Re: LDM: UIUC network outage (fwd)

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Robb Kambic                                Unidata Program Center
Software Engineer III                      Univ. Corp for Atmospheric Research
address@hidden             WWW: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1999 09:23:13 -0500 (CDT)
From: Gilbert Sebenste <address@hidden>
To: David Wojtowicz <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: LDM: UIUC network outage

On Tue, 3 Aug 1999, David Wojtowicz wrote a classic!!!

> We're currently experiencing severe network degredation here on
> campus....started just after 6Z.  This message may or may not make it out
> before the problem is fixed.  
>
> I put in a call to network operations, but there's nobody home at this
> hour...got transferred to a 3rd shift operator in the main computer room
> who said "Yep...it ain't working, is it....all our stuff is going up and
> down here"  He's called someone more important to figure out why. 

That's what we get here, but they do come out and fix it. Last night, our
phone servers died so we couldn't dial in, so I couldn't switch my LDM
feed to a backup site.
 
> [At least this is better than the time they told me that if I had only
> checked their "status" web page, I would have seen the message about the
> outage.... Oh, right, but how was I supposed to GET to the status web page
> while the network was out!]

Divine knowledge. You need a prayer to get through...
 
> Arggh.

Hey, that's my line!!! :-)

>  If its not one thing, its another....there's too many points of
> failure.  Remember the good old days when we had satellite downlinks
> from Alden.  We all complained about how unreliable it was, but sometimes
> in comparison it doesn't seem so bad....and realigning the dish it after
> the occassional wind storm or brushing out the snow now and then wasn't
> all that bad...at least you knew what had to be done to fix it.

Whoa...I dunno. After sweeping the dish off the roof of Davis Hall,
conveniently placed near the edge of the 6th floor roof, I finding any LDM
problem trivial and easy to fix. Furthermore, I find it MORE reliable than
satellite. Considering the 24 hour plus outages due to satellite failures,
interference caused by dishes being misaligned or Johnny cellphone, 
phooey. I'd never go back to satellite again if I could help it. I have
friends at two companies in Chicago, one that just does weather and one
that has a weather division. The gripes and headaches about their
satellite reception troubles caused by TI and rain fade would bring you to
tears.

> I'm heading home...hopefully LDM will continue on its own after the 
> network is restored.   It was just back up for a few minutes and I was 
> going to cancel this message, but now its out again.

Naturally, that flaked out my LDM too. I reset it and am now feeding off
of U-W Madison, which has the fastest gateway from me. All via a T3 link,
so downstream sites should now be getting data and fast.

Gilbert

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Gilbert Sebenste                                                     ********
Internet: address@hidden    (My opinions only!)                     ******
Staff Meteorologist, Northern Illinois University                      ****
Work phone: 815-753-5492                                                ***
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