[Zsd-news] Repercussions from New York

[iforbes@zsd.co.za]

Hello Users

I am sure everybody is aware of the tragic events in New York and 
Washington earlier this week.

However you may not realize that a some of the largest "nodes" on 
the Internet are located in New York, specifically in Lower 
Manhattan.  This has effected links between the USA and South 
Africa as well as the USA and London and other parts of the world.

In particular one computer room, through which most of "SAIX" and 
hence ZSD's international traffic is normally routed, suffered a 
power cut after the events on Tuesday.  That facility has a diesel 
backup unit, but the diesel supply ran out last night.  Power has 
still not been restored and there is no access to the area to deliver
diesel for the generators.

The major effect of this is that "DNS" services, which translate 
internet names into internet numbers have been badly effected. 
DNS queries are referred back to "root" servers.  There are 13 of 
these world wide but none are in South Africa.  As a result of the 
problems our DNS queries are not reaching these servers.  This 
means that other services, like e-mail, are also experiencing 
problems.

The Internet was originally designed by American Universities, with 
defence department funding, as a network that could survive a 
nuclear attack.  If parts of the network are lost communications in 
other parts can continue.  This is what has happened since 
Tuesday.  Routers are programmed to automatically find alternative 
routes and administrators are making arrangements for traffic to be 
diverted.  As each route comes up or go down, it takes time for 
other routers to learn the new routes and there are intermittent 
problems.

We are actively working on these problems, as are our upstream 
providers. I am confident that the DNS service will improve in the 
next few hours but the capacity is not what it was last week.

I APPEAL TO ALL USERS TO AVOID NON-ESSENTIAL USE OF 
THE INTERNET.  PLEASE REFRAIN FROM MAKING BIG 
DOWNLOADS AND FROM E-MAILING GRAPHIC AND VIDEO 
ATTACHMENTS TO YOUR FRIENDS.

Please remember that some people need the internet to get news 
from friends, family and associates in the USA and many 
businesses rely on the it to keep our economy going.

Hopefully things in New York will improve soon, but the crisis is far 
from over.  Nobody knows how the USA will react to the attack and 
we may have a war situation in other parts of the world soon.  That 
may also effect the internet so this appeal may be relevant for 
some weeks to come.  


Ian Forbes

General Manager
ZSD