Re: Katrina: directNIC Stays Online - Blog + Images

[Chris Gilbert <Chris () LainOS org>]

Michael.Dillon () btradianz com wrote:

> We know from the Mississippi river floods from a few 
> years ago, that diesel generators are not sufficient 
> in a major flood. The problem is that the diesel gets
> burned up before the roads are opened to resupply the
> fuel. It is too early to tell whether these guys can
> survive a major disaster. 
>
> There is also the problem of water borne diseases,
> mosquitoes, and shift changes. The problems in
> New Orleans are just beginning.
>
> --Michael Dillon
>
>  

I agree with your point on that we don't know if they will last the
entire length of the ordeal.

I was mostly pointing that they have survived the initial "brunt" of the
ordeal, which IMHO is a pretty amazing accomplishment considering that
POTS/Power/Cell have all gone down (or at least gone to hell) over there.

As far as the fuel situation goes...

[snip]
/5:04 pm/ One of our employee's uncle has some kind of huge boat and he
donated his diesel reserves to our cause. We're set for the time being
as far as that goes.
[/snip]

Not very specific, but I suppose in the case of a flood this kind of thing would be immensely useful.

It's not very applicable to the kind of disaster Marshall brought up, but in the case of a flood, moving diesel into 
the facility via boat seems to be a viable option. (For the time being)

My main concern at this point is getting these guys food/water reliably. They can have all the diesel fuel in the 
world, but if they don't have supplies to live off of then it isn't going to make any difference.

To me, this is a major area of interest as there seems to be a large amount of service convergence going on. People are 
moving from POTS onto VoIP, more and more formerly isolated long-distance networks are being moved onto the Internet, 
etc.

What kind of operating protocols are being established for critical network infrastructure points? Suppose a major 
earthquake was to hit San Jose and take out fiber. How would that effect Arizona or Washington... what about Japan?

Granted there are a lot of things that go into this. In a disaster situation, it's important to make sure that your 
machines and network continue operating, but what about provisioning to make sure you can keep NOC staff there?

But that brings the question, just _how_important_ is the Internet and other networks? Should we go for far out of the 
way as to build NORAD style datacenters to protect our infrastructure... or are we willing to deal with a certain 
amount of network failure if the cost of mitigating it is over X amount?

Just some food for thought.

--
Regards,
Chris Gilbert