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DC DSL
There's a reason I'm Command.
Premium Member
join:2000-07-30
Washington, DC
Actiontec GT784WN

DC DSL to HELLFIRE

Premium Member

to HELLFIRE

Re: How did Hurricane Sandy disrupt your week so far?

said by HELLFIRE:

Personal take away from this so far? Don't buy circuit / datacenter space in NY or NJ

There is no place on Earth that is not at risk for some peril that can ruin your day. The more critical your data center requirements, the more critical it is that you have geographically diverse backup sites that are nowhere near each other. Any major enterprise should have hot, or at least warm, standby centers ready to pick up within not more than a few hours if something knocks out the primary.

Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA

Wily_One

Premium Member

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said by DC DSL:

The more critical your data center requirements, the more critical it is that you have geographically diverse backup sites that are nowhere near each other.

Doesn't help if your European customers can't reach your US-based but still geographically diverse services. Not a lot you can do if the links from Europe to North America all basically go through the New York City area.

DC DSL
There's a reason I'm Command.
Premium Member
join:2000-07-30
Washington, DC
Actiontec GT784WN

DC DSL

Premium Member

said by Wily_One:

said by DC DSL:

The more critical your data center requirements, the more critical it is that you have geographically diverse backup sites that are nowhere near each other.

Doesn't help if your European customers can't reach your US-based but still geographically diverse services. Not a lot you can do if the links from Europe to North America all basically go through the New York City area.

Um, you're forgetting one of the basic tenets of the Internet's design: Survivability. Transit times will suck but traffic can be rerouted. If your DC has no power, is flooded, or outright destroyed, it doesn't matter how close it is to your customers or a backbone.

Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA

Wily_One

Premium Member

Did I say we lost connection to customers over the Internet? In this case the "customers" I'm referring to are internal users and systems in Europe, which cross dedicated WAN links connecting our LANs. Thanks to Sandy, they lost both the primary and the backup link for a brief period of time.

But please, keep pontificating.

DC DSL
There's a reason I'm Command.
Premium Member
join:2000-07-30
Washington, DC
Actiontec GT784WN

DC DSL

Premium Member

said by Wily_One:

Did I say we lost connection to customers over the Internet? In this case the "customers" I'm referring to are internal users and systems in Europe, which cross dedicated WAN links connecting our LANs. Thanks to Sandy, they lost both the primary and the backup link for a brief period of time.

But please, keep pontificating.

It doesn't matter what protocol you are using. Your diagram is of transoceanic Internet cables, so you implied that your connections are TCP/IP whether they are open to the general public or only those with engraved invitations. Even in 1970s, when I started in the industry and we used point-to-point connections, the underlying transports could take secondary routes if the primary was out. Heck, even the ancient long distance and overseas voice services could choose alternate intermediate routes to reach a destination.

No matter what the topology, if everything could go kaboom because of NY, that is a deficient design for something considered "critical." There should be at least a secondary data center somewhere other than the NY area. And your routing should be able to reach it or the primary by going over EMEAP routes.

If you want to take my calling this fundamental design flaw as pontificating, so be it.

Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA

Wily_One

Premium Member

I'm not going to divulge my company's internal architecture, but we don't have Data Centers anywhere near NY. I said the links between the U.S. and Europe go through there, as the graphic showed. Of course we have a backup circuit via a different provider, but it went down too. Yes once they got alerted they rerouted it and the loss of connectivity lasted a little over 1 hour.

Maybe it's my imagination, but you come across as lecturing me. It's not my design. It's simply a fact most of the undersea cables to Europe run through the NY area.