The Myth of Five 9's Reliability (fwd)

Wed Apr 24 20:58:47 UTC 2002

Art Houle wrote:

> 
> How to calculate uptime and get 5 9s
> 
> -do not include any outage less than 20 minutes.
> -only include down lines that are actually reported by customers.
> -when possible fix the line and report 'no trouble found'.
> -remember that your company is penalized by the FCC for bad ratings, so
> don't report any problems that you do not have to.
> 

You forgot my favorite :

Every trouble report from a customer must include at least 2 hours on 
hold before a ticket is opened.

Regards
Marshall Eubanks

> On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Pete Kruckenberg wrote:
> 
> 
>>>From the Canarie news mailing list.
>>
>>I don't think I've ever experienced five 9's on any telco
>>service, I have always assumed I must be the one customer
>>experiencing down-time, and the aggregate was somehow five
>>9's. How is network reliability calculated to end up with 
>>five 9's?
>>
>>Pete.
>>
>>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 10:08:18 -0400 (EDT)
>>From: CAnet-3-NEWS at canarie.ca
>>Subject: [news] The Myth of Five 9's Reliability
>>
>>For more information on this item please visit the CANARIE CA*net 3 Optical
>>Internet program web site at http://www.canet3.net/news/news.html
>>-------------------------------------------
>>
>>[A good article on the truth about five 9's reliability. Some excerpts -
>>BSA]
>>
>>http://www.bcr.com/forum
>>
>>Deep Six Five-Nines?
>>
>>For much of the 20th century, the U.S. enjoyed the best
>>network money could buy; hands-down, it was the most modern,
>>most ubiquitous and most reliable in the world. And one
>>term--five-nines--came to symbolize the network's
>>robustness, its high availability, its virtual
>>indestructibility. When the goal of five-nines was set, the
>>network was planned, designed and operated by a monopoly,
>>which was guaranteed a return on whatever it invested. It
>>was in the monopoly's interest to make the network as
>>platinum-plated as possible.
>>
>>One of the key points is that "five-nines" has long been
>>somewhat overrated. Five-nines is NOT an inherent capability
>>of circuit-switched, TDM networks. It's a manmade concept,
>>derived from a mathematical equation, which includes some
>>things and leaves out others.
>>
>>It's critical to remember that when you run the performance
>>numbers on ALL the items in a network--those that are
>>included in the five-nines equation and those that
>>aren't--you're probably going to wind up with a number less
>>than 99.999 percent. A well-run network actually delivers
>>something around 99.45 percent.
>>
>>The gap between the rhetoric of five-nines and actual
>>network performance leads to the conclusion that five-nines
>>may not be a realistic or even necessary goal.
>>
>>
> 
> Art Houle     				e-mail:  houle at acns.fsu.edu.
> Academic Computing & Network Services 	 Voice:  850-644-2591
> Florida State University		   FAX:  850-644-8722
> 
> 

-- 
                                  Regards
                                  Marshall Eubanks

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