The BBN Cambridge POP is "down and out" after a nearby manhole fire cut
power to the building housing the POP.-Where is the generator backup?
It's my understanding that BBN had emergency generator backup, but that it was
insufficient to cover this outage. I'm pretty sure I saw that in one of
their ticket emails last night, although it's not in the official ticket
history.
eric
I can't speak for BBN planet, but the power was out in Cambridge for a 2
hours.
Anybody that can survive 2 hours running huge amounts of equipment must
have their own power grid. 
Our little UPSes didn't survive...
-Matthew
The BBN Cambridge POP is "down and out" after a nearby manhole fire cut
power to the building housing the POP.-Where is the generator backup?
It's my understanding that BBN had emergency generator backup, but that it
was
insufficient to cover this outage. I'm pretty sure I saw that in one of
their ticket emails last night, although it's not in the official ticket
history.eric
Matthew White
Network Administrator
Channel 1 Communications
617.864.0100
Um, actually, it was out longer than that. The power was out from 1730
until roughly 2245, which was when the last of the Cambridge area outside of
MIT got power back. MIT got power back at around ~2345
......living in the People's Republic of Cambridge......
.....Matthew
Well you don't want to design your power system so that your UPS will keep
you through the outage. When you get to 250 KVA systems like we use for
our POPs it is hard to get more then 30 min of uptime. All you want your
UPS to do is keep you up until the generator gets you up to speed.
Nathan Stratton President, CTO, NetRail,Inc.
Our solution to this was pretty simple: A gasoline generator and some
heavy-duty cable 
No idea how that would scale (probably poorly), but at
least it enabled us to get core services back online.
Try that with 480 volts 3 phase where you need 4 500 MCM cables for each
phase. The nice thing is you can walk in the generator in winter to stay
warm.
Nathan Stratton President, CTO, NetRail,Inc.
Any major player in any telecom market that doesn't have at _least_
4hours of battery plant is not worth its salt.
-48VDC setups that are COMMON among carriers should be an absolute
necessity for any large ISP/NSP as well.
BBN not sizing their generator right was another huge mistake. You
have to wonder who is asleep at the switch over there.
Jonah
So BBN couldn't last 5:15minutes?? What were you using for power
backup? Some lousy AC UPS systems with 55minute runtime?
Jonah
Incorrect. Stop using AC equipment in your pops. Use DC equipment and
get a _good_ DC Powerplant. Every carrier Class4/5 switchroom usually
has 10-20,0000 AMP/hours of standby power. 1 DSC or Nortel switch
sucks _quite_ a bit more power than even the largest of superpops.
Every carrier has _at least_ 4hours of battery plant (most have 8-12).
Relying on generators is a _bad_ idea.
Its not hard to have 4-12hours of standby battery plant.
Lucent/Lorain/Peco2 all make rather nice rectifiers, and
C&D/Lucent/GDB all make some nice vented batteries. By going DC you
also don't get hit with the inefficiencies of AC --> DC --> AC --> DC.
You can bet that MCI/Sprint don't have a piece of AC equipment in
their facilities and most likely are laughing their asses off right
now.
Jonah
Incorrect. Stop using AC equipment in your pops. Use DC equipment and
get a _good_ DC Powerplant. Every carrier Class4/5 switchroom usually
has 10-20,0000 AMP/hours of standby power. 1 DSC or Nortel switch
sucks _quite_ a bit more power than even the largest of superpops.
Every carrier has _at least_ 4hours of battery plant (most have 8-12).
Relying on generators is a _bad_ idea.
Ok, let me clarify. We have DC gear, most of our POPs also have vary large
AC UPS systems because we also have 100 - 200 colo racks. Most (around 90%
of our colo customers want AC, so we need a large AC as well as DC system.
Its not hard to have 4-12hours of standby battery plant.
Lucent/Lorain/Peco2 all make rather nice rectifiers, and
C&D/Lucent/GDB all make some nice vented batteries. By going DC you
also don't get hit with the inefficiencies of AC --> DC --> AC --> DC.You can bet that MCI/Sprint don't have a piece of AC equipment in
their facilities and most likely are laughing their asses off right
now.
True.
Nathan Stratton President, CTO, NetRail,Inc.
Well, being a "telco", I can honestly say that DC is the way to go. Much
more reliable power, less headache to buildout and easier to plan for
expansion.
Most "providers" want AC power in their bays because anyone can plug in an
adapter.. so in essence anyone can rack and stack equipment. DC power
actually takes a bit of knowledge about electricity.. so you don't fry
your equipment or even better yet get 2nd degree burns on your hands when
you don't ground yourself or your racks properly.
Eric