nanog mailing list archives

Re: How relable does the Internet need to be? (Was: Re: Converged Network Threat)


From: Michael.Dillon () radianz com
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 11:48:17 +0000


I think the Internet is doing pretty well save some IOS code problems 
from time to time, and the typical root server hicups.

I'm interested to know what you mean by "typical root server hicups". 
I'm trying to think of an incident which left the Internet generally 
unable to receive answers to queries on the root zone, but I can't 
think of one.

There have been several incidents in which some root servers
have hiccuped, sometimes being down for several days. But since
the service they provide has N+12 resiliency, the service itself
has never been unavailable. 

Similarly, the Internet has always had N+1 or better vendor resiliency 
so IOS can have problems while the non-IOS vendor (or vendors) keep on
running. In fact, I would argue that N+1 vendor resiliency is a good 
thing for you to implement in your network and N+2 vendor resiliency is 
a good thing for the Internet as a whole. Let's hope that vendor P manages 

to get some critical mass in the market along with J and C.

--Michael Dillon


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