Fixable. UPS + AC/DC Power generators.
How about tornado nocking out much of a building including your CPE? How should such things be counted?
Um, you ought to know better than to put your damn equipment in a building that's going to get destroyed by a tornado, I guess. ;-) Seriously, though. "Acts of God" as they are called are typically not counted either. When it comes right down to it, if the customer no longer has a premise, then they are probably less worried about their equipment being up and operational. Technically, it only matters if you define your network as extending up to, and perhaps beyond CPE, or if it is just before CPE, or even futher, if it ends right at the Bell Demark at your POP. Since RTD purchases all the circuits for clients, our network (read, area of responsibility) includes everything up to the CPE, but not CPE itself. If there are circuit's down to individual clients as a result of Bell, we don't count it as downtime, even though it is logged and pursued as any other outage. As for connectivity to the rest of the 'net, it's *really* subjective. We sort of consider 50%+ of estimated Internet connectivity "up," even though we probably shouldn't. Internet connectivity uptime can be increased simply by adding more links to NSP's, so you can't just throw responsibility for that entirely onto your provider.
<this did actually happen, btw>
Why do I believe that? hehe. Dave -- Dave Siegel President, RTD Systems & Networking, Inc. (520)623-9663 Network Engineer -- Regional/National NSPs (Cisco) dsiegel@rtd.com User Tracking & Acctg -- "Written by an ISP, http://www.rtd.com/~dsiegel/ for an ISP."
On Mon, 27 Nov 1995, Dave Siegel wrote:
Seriously, though. "Acts of God" as they are called are typically not counted either. When it comes right down to it, if the customer no longer has a premise, then they are probably less worried about their equipment being up and operational. Technically, it only matters if you define your network as extending up to, and perhaps beyond CPE, or if it is just before CPE, or even futher, if it ends right at the Bell Demark at your POP.
I think there is a big difference between Customer Premise Equipment, which the ISP(if that's theirs) is responsible, and the customer Premise, which the ISP is not, and should not be responsible for.
Since RTD purchases all the circuits for clients, our network (read, area of responsibility) includes everything up to the CPE, but not CPE itself. If there are circuit's down to individual clients as a result of Bell, we don't count it as downtime, even though it is logged and pursued as any other outage.
While telco faults are not the faults of the ISP, doesn't it nonetheless mean that the customer doesn't have connectivity? I guess this depends on whether you try to arrive at some sort of a metric from provider's or customer's perspective.
Why do I believe that? hehe.
Oh, I've seen everything from floods to tornados. High schools seem to be particularly vulnerable to such things, not to mention things like kids tripping over power cords and such. :) -dorian ______________________________________________________________________________ Dorian Kim Email: dorian@cic.net 2901 Hubbard Drive Network Engineer Phone: (313)998-6976 Ann Arbor MI 48105 CICNet Network Systems Fax: (313)998-6105 http://www.cic.net/~dorian
I don't know. One of the most frequent problem I see is power outages at the sites. I don't think any ISP can be responsible for things like that.
Let's assume that you measure "availability" as being to ping the customer site router from some site off your network. Some ISPs install a UPS on the router at the customer site, some don't. That decision effects price and reliability and "availability" (especially when the customer has a UPS on his own equipment). Or let's look at lightning strikes. Some ISP's say "that's an act of God, we can't be responsible". Others put in surge supressors, have hot swap backups, etc. and they keep running. Some ISPs say "that's the fault of my upstream provider, we can't be responsible". Others tell their upstream provider to do a better job or they switch providers. Much of it sounds like a cop out to me. Ultimately, (with enough money) there are few reliability factors in this business that are truly out of anyone's control. It's just very convenient to say that there are.
participants (5)
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Dave Siegel -
Dorian Kim -
Jeff.Ogden＠um.cc.umich.edu -
jon＠branch.com -
randy＠psg.com