North American Network Operators Group
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Operating on a "war footing" (was Re: Violation of Acceptable UsePolicies)

  • From: Sean Donelan
  • Date: Tue Jan 14 00:15:32 2003 
On Sun, 12 Jan 2003, Simon Lyall wrote:
> ObOperational: Does anyone have a pointer to "war footing" practices?
> Things like gaving prepared links to News websites, reduced maintenance,
> rumor control and the like?

As reported at the Sprint 2002 NANOG I was the working group lead for the
ISP disaster recovery working group.  We prepared a document on steps
ISPs should take in preparation for a disaster, but its not generally
available.  However, the paper really didn't contain any surprises.

Around the world ISPs have learned how to operate in the middle of wars
and unrest over the last 10 years.  B92 in the former Yugoslavia was one
of the more vocal ISPs operating during a military conflict.  EUnet and
other ISPs were also active through much of the conflict.  There are
several other continuing conflicts around the world which don't reach the
level of full scale military action.

One of the few publically available documents about operating a
public network during a disaster is

ANSI T1.202-1998 Internetwork Operations Guidelines for Network Management
of the Public Switched Networks under Disaster Conditions

 These guidelines encompass the cooperative intercompany network
 management actions (that may be) required during emergency conditions
 associated with disasters that threaten life or property and cause
 congestion in the public switched networks (PSNs). Network management
 actions should optimize the integrity of the PSNs while obtaining the
 maximum use of the network capability during a disaster condition. These
 guidelines address the network actions required to relieve congestion in
 the PSN caused by failures resulting from the disaster conditions.
 Examples of disaster conditions that would benefit from these guidelines
 are: natural disasters (such as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and the
 like), major accidents (such as transportation, industrial, or
 environmental), or civil disturbances (such as terrorist acts or other
 similar events).