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A Look Inside the BBC's Network 328

Posted by CmdrTaco from the bits-bytes-and-accents dept.
the-dark-kangaroo writes "The BBC have provided the entire internet with a look inside their amazing network. It shows everyone the almighty web power they are with over 40 webservers and 12 firewalls and their 8Gbps intersite connections. All this seems to running some form of *NIX with perl underlying their powerful website delivery. Take a look at those load graphs!"
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A Look Inside the BBC's Network More

A Look Inside the BBC's Network

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  • ....There's More Than One Way To Do It!

  • All this seems to running some form of *NIX (Score:5, Informative)

    by stupidfoo ( 836212 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:04PM (#11314004)
    Well, according to the ever reliable Netcraft:

    Solaris 8 Apache/1.3.26 (Unix)
    SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
    SunOS 4 unknown
    SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
    SunOS 4 unknown
    SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
    SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
    SunOS 4 unknown
    SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
    SunOS 4 unknown

  • This will make hacking them less time-consuming (Score:3, Funny)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:05PM (#11314015)
    Now if I get the urge to hack into the BBC network, I won't have to do as much poking and prodding to get my own network map. They've done the time-consuming work for me!
    • I won't have to do as much poking and prodding to get my own network map.

      Just remember, security by obscurity is bad! ;)

      • Security by obscurity (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Bloater ( 12932 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @05:21PM (#11315001) Homepage Journal
        > Just remember, security by obscurity is bad! ;)

        All security is by obscurity, that is a fundamental truth of any system whose state can be altered. You have to know how to get its state to change and if you know how then you can change its state.

        The issue is how much knowledge do you need to be able to change the state of a part of the system, and how much effort do you have to put in to get that information. Also how likely are you to be caught attempting to learn how, and how much of the system can you break into with that information before you have to learn more information (essentially the value of that information).

        Strong cryptographic authentication uses a mathematical formula to produce a *different* method of access for each key, and the key is a description of the method. Thus, cracking one key gives you access only to the systems that use the method that that key describes. For a weak cypher, it is relatively easy to determine the correct method to access a system.

        Similarly for *all* communication with a computer. If you know what software is used, and you know how to get it to respond, then you have access. So, since you are *always* relying on attackers not knowing the method to access your systems, you must ensure there is a different method for each system to limit damage when the method is no longer obscure.

        "Security Through Obscurity" refers to the technique where many system use the same method and depend on none of the other systems being cracked. This is risky: ie, chances of cracking are small, but cost of cracking is extremely expensive as all systems become vulnerable. Though chances are not so small as one may think as the value of the knowledge needed to access the systems is extremely high, and thus more effort tends to be dedicated to its discovery.

        This is why open source software will tend to become more secure over time (provided that there is a sufficient interest in its security - ie popularity). While it is less costly to discover the information necessary to crack a system, it is also less costly for the organisations that use it to discover that information, thus the systems tend to be fixed. That also devalues the knowledge from the perspective of the cracker. How many organisations will send their disks to MS for analysis vs how many can do the analysis with reference to the source code.

        All those little factors cause the initial risk of open source software to be much higher, but the risk of a mature and popular system to be lower. Compare with closed source, which for new and unpopular software the risk is low, and for mature and popular software, the risk is high.

        The best opportunity (as the world begins to realise the value of security) for closed source producers is to be cheap to market, quick to help mature an open source competitor, and quick to help your customers migrate to the open source alternative, siphoning a lucrative support and development contract as you move onto new product as restart the cycle.

  • Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:05PM (#11314021)
    ... how well can all this great technology stand up to a good old-fashioned slashdotting?

    • Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lga ( 172042 ) * on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:24PM (#11314248) Journal
      This isn't a fair question, support.bbc.co.uk is probably hosted on some cast-off machine on someones desk, not on the servers that they are talking about - of course it can be brought down by Slashdot.

      Just try that on news.bbc.co.uk, Slashdot won't even make it break a sweat.
      • Just try that on news.bbc.co.uk, Slashdot won't even make it break a sweat.

        We already do - the story posted just before this one links to the BBC site, as numerous articles posted here do all the time.

        The BBC News server is probably constantly under the Slashdot effect, though it doesn't make a noticable difference.

      • Re:Yes, but... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Just try that on news.bbc.co.uk, Slashdot won't even make it break a sweat.

        news.bbc.co.uk was one of two news websites that I could get to on 9-11. The other was Slashdot.

  • Being the Spoil Sport (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ettlz ( 639203 )
    As anyone who listened to the now defunct Vorbis streams of BBC radio, this has been here for many years. Nevertheless, it's still impressive.

  • Almighty? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OECD ( 639690 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:06PM (#11314034) Journal

    It shows everyone the almighty web power they are with over 40 webservers and 12 firewalls

    Well, it's rather a lot, but "almighty?" What ever happened to British undertatement?

  • Slashdotted? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mike Rubits ( 818811 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:06PM (#11314035)
    Geez, having an awful time getting access to the graphs and all that fun data. So much for that 8gbps then huh?

  • impressive (Score:3, Interesting)

    by itallushrt ( 148885 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:07PM (#11314039) Homepage
    As a network engineer for a large web hosting company, having worked for very large ISP's, etc all I can say is that I'm impressed. The 4 OC-12's alone coming out of NY sold me. =)

  • "bits-bytes-and-accents"?

    Since we're talking about the BBC, wouldn't something more like Bits-Bytes-and-Cockney be more appropriate?

    hehehe.... cockney.

  • Where is the Internet (Score:3, Interesting)

    by coastwalker ( 307620 ) <acoastwalker@hot ... m minus language> on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:09PM (#11314064) Homepage
    Curious that the map showing the geographical distribution of the network centres shows only the USA and Europe. Is this because the bulk of the audience is there?

    Has anyone dug through the data and found country usage statistics?, now that I would find interesting.

  • ./'ted already (Score:4, Funny)

    by Roadmaster ( 96317 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:09PM (#11314065) Homepage Journal
    Nah, they're already slashdotted. Watch those load graphs.. as they rise like they've never risen before!

  • BBC (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stanistani ( 808333 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:09PM (#11314066) Homepage Journal
    Man holding teacup: "Nigel, what's that sudden whirring noise?"

  • Déja Vu? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ab384 ( 810021 )
    I seem to recall that a link to that page was present in each highly-modded comment in each story regarding "Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy part 3 on BBC radio 4" we had back in... September 2004?

    So, old news!

    Indeed, how is this "news" at all?

    (I may need to "get out more" - whatever that phrase means.)
  • Apparently the servers to serve up the server load graph couldn't handle the load.
    • Apparently the servers to serve up the server load graph couldn't handle the load.

      Ever vigilant, the BBC seems to have noted the influx and taken action. After initially failing for me, it now seems to be working again.

      Oops. I was about to look up on their duty roster as to who had done the fine work, but alas, the next load of slashdotters seem to have arrived, and the page is again down. At least they're trying...

      Jedidiah.

  • What an AMAZING network! (Score:4, Funny)

    by agildehaus ( 112245 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:14PM (#11314123)
    It's been Slashdotted before the first 10 replies!
  • hey, looks like you guys slashdoted the page. where's the mirror?

  • I tried... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Kaa ( 21510 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:15PM (#11314143) Homepage
    Umm... following the links leads to:

    Internal Server Error

    The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

    Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@bbc.co.uk and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

    More information about this error may be available in the server error log


    Yeah, BBC, you *did* have excellent servers and bandwidth...

    • Re:I tried... (Score:2, Informative)

      by ettlz ( 639203 )

      This is a bit unfair!

      In all likelihood, support.bbc.co.uk is a single non-essential server running in the shadows in a bandwidth restricted area of the BBC's Internet operation. It's probably meant for off-site monitoring more than anything else. I'm not surprised it's now refusing connections: this site wasn't meant for a dirty great mudslide of Slashdotters! (Note that all the BBC's normal content (news, etc.) is still working.)

    • When I clicked on the link just now, it was asking for a username and password. Seems like they're out to get us poor innocent Slashdotters...
    • Seems they felt the slashdot effect :-P

  • No reference to Perl (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Baldrson ( 78598 ) * on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:17PM (#11314157) Homepage Journal
    Doing a search of their site [google.com] reveals no occurance of "Perl".

  • BBC's net must be good and plenty 'cause it took (Score:4, Interesting)

    by museumpeace ( 735109 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:18PM (#11314178) Journal
    its slashdotting like a man.
    I got the page load in ~8 seconds when comment counter said 30...thats about when most sites have smoke coming out of the servers.

  • Already slashdotted (Score:3, Informative)

    by dimss ( 457848 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:19PM (#11314190) Homepage
    Google cache:

    http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:KiH513c0cEcJ: su pport.bbc.co.uk/support/+site:support.bbc.co.uk+in url:support&hl=en

  • Don't be too proud... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Peldor ( 639336 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:19PM (#11314193)
    ...of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to serve the internet is insignificant compared to the power of a slashdotting.
  • All those moaning it's slashdotted must be missing the fact that the rest of the BBC pages are still loading pretty damned fast. Browsing BBC News isn't a problem for me. Try a bit harder if you want to Slashdot the BBC.

  • Most impressive? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mreed911 ( 794582 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:22PM (#11314231)
    The BBC seems to understand the /. effect, so they've got a low-res, low-graphics, low-intensity page up to handle the load.

    The overview diagram points to a directory, so it can be virtually hosted anywhere, further distributing the load.

    Maybe they'd be kind enough to measure the /. effect and post a separate graph showing traffic with referrals from slashdot? Now that would be neato...

    Cheers, guys! Steady on!

  • 24 Hour Shifts (Score:5, Funny)

    by rimu guy ( 665008 ) * on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:24PM (#11314259) Homepage

    You have to feel sorry for Declan. The duty team roster [bbc.co.uk] has him doing a 24 hour shift today.

    --
    Linux VPS Hosting [rimuhosting.com] with 24x7 support, so we know how he feels.

  • Completely different inside (Score:5, Interesting)

    by isorox ( 205688 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:28PM (#11314326) Homepage Journal
    The network infrastructure throughout the BBC, certainly in News, is so microsoft centric it's unheard of. The network has recently been sold, along with the staff, to Siemens. It's based around Active Directory, all file servers are Windows, all DNS and DHCP is maintined by windows, with only a smattering of *nix boxes (DHCP at one london office, unix for parts of the BBC-Wide Imaging system "elvis" and "Jupiter"). The desktop is 2K/XP, and so locked down we cant even run the BBC News Ticker on it! (For what it's worth, everyone in my office ignores such policies as we need things like Putty and VNC to work)

  • Just goes to show you that... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by eno2001 ( 527078 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:30PM (#11314343) Homepage Journal
    ...it's possible to use tax funding to do some really intensely cool stuff. The BBC has a much better grasp of production (technical as well as aesthetic) in all forms of media than any of the pay services here in the U.S. Too bad we have the sadly underfunded NPR and PBS here. It could be so much better. NPR needs a lot more dramatic and comedy programming. PBS needs more popular entertainment that they haven't snagged from the BBC. But without the funding, we're stuck with the crap on HBO and Showtime. There is a definite lack of quality in US production. The same goes for HBO and Showtime's web presence. They have nothing on the BBC.
    • That's because they (are supposed to) get over 100UKP (approx 87USD at the moment - was around 92 a week or so ago) for every property with at least one sighted person under 75 in the UK with one or more colour televisions. And that is a lower bound - there are categories I haven't mentioned that pay less than the 100UKP or who have to pay more than once per property.
    • *sigh* Why is it that whenever there's a BBC story on /. somebody always posts this fallacy about them being tax funded. They're.

      It is interesting though that they have so much infrastructure in N. America. That goes to show how much they're used over there. I guess there is demand for real news ;) Is that all funded by the British though? I guess this could be considered the modern equivalent of the World Service, which isn't really available on the radio on the western side of the Atlantic. The W

  • Slashdot effect at work (Score:5, Funny)

    by MoFoQ ( 584566 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:30PM (#11314349)
    Over 40 high performance webservers : $
    12 firewalls : $$
    8Gbps network to connect them : $$$
    Not able to handle the Slashdot effect : Priceless.

  • Overheard at BBC offices.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:39PM (#11314485)
    "John, could you put down your tea and come here for a moment."

    "Yes?"

    "It seems our load monitoring application is overloaded. I can't monitor the system."

    "Hmm, try tapping on the dials."

    "Uhm, there aren't dials John. This is a computer program."

    "Don't you mean, 'programme'?"

    "Yes, sorry. So, what do I do now?"

    "Let me check the manual... let's see.. squirrels chewing through fibre-optic.. alien invasian.. tea shortage.. politcal unrest.. ahh, here we go, inaccessible monitoring.. it says simply, 'Panic'."

    "Panic? What does that mean?"

    "I think it means we should run about the room screaming or some such."

    "Like this? WOOWOWOWOWO"

    "No, that's more celebration. Try more anguish, like this: Aahhhhhhhhhrg!!!"

    "Ahhwoooooooo!"

    "No, try and keep from letting your mouth go round like that. Here, watch me: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahrg!"

    "Aaaaaaaaaaaahrg??"

    "That's good. Aaaaaaaahrg!!! And flail your arms about like this: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahrg!!!"

    "I think I've got it! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahrg!"
  • So if they have all those UNIX servers, why aren't we getting ogg vorbis streams of their content? All they offer is that damn RealAudio, for which there is no good Windows software. The BBC has tried ogg as an experiment [bbc.co.uk], and it sounded great but I don't know why they ditched that. It was a couple years ago they briefly offered ogg vorbis radio streams.

    Interestingly, the BBC streaming exclusively in Real Audio has been one of the main reasons I find myself booting Linux daily instead of Windows, since t
    • Real Audio has been one of the main reasons I find myself booting Linux daily instead of Windows, since there is a fantastic clean real audio player for UNIX variants.

      Dude, no need to burden yourself with booting Linux... Real Alternative [free-codecs.com]

      And, before you ask, yeah, there is a similar codec pack for Quicktime. The Google incantation for it will be left as an excersize to the viewer. :-)
  • Now it wants a password. Bah!

  • Not technically BBC's network... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10, 2005 @04:52PM (#11314636)
    Technically, this network is now owned and managed by Siemens Business Services. BBC Technology, which grew out of a few different parts of the BBC Engineers and IT depts, was sold to Siemens in October last year, to form part of Siemens Business Services, specifically the 'Media' part. SBS run the network both internally and out, as a managed service. This creates some interesting issues with network boundaries, and "who owns what", but it keeps us on our toes!

    Of couse, most of the same staff are there, so little has changed on that front. The lads and ladies in Maidenhead do a very good job of running a VERY complicated network. The BBC is the top content (not search) site in the UK, if not the world (don't quote me on that). The internal network is also pretty damn reliable, with a dual fibre ring running round most of the London buildings.

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