[74231] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Tornados in Ashburn (Equinix affected)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Donelan)
Sat Sep 18 21:09:13 2004
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 21:08:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com>
To: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <87mzznsli1.fsf@valhalla.seastrom.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
On Sat, 18 Sep 2004, Robert E.Seastrom wrote:
> The reason that I bring this up is that I believe a report which
> is posted two hours after the event and glosses over potentially
> serious operational anomalies by stating that everything is cool (in
> the present tense) does not serve anyone's best interests. I
> understand and accept the two hour delay from the start of the
> incident, but I expect scrupulous honesty in after-action assessments,
> not a marketing-driven assertion that everything is Just Fine.
I have no inside information, I haven't worked for Equinix in over three
year.
Regardless of the company, these things are always written by the
marketing/legal departments in the end. In a sole proprietorship, one
person may do it all. You have to learn how to read the reports. The
fact they sent out a report is a good indication there were problems.
The fact they mentioned cooling is a good indication there were cooling
problems. The fact they didn't mention other things (i.e. no earthquakes,
no tsunami, no volcano) is a good indication those other things weren't
an issue. Its just how marketing/legal departments think.
Despite marketing departments, engineers know there will be failures.
A N+1 design means two faults will result in an interruption. A N+2
design means three faults wil result in an interruption. And so on.
I agree its frustrating when companies won't tell their paying customers
what's happening. I'm not sure its always dishonesty, a lot of the time
the company doesn't know what's happening either. Most companies are
honest in their reporting, as far as what they say. But there is a lot
of "spin."
