143.228.0.0/16 and house.gov

Thu Oct 2 15:54:26 UTC 2008

On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 12:41:12AM -0400, Ernie Rubi wrote:
> Hi folks, just musing...
> 
> From an ops perspective, wonder just how much traffic caused:
> 
>  "This morning, our engineers sounded the alarms ... and we have  
> installed a digital version of a traffic cop. We enacted stopgaps that  
> we planned for last night. We had hoped we didn't have to."
> 	--Jeff Ventura, communications director for the House's chief  
> administrator. (from 
> http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/30/congress.website/index.html)
> 
> Don't .govs have enough b/w or at least ability to add b/w in order to  
> satisfy their 'public outreach/information' role? (not a rhetorical  
> question...hehe)

What makes you thing that .gov's "have" anything at all?  They have to
buy any bandwidth they have (other than strictly internal bandwidth)
from ISP's.  If the IT budget doesn't allow for it, the IT department
can't buy it.  If the projected need is much lower than this surge, then
they would not have budgeted for it.  The USGOV, contrary to some
folks' belief, does not own the Internet.

Some ISP's are able to quickly add bandwidth if the line is set up for
it, but I think the IT department would have had to have an existing
active relationship with the ISP to be able to know whom to ask.

-- 
Joe Yao
Qinetiq NA / Analex Contractor