BBN (GTE) Suffers another major power problem.

Fri Aug 8 14:15:35 UTC 1997

On Fri, 8 Aug 1997, Christopher Masto wrote:

> The question is, what gets power?  Assuming you're the size of BBN, it
> becomes.. er.. "physically impractical" to power everything with a
> generator.  I know when I was at RPI, though they had a room full of
> batteries (3-5 minutes of power), and a huge generator, it was only
> enough to power the telephone system and mainframe.  In fact, it
> couldn't handle the water cooler for the mainframe.  But the point is,
> even though (I hope) BBN isn't using a power-hungry mainframe, enough
> routers, switches, NOC workstations, etc. will eventually add up to
> more kilowatts than you can supply yourself.  A decision has to be
> made as to what stays on and what doesn't.

I do not agree at all, the question is what do you want to PAY to keep up.
When we started we just provided generator feed just of our gear. After we
lost power for +12 hours and our AIR units were off we learned that
everything must be on generator. They make LARGE generators, we have a
750KVA in Atlanta, and are installing a 1000KVA in Chicago. It can be
done, just not cheep.

Nathan Stratton                             President, CTO, NetRail,Inc.
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