I agree with Stonie. The routing networking topology for the NWS needs to
geographically dispersed and other redundant IT measures, such as, having
the routers from different vendors to prevent identical firmware failures
etc.
-Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: ldm-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ldm-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Stonie R. Cooper
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2017 4:38 PM
To: ldm-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ldm-users] NWS official statement on the data outage of
2/13/2017
I generally keep my comments off of this list, but the official statement is
not accurate. As you know, Gilbert, WRIP (NOAA Weather
Radio) was only partially up and that was WFO dependent - if an WFO fired up
their CRS, they could manually record hourly forecasts and observations.
Likewise, checking the tombstones via local forecast on weather.gov resulted
in "N/A" for most zip codes I tried during the outage.
From an IT side, I would say this particular event should help illustrate
the foolhardy paradigm of "putting all your eggs in one basket." HPC, NCEP,
EMC . . . all were hit with this outage. NWWS, EMWIN, and SBN were all
down. A primary and secondary router paradigm in the same physical location
may save lots of money, but is an incredible liability for data
distribution.
I have always advocated that a live secondary should be placed
geographically distant from the primary uplink and NCF . . . and KC has
legacy and national networking infrastructure already in place to make it a
likely candidate. Or Boulder, at ESRL.
Not that my comments will merit any action, but if pointing out what seems
obvious to me gains traction, that would be great. I would even start
filling out my TPS cover sheets for all my memos, and coming in on over the
weekend to work. ("Office Space" reference)
Stonie
On 02/14/2017 03:17 PM, Gilbert Sebenste wrote:
> Here it is:
>
>
>
> NWS Statement on Cause of Outage on Feb. 13 Feb. 14, 2017
>
> The National Weather Service experienced a failure of its AWIPS
> Network Control Facility communications network at 2:08 p.m. EST Feb
> 13. The outage, lasting two hours, 36 minutes, prevented us from
> fully distributing forecasts and warnings. During the outage, the
> public was able to access forecasts, watches and warnings by NOAA
> Weather Radio and the social media accounts of their local forecast
office.
>
> Technicians quickly determined the cause of the problem was the
> simultaneous failure of two core communications routers - primary and
> backup - for the control facility due to a power problem. The routers
> were replaced and the system was restored to full service. We are
> still investigating what caused the power outage.
>
> The AWIPS communications system is a very reliable configuration and
> this is the first time both routers failed simultaneously.
>
> We are implementing additional communication pathways to the backup
> Network Control Facility to ensure that problems encountered in
> switching operations to this backup facility will not recur.
>
> ---
>
>
>
> *Gilbert Sebenste*
>
> Staff Meteorologist
>
>
>
> Environmental Health and Safety
>
> Labs for Wellness 154 | DeKalb, Illinois 60115
>
> 815-753-5492
>
> _gilbert@xxxxxxx <mailto:gilbert@xxxxxxx>_
>
> http://weather.admin.niu.edu <http://weather.admin.niu.edu/>
>
> Everyone. Home. Safely.
>
>
>
> NIU
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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