re: Synopsis of Internet Y2K "event" handling by the ISPs during the "rollover weekend," as posted by Consultant Sean Donelan on the NANOG List
When he refers to the decline in the number of "networks" he's referring to the individual networks (SPs, organizations, .edus, .govs, etc.) shutting down their servers and routes prior to, and during, the 'event.' Also, the "hotlines" he's referring to are the same class that GC and others had offered in the uplinked message to this post (reply #797).
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As a side note and personal set of observations, I was discussing the after effects of the Y2K hoops that many have jumped through for the past two plus years with one of this country's largest (top 2) banks, recently. And with some on our own staff who have been involved full time in this endeavor, as well.
The consensus invariably has been: As a result of the exercises that all have gone through in this regard, the nation's public and private networks have never had as much integrity from both a documentation standpoint and a perch of preparedness to extend into the future as they are now. Stated more simply, these networks have never been in as good a shape in all respects, as they are now. And not a moment too soon, as the entire networking world is going through its most radical changes, and at the highest rate of acceleration, in history, with no let-up in sight.
As someone put it, it was like a crash course and the simultaneous execution of the principles of excellence. From all of my own personal observations (at least in those client situations that I am familiar with), I'd have to agree.
Now, let's see what happens tomorrow, and a month from now during the tail end of the current billing cycle, when we really start to stress some of those back-office systems.
Enjoy, Frank Coluccio
======from the North American Network Operator Group (NANOG), verbatim:
"This was the final summary post for the NANOG ISP Y2K mailing list.
Special thanks to Merit for allowing the ad-hoc group of Internet
Service Providers to share the name for the NANOG ISP Y2K event.
This post is a couple of hours early, because I want to go to sleep.
NANOG ISP Y2K Summary Status
2-JAN-2000 12:30 UTC
Y2K Summary
"Although the "hotlines" got a lot of press, much of the information
came via e-mail. It was difficult to dial into the international
conference bridges near midnight in various countries due to
congestion on the international voice circuits.
"The Internet is a dynamic place. All numbers may vary depending
on where you are on the Internet. But the trends should be the
same.
"The Internet global routing table showed a slow decline in
networks from 71,200 on December 25, 1999 to 70,911 on
December 30, 1999. On December 31, 1999 the networks steadily
declined to 69,812 by 1 hour before Midnight EST. During
this hour the routing table quickly dropped to 67,795 routes,
and held steady from Midnight until 5am EST. After 5am EST
January 1, 2000 the number of networks started increasing
steadily to 70,455 on January 2, 2000.
"The number of unique ASNs in the global route table declined
from 6,380 on December 30, 1999 to 6,330 at January 1, 2000
Midnight EST. The number of terminating ASNs showed a similar
decline from 5,180 to 5,130. Which leads to the conclusion
transit networks did not disconnect during the rollover.
"Peak traffic levels across MAE-East were lower on Friday December 31,
about 1.6Gb versus 1.9Gb for a normal workday. There was a slight
but noticable 0.2Gb dip in traffic at Midnight EST. Followed by
a slight increase after Midnight EST. All well below peak traffic
capacity. Traffic flow followed the normal sine wave pattern, except
for the dip at Midnight EST.
"Summary of ISPs
"2 ISPs reported a routing problem, isolated to normal circuit problems.
"1 ISP reported voice-call (POTS) congestion in New Zealand shortly
after midnight through several voice carriers. Internet backbone
connectivity was not affected. This was the pattern through most
time zones.
"Several ISPs reported trouble synchronizing NTP servers. Congestion
on the NIST network is believed the cause. NTP servers elsewhere
did not show any problems.
"1 ISP reported messages sent in elm showed year as 100 instead
of 2000. Patch was available prior to Y2K.
"Several reports of user-written scripts containing poor date handling
practices.
"Report of one web site defacement after close of business.
"Report of some unauthorized domain name transfers at the beginning of
the holiday weekend. Not unusual, seems to happen every holiday
weekend.
"Two ccTLDs were down for part of the rollover. 13 ccTLDs had partial
problems. No Y2K faults were found. Circuit problems, administrators
turning off servers, and ordinary DNS problems.
"Exchange points worldwide reported a decrease in traffic immediately
before their midnight local time. A sharp increase immediately after
midnight local time, but less than peak capacity.
"Certain "event" web sites saw traffic increase 20 times over normal
levels. Some event sites report being overwhelmed. But overall,
traffic appears to have been lower than peak business day capacity.
"The use of many country-specific information sites, and the rolling
nature of the Y2K event helped distribute the traffic worldwide. In
general public interest waned about 30 minutes after local Midnight
in each timezone, leaving more bandwidth for each successive timezone.
"Midnight US Eastern time did dominate changes in traffic and routing.
"A few rumors sprung up throughout the night. Most were quickly determined
to be unfounded. But overall, not as many as I thought would spread.
"Issues known/predicted prior to the Y2K rollover
"Some sites plan to shutdown or disconnect from the Internet
over the New Year's weekend
"Some certificate authority certificates expire on
December 31, 1999
"Increase in voice and cellular calls immediately around local
midnight may cause some congestion on circuits
"Information from the media (Note: ISP names are from publicly
announced information. Names will not be included from
non-public sources.)
"C I Host (www.cihost.com) issued a press release about a name
server problem. No client data files were damaged. The data
corruption that occurred Dec. 29 is isolated to the [company
local] nameservers only and the restoration remains unrelated
to any Y2K issues.
"Keynote Internet Performance Update #2 reports slower access
to New Zealand after rollover, 6.2 seconds. No information
what the measurement was before the rollover. Appears to be
localized to specific web sites (i.e. congestion)
"France's National Weather Service Internet site had a display
problem with a date. The page shows 01/01/19100 instead of
01/01/2000.
"United States Naval Observatory web time site had a display
problem with a date. The page shows 19100 instead of 2000.
"Hacker target Japan Y2K Center. No intrusion or damage
reported.
"Several stories based on Keynote press releases report the
Internet passed through the Y2K rollover unaffected, other than
a few spots of congestion around particular web sites.
"The www.y2k.gov web servers were predicted able to handle 40 million
hits. Only 3 million showed on January 1.
"Many, MANY, ISPs, web hosting, and access providers issued press
releases throughout January 1, 2000 announcing they had no Y2K
problems (and I think they all sent me a copy).
"Summary from the Y2KCC/JP
"The number of reported troubles....25
Troubles with Stratum1 NTP server....4
Trouble with ICQ....1
Troubles with ccTLD....15
.......small partial troubles....13
.......others....2
Trouble with router....1
Trouble with Y2KCC/JP system....1
Latency of a particular site....1
Suspect of cracking....1
Trouble with NNTP server....1"
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