Brian Horvitz sez:
I would think at the very least, this 4 hours could be over night rather
than the middle of the day.
"It's always September somewhere......"
While that is true, ARIN is the "AMERICAN Registry of Internet Numbers",
and should therefore attempt to minimize the inconvenience of the vast
majority of it's members. (Yes, I understand ARIN is responsible for
South America and Africa, probably also Antarctica; the vast majority of
ARIN members are within 4 time zones.)
I would love to be able to do major maintenence during the day, my paying
customers would be justifiably furious. As a member (paying customer) or
ARIN, this is unacceptable, and I hope someone operationally at ARIN gets
half a clue.
Jeremiah Kristal
Senior Network Engineer
ICon CMT Corporation
jeremiah@iconnet.net
201-319-5764
x284 internal
People in the Americas seem to be less important to the American Registry
for Internet Numbers than our counter parts in China.
jlw
Yes, but since ARIN is the American Registry (the AR in ARIN), you can
probably do a pretty good job at guessing when the majority of the users
of the service will not be awake.
I'd imagine afternoons in whatever timezone ARIN is in isn't likely to be
the best choice for off-peak downtime.
- Forrest W. Christian (forrestc@imach.com)
I suppose that network problems never happen in the People's Republic of
China? And the Chinese network operators never need to consult
whois.arin.net to find contact info for the idiot North American network
operator who's asleep at the wheel with directed broadcast turned on?
Of course not, we all know that the Internet ends at the edges of North
America, don't we?
Not at all, but we are the ones paying the bill for this service. If APNIC
goes down during "normal" hours for us, we would have less ability to
affect change than if the people /we are paying for service/ do.
That being said, the horse is dead, they aren't going down (woohoo!), but I
believe that there should still be a discussion about off site backup,
although that should probably occur on arin-members.
Justin W. Newton
Then you'd rather ARIN do maintainance in the middle of the afternoon EST?
I'd be surprised if the whois traffic at ARIN isn't almost entirely North
American users.
I suppose that network problems never happen in the People's Republic of
China? And the Chinese network operators never need to consult
whois.arin.net to find contact info for the idiot North American network
operator who's asleep at the wheel with directed broadcast turned on?
The point I was trying to make was that if you HAVE to take something down
at ARIN, daylight hours for the americas is probably NOT the best time to
do it:
One would think the various registries might make a deal to host "mirror"
sites for each other and then spread the word that if for instance,
rs.arin.net isn't working, you should try rs2.arin.net (which might reside
somewhere in Europe). People in Europe, might naturally just use
rs2.arin.net, knowing that its closer and faster for them.
Actually, for a database server (as opposed to a transport mechanism
which should NEVER have down time) the best time for changes is in
the middle of the work day. There is less chance of error due to
fatigue. There is no overtime requirement. There is usually a full
crew on hand to test and verify and, possibly, clean up in case of
less than full success.
JimC
<snip>>
The point I was trying to make was that if you HAVE to take something down
at ARIN, daylight hours for the americas is probably NOT the best time to
do it:
<snip>
Why even use a different name? Round robin works fine, and if all the
registries participate in a cross-mirroring program, then all would be
well, no? If you mirror correctly, it doesn't much matter _which_ host
you hit.
Cheers,
-- jra
All the questions can probably be answered by noting that ARIN is a
non-profit arm of NSI. You don't see InterNIC without the backups
(although at last report, even they weren't offsite) because they made $45
million dollars profit last year.
Make no money = spend no money.
Make obscene profits = spend as little money as humanly possible.
Mr. Spammer, meet Mr. Mallet...
Dean Robb
PC-Easy
On-site computer services
(757) 495-EASY [3279]
All the questions can probably be answered by noting that ARIN is a
non-profit arm of NSI.
I thought it was a joint venture between the NSA and Sears.
randy
Except that if packets don't need to cross the ocean, why send them that
way?
Wrong joint venture. The NSA-Sears one is an international secure network
with key recovery, to be implemented with Craftsman routers. All joints in
the venture will be dovetails.
and if all the
registries participate in a cross-mirroring program, then all would be
well, no? If you mirror correctly, it doesn't much matter _which_ host
you hit.
<CYNICISM>
Eh? You mean you won't have to know which registry to hit to look up an
address beforehand? Where would the fun be in that?
</CYNICISM>
The ARIN database and the RIPE/APNIC databases are incompatible (something
that was going to be fixed in the RIDE (registry information data exchange)
WG, but it seems to have run into a snag or something), thus mirroring
would be a bit more work than one might imagine.
Regards,
-drc
Now, c'mon, Jon; that's _way_ too obvious a reason. 
Tag them by continent; but mirror what's behind them _anyway_. Of
course, if DNS didn't see fit to _sort_ addresses, this would be a
problem, but (say it with me now:) that's a topic for another list.
Cheers,
-- jra
>and if all the
>registries participate in a cross-mirroring program, then all would be
>well, no? If you mirror correctly, it doesn't much matter _which_ host
>you hit.<CYNICISM>
Eh? You mean you won't have to know which registry to hit to look up an
address beforehand? Where would the fun be in that?
</CYNICISM>
The ARIN database and the RIPE/APNIC databases are incompatible (something
that was going to be fixed in the RIDE (registry information data exchange)
WG, but it seems to have run into a snag or something), thus mirroring
would be a bit more work than one might imagine.
Forgive me, I wasn't clear: if each registry, in addition to it's own
database lookup services, operates mirrors of the database lookup
services of the other registries: IE: I can't get to whois.arin.net, so
I go to ap.arin.net, which lives at the APNIC, on their network space.
Clearer?
Cheers,
-- jra
Hi,
if each registry, in addition to it's own
database lookup services, operates mirrors of the database lookup
services of the other registries
I don't think* APNIC (or RIPE for that matter) has much interest in paying
NSI to run the software used at ARIN, and I don't think ARIN has much
interest in running the RIPE database software (albeit its free) that RIPE
and APNIC use.
I understand what you are saying and yes, it'd be nice if the registries
mirror each other. Unfortunately, the technology to do so does not yet
exist [back! back! down! (fighting off another attack of cynicism)]. RIDE
-- it's not just a good idea, it's... umm, well, it's a good idea.
Regards,
-drc
(*) I'd be more definitive if I was still in charge of APNIC... (:-)).
it'd be nice if the registries mirror each other. Unfortunately, the
technology to do so does not yet exist [back! back! down! (fighting off
another attack of cynicism)]. RIDE -- it's not just a good idea,
it's... umm, well, it's a good idea.
it was a good idea. then it decided to be a wonderful expansive design
by committee, as opposed to sticking to the simple goal.
as we have never seen this kind of committee failure mode before, one can
understand why this mistake has been made. <dripping sarcasm>
rady