COVID-19 vs. our Networks

Tue Mar 17 10:37:46 UTC 2020

On 17/03/2020 09:17, Mark Tinka wrote:
>
>
> On 16/Mar/20 16:40, Mike Bolitho wrote:
>
>> I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding of what I'm trying to say 
>> here. We have dual private lines from two Tier I providers. These 
>> interconnect all major hospitals and our data centers. We also have a 
>> third metro connection that connects things regionally. We have DIA 
>> on top of that. I think people are vastly underestimating just how 
>> much $aaS there is within the medical field. TeleDoc, translation 
>> services, remote radiologists, the way prescriptions get filled, how 
>> staffing works, third party providers basically hoteling within our 
>> facilities, critical staff VPNed in because the government has locked 
>> things down, etc. Then there's things that we don't use but I'm sure 
>> other providers do, GoToMeeting, O365, VaaS, etc.There's no practical 
>> way to engineer your WAN to facilitate dozens of connections to these 
>> services.
>>
>> This extends beyond just hospitals as well. Fire departments, police 
>> departments, water treatment etc. Regardless of whether or not those 
>> entities planned well(I think we did), the government should and will 
>> step in if critical services are degraded. And for what it's worth, 
>> Stephen, I know how things are built within the ISP world. I spent 
>> four years there. That doesn't change the fact that we're possibly 
>> heading into uncharted waters when it comes to utilization and the 
>> impactthat will have on $aaS products that are interwoven into every 
>> single vertical, including entities that fall under TSP, critical 
>> national security and emergency preparedness functions, including 
>> those areas related to safety, maintenance of law and order, and 
>> public health.It's easy for all you guys to sit here and armchair 
>> quarterback other people's planning but when things really start to 
>> degrade, all bets are off.If you don't believe that, just look at the 
>> news. States are literally shutting down private businesses 
>> (restaurants, bars, night clubs, private schools) and banning people 
>> from associating in groups of larger than 50.
>
> The Internet has infiltrated every industry, every business, and every 
> business model.
>
> While it's a great way to connect a lot of people and things at scale 
> for the lowest cost possible, there are some industries that still 
> require a certain caliber of reliability that the public Internet may 
> not be best suited to provide.
>
> In your case, I am not sure I have an answer for you, unfortunately. 
> The public Internet is what it is, mostly best-effort. Your 
> applications and use-cases certainly deserve better than that. I'm not 
> sure how to achieve that as your industry shoves more and more 
> activity into the public Internet domain, for one reason or another.
>
> Mark.

In theory best-effort Internet is seen as only part of a broader 
Internet model including open peering and so on. The idea for open 
Internet is it offers a form of digital herd immunity (to coin a current 
phrase being misused by UK Government circles in recent days)  that 
offers a level of shared redundancy of spare capacity so that issues can 
be taken out of route until fixed but the edge still maintains high 
quality connectivity.  In one sense the Internet model provides an 
informal community insurance across the provider / access sector. 
Although of course the legacy telco regulated protected infrastructure 
has remained a nub of resistance to open anything.

Some short term financial optimisations between networks may turn out to 
be counter productive across time and "events". Which begs a question 
whether the winner takes all model that has emerged can live with a 
plural supply chain of network infrastructures.

I suspect the concentration over recent years has created greater 
fragility for all of us judging comments in this thread and elsewhere. 
Can we survive covid 19 and maintain selfish networks over open ones?

C

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