Merit Network Backbone Service

[Elwood J. Downing]

As of 8:20 PM, EST, Thursday, August 16,2007, the Merit backbone network 
alerts have cleared and network services have started to return to normal 
operations. Merit's Network Engineers are performing additional diagnostic 
testing to ensure the stability of the backbone. We expect the Merit 
backbone will returned to normal operations by 10:00 PM, EST.

A detail report and further communication will be provided to the Merit 
Community, tomorrow, Friday, August 17, 2007.

If you are currently experiencing any network performance problems please 
contact Merit's Network Operations Center (NOC) immediately.

On behalf of all Merit staff, we apologize for the inconvenience this 
service issue has caused your organization. We at Merit continuously strive 
to provide the highest level of service to our Membership and regret this 
service issue.

If you have any questions about this network event, please contact your 
support team at http://www.merit.edu/members/ for additional information 
and assistance.

Sincere Regards,
--Elwood
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Elwood J. Downing                      e-mail: ejd@merit.edu
Merit Network                          Phone: (734) 936-2040
Director of Member Services            Fax: (734) 647-3185

    Merit Network -- Connecting Organizations, Building Community



------------ Forwarded Message ------------
Date: Thursday, August 16, 2007 5:26 PM -0400
From: Robert Duncan <duncanrl@merit.edu>
To: network-alerts@merit.edu
Subject: Merit Network router problems



The network is experiencing a continuing problem within the 10gig core
routers.  This does not appear as a total outage, but as a general slowdown
as traffic seeks alternate routing around the switch that has the problem
at any point in time.



The first event occurred at about 11:00 PM Wednesday Aug 15.  At that time
an Extreme Networks router processor card shutdown at the Ann Arbor site.
The router was restarted and appeared to be functioning properly.  Since
then at least three other Extreme networks routers have exhibited the same
symptom.  Two of the routers also shutdown their 10gig interface cards.
The issue has moved from router to router (not always the same router) and
sometimes requires more than one restart for recovery.



At this point engineers from Extreme Networks are one the phone with Merit
reviewing the console and log dumps from the routers.  This does not appear
to be a known problem with the routers.



To assist in collecting and distributing information an audio conference
bridge has been opened to a "war room" at Merit Network.  The bridge
number is 734-647-1092 conference id: 33# pin: 0816#.  Please feel free to
dial into the bridge for a status update or to relay information that might
relate to problem resolution.



Thank you for your patience and understanding.



Robert Duncan
Manager Backbone Network Engineering
Merit Network, Inc.
734-615-2241



---------- End Forwarded Message ----------