WorldComm Fiber Cut????
Richard A Steenbergen
ras at e-gerbil.net
Mon Jul 8 16:54:32 UTC 2002
On Mon, Jul 08, 2002 at 06:22:00AM -1000, Internet Guy wrote:
>
> If you go to the MFN homepage & click on the graphs listed below, then you
> might see that possibly the data being displayed is both inaccurate, as
> well as misleading.
If you mean inaccurate as in "not updated in years" or "missing 95% of
their circuits", than yes. If you mean inaccurate as in intentionally
fudged, than no.
Look at the bottom of http://west-boot.mfnx.net/traffic/
This article written by <noc at above.net> Fri Sep 3 17:07:26 PDT 1999
Copyright 1999 AboveNet Communications, Inc.
And it wasn't even accurate then. They've obviously updated SOME things
since then (the OC48/OC192s), but most of the circuits listed there have
been gone for years, or havn't been graphed in years.
> Go to SJC OC3 Los Angeles, to OC192 SJC3 to SJC4, to OC12 MaeW ATM, OC48 #
> 2 for IAD to NYR, IAD # 2 to PAIX VA OC48, DCA2 to DFW2 OC48, PAIX OC12 to
> Core1.sjc, NPA - DS3 to San Jose, LGA1 OC192#2 to IAD, LGA1 OC48 to
> Chicago, NYC Backbone OC192 to LGA2, NYC Backbone OC48 # 2 to core3.lga1,
> ETC...
>
> Each one of these graphs shows abnormalities in the flow of internet data,
> such as "pits", spikes, square wave function graphs, clipping on some
> waveforms, etc.
Thats just how the internet works. Traffic is busting constantly. There is
already a smoothing effect just because these are 5 minute samples. If you
were to look at instantaneous values, they would be significantly more
spikey.
In general there are two well-known MRTG display problems:
* When MRTG does not collect data, it displays a flatline for both in and
out based on the last rate it calculated. This can be potentially
misleading, and newer graphing systems like RRDTool simply leave the
area blank.
* Rateup breaks at > a signed 32 bit int of Bits/sec, 2^31Bps. If you
find some graphs doing > 2Gbps, you'll see the lines mysterious drop off
the graph completely.
As for some of the truely bizaare graphs you cite, such as:
http://west-boot.mfnx.net/traffic/sjc/sjc-lax-oc3.html
I can't explain how that managed to get polled, but you'll note that the
dates on all of those graphs are extremely old, such as June 15 2001. Lets
just chalk it up to the first category of "noone cares enough to update
those stupid MRTG's".
> It is not easy to see HOW BAD the problem is with these Sundry data
> collection systems, UNTIL you expand the MRTG graph. Once this is done,
> then you can really see how bad the integrity of the collected data really
> is. A small MRTG graph really masks the problems associated with the data
> which is being displayed. With a larger graph, you definately see the
> problems associated with todays Sundry systems.
This is easily one of the stupidest things I have read in a long time. If
you want to expand the graph, you must expand the frequency of data
collection. There is nothing sundry about it. Put the crack pipe down and
step away from the keyboard.
> One would also wonder, that if this data collection system is used by MFN
> to generate bills for customers of MFN who are charged by the Megabyte,
> what these customers bills look like & HOW accurate these bills really
> are...
The graphs on west-boot have absolutily no relation to customer billing.
They are barely updated by anyone, and only looked at by nosey people such
as myself. MFN has better things to do with their limited resources right
now, and if I was a customer I'd rather they take care of the important
things first.
--
Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-gerbil.net> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177 (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)
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