MCI and SprintLink are partitioned (fwd)

Wed Oct 4 15:35:14 UTC 1995

Wow, weird. Something I am wondering for quite some time already. My
understanding is that the NSFNET infrastructural replacement for a
finite amount of time and degrading support percentage is principally
giving support to the (former) NSFNET mid-level/regional networks to
obtain services for interconnection via some NSP on the competitive
market. Secondly, the NSP chosen by the regional network has to
interconnect to at least the three primary NAPs, with the principal
reason to not partition the overall fabric. Thirdly some RA function to
help with waving a wand over the art of routing. As a client of a
client of a regional network that receives interconnection funding I
have really no way to determine how the second criteria is being met,
and the attached message suggests that it may not be. Can someone from
the North American Network Operators Group (I think NANOG is the best
place for this) please help finding some answers to:

 . are all three (four?) NAPs really being used (I know they are
   there, but despite repeated requests to at least one NAP service
   provider I appear to be unable to get an answer). I do know that the
   NY NAP is heavily used, including as my traffic to the Bay area
   sites I need access to traverses it (modulo all the losses in
   Sprintlink for at least weeks (reported to and confirmed by the
   regional network that serves SDSC, though from rumors I am hearing
   Sprintlink is rather not the exception, and many natives in the
   community starting to get restless]

 . Is there any evidence that the NAPs are really backing each other
   up? Did someone test and document it, e.g., with a few "test" networks
   in a bunch of regional networks? What are the time delays for a
   switch? Does someone have consecutive traceroute outputs where a
   switch among the NAPs really happened?

 . do we have some regular examples from *any* site A initiating a
   connection from A to B, A to C, and A to D, where the three are
   verifiably (via traceroute, I guess) would traverse different NAPs
   (and hopefully only one each)?

 . Are there routing stability reports accessible online from the RA
   (or whoever else feels responsible for this) that graph fluctuations
   at the NAPs, including correlation among them? What are the quality
   metrics for routing stability?

 . Do all the NAPs provide online statistics?

 . Are the NAP and RA regular reports to NSF publicly (hopefully via
   the Web) available?

 . Is there any way NANOG can be used to exchange status information
   about networks, rather than getting comments and rumors second or
   third hand. I understand that it is painful for a service provider to
   see problems on their network being posted, but if the alternative is
   a few bad incidents and rumors spreading that the network is always
   bad, I'd take a few hits and show I fix things quickly. Even better
   then posting (e.g, via some mailing list) would be an accessible
   distributed data base covering all the service pproviders and
   accessible via the network. Is someone already working on that?
   Would not NANOG be *the* forum to cooperate on that?

I think this is prime NANOG business. Otherwise, who's problem are
these? Who is or should be taking responsibility? Am I all off base
here?

>Anyone willing to say what happened?
>
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>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>To: cook at cookreport.com
>Subject: MCI and SprintLink are partitioned (fwd)
>
>Forwarded message:
>>From spot.Colorado.EDU!westnet-site-people-request Tue Oct  3 20:48:25 1995
>From: Chris Garner <cgarner at westnet.net>
>Message-Id: <199510040136.TAA06094 at dozer.colorado.edu>
>Subject: MCI and SprintLink are partitioned
>To: westnet-site-people at westnet.net
>Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 19:36:50 -0600 (MDT)
>X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21]
>Content-Type: text
>Content-Length: 289       
>
>
>	MCI and SprintLink are disconnected at the moment.  MCI is
>having a BGP problem with SprintLink.  Currently the two networks 
>are partitioned.  The problem started just after 7pm (Mountain time)
>and is still occuring.
>
>
>-- 
>
>                                -Chris (cgarner at westnet.net)
>
>
>
>