Vulnerbilities of Interconnection

Fri Sep 6 14:44:36 UTC 2002

You also have the problem of cascading failures.  Just because there 
are redundant paths and alternate peering locations does not mean 
those facilites have the bandwidth to handle all the redirected 
traffic.  If A gets swamped you go to B if the redrected traffic is to 
much for B then you go to C and so on - each time the amount of 
traffic increases and the avialble bandwidth decreases.  According to 
the analysis I've seen and run on the the Baltimore incident this is 
the jest of how a few cut lines rippled across the Internet.  I would 
think Alex's scenario would have a bigger impact than that incident.

sean

----- Original Message -----
From: alex at yuriev.com
Date: Friday, September 6, 2002 10:29 am
Subject: Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection

> 
> > > 
> > > Lets bring this discussion to a some common ground -
> > > 
> > > What kind of implact on the global internet would we see 
> should we observe
> > > nearly simultaneous detonation of 500 kilogramms of high 
> explosives at N of the
> > > major known interconnect facilities?
> > 
> > N? Well, if you define N as the number of interconnect 
> facilities, such
> > as all the Equinix sites 
> 
> Lets say that N is 4 and they are all in the US, for the sake of the
> discussion.
> 
> > (and I'm not banging on Equinix, it's just
> > where we started all this) then I think globally, it wouldn't 
> make that
> > much difference. People in Tokyo would still be able to reach 
> the globe
> > and both coasts of the US.
> 
> This presumes that the networks peer with the same AS numbers 
> everywhere in
> the world, which I dont think they do.
> 
> The other thing to think about is that the physical transport will be
> affected as well. Wavelenth customers will lose their paths. Circuit
> customers that rely on some equipment located at the affected 
> sites, losing
> their circuits. 
> 
> Alex
> 
> 
> 