Preparing Computer and Cellular Networks For a Hurricane

CWmike writes "As Hurricane Gustav approaches the US Gulf Coast, IT lessons learned from the devastating Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that smashed New Orleans and other areas in 2005 are on the minds of many worried IT managers. David Avgikos, president of Digimation Inc., a 3-D digital animation software company in St. Rose, Louisiana, said, 'We don't have to be told twice.' Meanwhile, the nation's major cellular network providers say that they too are prepared, having learned from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Still, they offer some helpful tips for dealing with what is expected to be a category-three hurricane when it hits: use text vs. calling on your cell phone, and if you use a cordless for your landline, ditch it for a corded model so that it will still work if there are power outages."

Talking...

if (hurricane && phone =='busy'){ sendtext("GTFO GUSTAV IS COMING!"); }

Re:

No joke...cell phones are already getting clogged a bit down here...and the storm is still 3 and a half days out....

It was a bitch during Katrina, you could not contact anyone in the 504 area code.

I'd never really ever used text messaging prior to that...but, I started receiving them, then discovered what T9 was....and have been a fan of it ever since..

For a month at least, or more...texting was the only way you could get through on a cell phone from NOLA. I wonder why they can do text, but, not voice?

Re:Talking...

Remember that sending an SMS means sending a small amount of asynchronous data, whereas keeping a persistent voice connection open is more resource intensive. I'd reckon that it took you longer to receive SMS messages after Katrina than usual, but nothing you would really notice since, as I said, SMS is a form of asynchronous communication.

I use a more sophisticated strategy...

... I use an above-sea-level datacenter, conspicuously located at a comfortable distance from major tornado, earthquake, forst fire, and locust infestation corridors. That whole "above sea level" part is particularly helpful.

Re:

That's Google's strategy.. seems to work pretty good for them ;)

From http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/pdf/ds_gsa_apps_whitepaper_0207.pdf [google.com] :

"The geographic locations of the datacenters were chosen to give protection against catastrophic events"

Geographically disperse full redundancy is also a major key factor.

None of that, of course, helps protect infrastructure in hurricane prone areas. To do that you need to bury power and data lines deep underground, shield them from vibration and moisture, and

Re:

"To do that you need to bury power and data lines deep underground, shield them from vibration and moisture, and protect them from faults from failing hardware above ground."

Not really an option for New Orleans...hell, we can't even bury our DEAD below ground...water table is too high.

Re:I use a more sophisticated strategy...

And you don't see the core problem with the location of New Orleans?

Re:I use a more sophisticated strategy...

"And you don't see the core problem with the location of New Orleans?"

Not really, I mean, the city is older that the United States of America...not like anyone in recent history chose where to put it.

And...not any more a problem than Amsterdam is...

Not to mention, it is here for a reason...MAJOR port for the US, for all the goods being shipped out of the middle of the US down the MS river..access to the Gulf for all that oil being drilled for, and imported in...gotta have all the fishermen supplying the US with a large part of its fresh seafood...etc.

Nah, while NOLA is a bit dangerouse (wouldn't be as bad if the wetlands could get restored), it is where it is for many important reasons.

Most everywhere in the US is in danger from all kinds of natural disasters. Heck, even NYC has a nighmare hurricane scenario...and they're WAY overdue.

IT disaster preparedness lesson #1

1. 3-M Blackwatch tape Fed Ex'd to some safe place north.

Other than that, unless your facility is 100ft underground, resistant to groundwater, and with lots of fuel for the generator, I don't think you can do much in the midst of a really big hurricane. Doesn't sound like this one is going to be the biggest of types though.

Text vs. Voice

> One tip: Use text instead of voice
Wait a minute, did I just hear the cellular providers admit that text uses less resources than voice? When is that insight going to make it to the pricing on my calling plan?

Re:

I think the point is that text can queue and be delivered when it's ready (the most obvious example being you can text someone when their phone is switched off with no issues). Voice doesn't, so is unsuitable for a network with questionable reliability.

Answer: not for a long time

You see, people incorrectly assume that prices are tied to costs, and that when costs go down, prices go down. That's a lie that businesses have been foisting on the populace for decades because they aren't telling you the whole truth. Economics shows us different.

Prices are tied to supply and demand. When demand goes up, prices go up. When demand goes down, prices go down. Supply is the opposite. Supply is up, prices down, supply down prices up.

The supply for text messages is basically near infinity, and is not changing. Therefore only changes in demand will change prices. Now, have you noticed that prices are going up lately, plans are getting higher, and they are looking at 15c a message rates now? Demand is going up, of course. The cell phone market is saturated, but text messaging is still a growth sub-industry as more teens get phones and more people try texting.

We are willing to pay these rates because the market will bear it. What's worse is that they still easily allow overages. I put a block on my son's cell phone for texting, because the monthly unlimited rate to text on verizon is outrageous and he can't control his texting. We got him a new phone to replace his old one, and we found out he had texting back and had started texting again. He ran up a $64 bill on texting alone! We called Verizon and they found out the block was "accidentally lifted" with the new phone and they refunded us the money. Of course they refunded the money, because they conveniently dropped it "by mistake" and they got caught being sleazy. How many people would just pay the bill? And how many people are willing to pay $20 a month just so they don't have to pay $64 a month? All the major telecoms take advantage of this on purpose, and it goes to their bottom line.

To fix this problem, you need to choke off demand. The market will have to saturate the with texting so that there are no more new customers. Instead of competing to get more new customers, they are competing to get customers away from other companies. That's typically when prices start coming down. Right now Verizon and Sprint offer $100 talk and text all you like plans, and there is a company that just came into the area called MetroPCS which offers the same plan for $40. The cell phone market is saturated, so now you are going to see some price competition. Because texting piggy backs on phone plans, you'll see that begin to drop.

The process would accelerate if we had more competition, and if they would stop allowing phones to be tied to a specific carrier and forced companies to allow us to chose the phone and the plan. The justice department and the SEC need to put some pressure on and stop allowing cell phone company mergers.

Nah

The most important thing you can do in preparation for a hurricane is pick the paint out of the screws holding your doors on.

Been there, cursed while the screwdriver spun uselessly, and never painted over a screw since.

Use text?

With messages costing as much as they do? Maybe if there is a hurricane discount, but AFAIK that only applies for category 4 and higher.

Wait, surely they aren't saying that the cost to the network of providing SMS services is lower than voice? Because the way they price it, it's cheaper to get data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

text vs. calling

Strange that texting is a more efficient way to use the capacity of a cellular system, yet they charge more for texting. hmmmm....

Avoid the mistake a hospital or two made in Katrin

Do not put the generator in the damn basement.

I know a better one

In the 1970's the Council of Oxford, England built a nuclear bomb shelter beneath one of the buildings they owned.

During a briefing to the towns various community leaders they explained that they would have no problems with water supply because the shelter had a water tank, situated on the roof of the building which housed the shelter.

I know this because my uncle was one of those community leaders. He tried to question this somewhat bizarre design decision, but apparently the representative making the presentation failed to understand the problem.

Dead Center

The thing about cordless vs. wired telephones really won't matter much if you really get hit by a hurricane. Simply put there is no one to call at all. Police, fire and rescue serves are all unavailable for quite some time both during and after a hurricane. Until crews get the roads cleared and that is after the roads are no longer rivers, then and only then can emergency responders get through to aid you. As far as cell phones go the cell towers go out of whack as soon as the storm starts. The same is true of cable systems.
        The best way to ride out storms is elsewhere.Evacuate and go to Vegas and gamble or something. And as far as IT functions it would be great to have a second central hub that could take over for any site under the wrath of a hurricane.

What went right in Katrina: ham radio

Technocrat reports [technocrat.net]:

The Bush Administration's Katrina report has an appendix called what went right [whitehouse.gov], with praise for Amateur Radio:

Other organizations worked tirelessly to assist emergency responders that, due to the storm, did not have the equipment and means to effectively carry out their duties. Amateur Radio Operators from both the Amateur Radio Emergency Service and the American Radio Relay League, monitored distress calls and rerouted emergency requests for assistance throughout the U.S. until messages were received by emergency response personnel.

Ham Radio works because each it's a heterogeneous mesh network of intelligent agents using agile frequency hopping to provide connectionless redundant relay of messages. Yes, we do that [wedothat-radio.org]!

Leigh/WA5ZNU

Datacenter Blog from Hurican Katrina

The blogger Interdictor, Michael Barnett, has a detailed blog of what they had to do and deal with to keep their datacenter operational despite being located in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. His blog was a very good read during the hurricane and its aftermath as it happened in August/September 2005.

Blog: http://interdictor.livejournal.com/?skip=300 [livejournal.com] Start reading from this link and go forward through the posts.
Pictures: http://sigmund.biz/kat/ [sigmund.biz]

Re:

Do you have an example of a cordless phone that works when the power is out? I've never seen one. Keep in mind it's all well and good to have a battery in the phone, but the base station needs power to be able to transmit too.

Re:

after 2 hurricanes and one big ice storm: 1. ALWAYS have a landline phone. it's bomb-proof. even dialup for email is better than 8 days without. 2. Cell towers/service go down second. 3. Cable goes out first. there's other stuff to consider, but this is a tech site.

Re:

The phone system is built to be pretty much bomb-proof. I've spent time inside of a phone Central Office, and those things are built like an over-sized bunker.

Beyond that, I'd say always have a simple brainless corded phone in the house. Wireless is nice, and battery backup is good if the power's only out for a couple of days -- but if things are bad for a while, or your phone battery just HAPPENS to be almost fully discharged the day the disaster hits (because of a 4 hour support call), it's nice to kn

Re:power not really the whole problem

If Atlanta was hit by a hurricane, and you were in Nebraska at the time, wouldn't you want your 404 area code cell phone to still work?

Yeah, but it would probably not be found.

Re:here is how to fix it.

I believe all cell phones should be equipped with emergency failover frequencies to function in the event of an emergency or natural disaster The US government should be maintaining cell equipment to handle overflow calls should the main cell providers be overwhelmed in the event of a natural disaster. The government should have discretion on activating this failover network. Cell providers should be required to pay for the operation of this failover network if it needs to be used. They should not be able to pass costs over to customers. This would function as a deterrent for these providers so they don't oversell their network capacity by a certain amount.

Except such an emergency communications network already exists, with their own frequencies and emergency communications capability. Activation is automatic, so the government doesn't have to do anything, and testing is done on a regular basis during non-emergencies. And the participants pay for the equipment, testing, etc. themselves.

It's called "amateur radio".

Primary purpose is providing emergency communications. During off times, the equipment is tested by regular communications, contests, and field days (the latter basically practicing "roughing it" - generators, portable antennas, etc).

For local communications, there's the VHF/UHF and other bands, and the HF bands to help pass communications long distances easily. (Only problem with the HF bands is BPL, which disables the receiver from being able to receive and pass on messages...)

Costs the government nothing, and emergency messages passed from surviving families to relatives outside the area are often passed on cost free (absorbed by the message-passer).