IP: Price of copper must be good: [risks] Risks Digest 21.26

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2001 07:35:22 +0000
> From: Malcolm Pack <risks2 () potnoodle net>
> Subject: >Subject: SETI@Home felled by a Single Point of Failure
>
> After being unavailable for over 24 hours, the home page for the >After being unavailable for over 24 hours, the home 
> page for the SETI@Home
> project, <http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/>, has currently (1 March 2001)
> been set to redirect to a holding page at
> <http://www.net.berkeley.edu/setiathome/>.
>
> | Fiber cut silences >| Fiber cut silences SETI@Home
> |
> | At about 3:30 AM PST on 27 February an optical fiber cable connecting
> | the U.C. Berkeley campus with the Lawrence Berkeley National
> | Laboratory was cut, apparently by vandals trying to "salvage" copper
> | from other nearby cables.
> |
> | The broken fiber carries data and voice connections for LBNL and also
> | for the Space Sciences Lab. SSL is where the >| for the Space Sciences Lab. SSL is where the SETI@Home project is
> | located, so the millions of participants helping to analyze data have
> | been unable to contact the >| been unable to contact the SETI@Home servers for more than a day.
> |
> | Contractors are pulling new cable now. It's expected that service to
> | SSL will be restored by Friday, 2 March 2001. We'll update this page
> | as we learn more about the progress of the repairs.
>
> I infer either:
>
> o       Traffic to and from the >o       Traffic to and from the SET@Home servers is too great to be
>         permitted to use any backup connection that exists between the
>         two facilities.
>
> or
>
> o       LBNL and SSL are cut off from the 'Net altogether until this
>         SPF is repaired.
>
> The loss of processing time to the project is unimportant in terms of
> contribution to overall success or failure (I doubt ET will be too
> upset if we find him/her/it/them 4 days later than expected), but the
> drop-out rate may increase as people simply give up instead of
> checking the home page for an explanation for their lack of progress.
>
> Malcolm Pack



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