[AG-TECH] Urgent: Probable Network Outage at ANL 3/23 @7PM -> 3/24 @ 5AM PST

[Nestor J. Zaluzec]

Colleagues....

ANL is part of ESNet and this outage  described below 
will affect many if not all of ANL's links to the outside world. 


Below is part of the message describing the problem if your
interested. 

Nestor

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From: "James F. Leighton" <jfl at es.net>
Subject: URGENT: Major Qwest/ESnet outage
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This message is to give you the earliest notice possible of a planned total 
outage of the Qwest 550 ATM backbone, upon which ESnet rides.  The outage 
is planned to start at 7PM PST, tomorrow, 23 Mar, and conclude within 10 
hours.  IT WILL TAKE DOWN ESSENTIALLY ALL OF ESNET DURING THAT TIME!!

The driving event is an error in the Lucent ATM switches that Qwest is 
using to supply services to ESnet.  This "bug" causes an event called a 
cascading re-route, whereby all of the PVCs (virtual connections) in the 
ATM backbone are re-routed caused massive changes in latency and packet 
loss.  We have been hit with this event several times, the most recent was 
twice this last week-end.  The scheduled downtime is to be used to reload 
all of the high-end 550 Lucent ATM switches with new code.  The procedure 
advised by Lucent is to take all the switches off-line during this reload, 
estimated to take 10 hours.

Clearly we (ESnet) are very unhappy about this and have pushed for a less 
ugly solution or at least more notice - i.e. delay the outage.  Qwest 
claims they have no options and must move forward - they have deployed 
people on airplanes, coordinated schedules, shipped parts, notified other 
customers, etc.


I was just notified about this late yesterday afternoon and had hoped to 
push for a better solution, but was unable to do so in this morning's 
conference call.  So I am sending this notice based on what I know at the 
moment.

I anticipate this may have serious implications for some sites, so would 
ask the ESnet Site Coordinators to forward this information as quickly as 
possible to allow people to undertake whatever advance preparations they can.

Needless to say I am extremely unhappy about this situation, but at this 
point I think our choice is a scheduled (with very short notice) outage, or 
face the likelihood of an unscheduled outage with no advance notice, and 
without the resources available that this event will have.

As soon as we are able to do further planning, I will keep you up-to-date 
with and additional pertinent information.

JFL

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Dr. Nestor J. Zaluzec
Materials Science Division
Building 212
Argonne National Lab
9700 S. Cass Ave
Argonne, Illinois 60439 USA
Tel: 630-252-7901,  Fax: 630-252-4798
Email: Zaluzec at aaem.amc.anl.gov 
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TPMLab: http://tpm.amc.anl.gov
MMSite: http://www.amc.anl.gov
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The box said ...
"This program requires Win 95/98/NT or better..."  
So I bought a G3 Mac !

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