Internet operations during pandemics

Thu Mar 19 16:51:12 UTC 2020

On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 6:23 PM Christopher Morrow
<morrowc.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Did other folk on nanog-l see the nLnog-l note copied here?
> I wonder how folk are planning for things (noted in the slides)
>   o  supply chain for parts/equipment
>      Wait, I can't get me a new shiny shipped because what??
>
>   o ongoing rollout of new equipment
>      I'm deploying next week in KIX, I'm currently in LAX how do I get
> there? equipment arrives.. in between...oops!
>
>   o noc/etc support staff
>     omg.. wait, I can't have my noc staff in the same room? our 'wfh'
> solution is ... wait, where is that?
>     how do i get their phone queue sent to them? omg :( <sadness!>
>
>   o services capacity crunches
>     I love my shiny new dns service.. .wait, why is there a smoking
> hole where my dns servers were?
>
> I think some of this has been discussed (shifts in peaks, leveling of peaks)
> Some hasn't really...  I expect that at least sharing some 'err, our
> WFH changed now we do: X, Y , Z and use M to get N solved'
> could be super cool to discuss/share and iterate for better solutions
> for all of our users.
>
> thoughts? :)

replying to myself, for one example of impact with some numbers:
  https://www.pornhub.com/insights/corona-virus

note that basically across the board there is a 20% uplift in serving
traffic mid-day.
I imagine that netflix/hulu/etc all have similar sorts of changes,
that translates downstream to some extent as well, depending upon how
well / where the cache for this data is, I expect.

It occurred to me in another conversation that a bunch of the
'internet business' has worked for the last 10+ years to push
'content' as close to the user as possible. This likely relieves
long-haul or interconnect links at the (not really fixable) cost of
increased capacity demands on the last-mile links.
During this time, however, 'work from home' technology hasn't really
progressed along the same path, has it? So, "get to the vpn" is still
largely a process of getting packets across the wide internet and to
small locations (your enterprise), there's little relief in site for
that model :(

> thanks!
> -chris
> (note all the hard work in this message is not mine... thanks Job!)
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Job Snijders <job at ntt.net>
> Date: Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 6:02 PM
> Subject: Internet operations during pandemics
> To: <nlnog at nlnog.net>
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> I threw together a slidedeck today on the potential impact and second
> order effects of COVID-19 on Internet network operations.
>
>     http://instituut.net/~job/netops_during_pandemics.pdf
>
> I hope we together over time can add and extend projections in the deck
> on what will happen and how we can mitigate the negative effects on
> Internet operations.
>
> We have to answer questions such as:
>
>     1) what problems already exist today because of a few weeks of C19?
>     2) What problems are still coming? Will those be localized or globally?
>     3) What possible workarounds can we plan for those problems?
>
> I would appreciate feedback, comments, corrections or whatever you want
> to tell me. None of us have been in this situation before, so my guess
> is as good as yours.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Job