I work for a company that hosts 40+ websites and back office applications on its Internet infrastructure.
I would recommend what we have rolled out since it is working well. We have multiple T3 connections (each to a different ISP and diverse local loop routing for redundancy). You can order burstable T3 connections from the ISPs. They bill a certain rate for your contracted bandwidth (95th percentile calculation) and then you pay extra for extra bandwidth used. This works well since with the 95th percentile billing we still get several hours at peak utilization before we go over our limit.
You must keep close track of your utilization to keep the ISPs honest and to make sure your base level is set correctly and that you are not exceeding it too often (a plug for MRTG should go here although I have no affiliation with the project, just an appreciator). If you are exceeding the burst level frequently, at some point it may become more cost effective to increase the base than to pay the burst fees.
Brush up on your BGP also to help you balance your traffic.
Being multi-homed in this situation won't solve all the problems. Users uni-homed on the UUNet network will still have problems reaching you and you will have problems reaching them.
Many other ISPs and the exchange points are suffering under increased load that is slowing them down as well.
So although you may still have access, it is degraded.
I have to disagree with you. I should preface this post by saying I am a Gentoo user.
Here are two (of I'm sure many more reasons)
If you look at the ISOs that you get from Red Hat for example, they are for i386 arhcitectures. This is a least common denominator approach. It will run on any 386 or better processor. Those with a P4 will not get to utilize P4 specific enhancements.
The other reason I like a source based distro like Gentoo is that I can install only those apps that I want and configure and compile in the options I want. I don't have to rely on the makers of a bloated distribution to make those choices for me. They are shooting to please the majority of people with a single release.
The full distributions like Red Hat and Mandrake are quick and easy installs and great for probably the majority of users BUT if you want to try a fully and easily customizable and optimized distro, try a source based one.
My company requires a Bachelors degree to move into the higher levels of our IT organization. This is not because it makes you a better system or network admin but it show two things, you are willing to stick with something (your education) to better yourself and that you know a little more than just how to use a PC.
My CS degree did not come close to preparing me to become a network admin but those years of math taught me good problem solving skills and occasionally I actually do use the Calculus. When getting a degree though you learn about more than just computers, you learn a little literature and history. Although this will not help you program, it does give perspective and rounds out the tech skills. You also may learn a little accounting and business law, skills that you will need as you move up the ladder and need to worry about budgets and personnel issues. These are just a few examples.
A college education is not for everyone but it is a good way to round out your knowledge base and the parties are cool.
I have had a similar experience with Viewsonic. I bought a G810 monitor about a year ago. About a month after I bought it, it would only display a thin vertical line up the middle of the screen. I had to send it back at my expense ($60+) and they repaired it and sent it back at their expense. It worked for about 2 months and the same thing happened. In the end it happened 4 times. Each time I asked for a new monitor and each time they said that it was repairable. I had already spent $240+ in shipping costs and was not happy the 5th time I had to send it back.
Luckly the monitor was destroyed in shipping when they sent it back to me. They send me a new one and I have not had a problem since. Seems to me both Viewsonic and I could have save a lot of time and money had they just replaced it after the second failure like I had asked.
Sometimes these companies can't see past the immediate costs of replacement to the long term savings if they did not have to repeatedly repair equipment.
I agree with you completly. My first co-op job started sophmore year of college for a small startup software company. They used me for cheap labor and I used them to get as much experience as I could. I started there as a quality assurance tester (endlessly testing bug-ridden software). When I found bugs, I would sit down with the programmers and go over them and watch over their shoulders as they fixed them. Soon I asked if I could start fixing minor bugs and they gave me the chance.
As it turns out, I was not a good programmer (I can code most anything as long as you are patient enough to wait for me, a long wait sometimes). They then gave me a chance to become their IT department for all 30 employees since I knew how to fix PCs. I ended up staying there for 3 years as a full time IT person after I graduated and that is where I got all of my on the job training for my future career, and they paid me for it (a great deal).
Now (10 years later), I am still in the IT industry and work in the networking group of a large corporation.
The point is that, a co-op job is what you make of it. Be aggressive and try to learn what you can and take whatever opportunities are given to you, no matter how small, they may grow into great opportunities. Use this job not just to learn but to help figure out what it is you want to do in the high tech world. There are many options, try out as many as you can before you settle down to a specific career path.
Slashdot Mirror
I work for a company that hosts 40+ websites and back office applications on its Internet infrastructure.
I would recommend what we have rolled out since it is working well. We have multiple T3 connections (each to a different ISP and diverse local loop routing for redundancy). You can order burstable T3 connections from the ISPs. They bill a certain rate for your contracted bandwidth (95th percentile calculation) and then you pay extra for extra bandwidth used. This works well since with the 95th percentile billing we still get several hours at peak utilization before we go over our limit.
You must keep close track of your utilization to keep the ISPs honest and to make sure your base level is set correctly and that you are not exceeding it too often (a plug for MRTG should go here although I have no affiliation with the project, just an appreciator). If you are exceeding the burst level frequently, at some point it may become more cost effective to increase the base than to pay the burst fees.
Brush up on your BGP also to help you balance your traffic.
Joe
It is 29.95 at Bookpool, although out of stock.
I assume you mean BGP :-)
Being multi-homed in this situation won't solve all the problems. Users uni-homed on the UUNet network will still have problems reaching you and you will have problems reaching them.
Many other ISPs and the exchange points are suffering under increased load that is slowing them down as well.
So although you may still have access, it is degraded.
I have to disagree with you. I should preface this post by saying I am a Gentoo user.
:)
Here are two (of I'm sure many more reasons)
If you look at the ISOs that you get from Red Hat for example, they are for i386 arhcitectures. This is a least common denominator approach. It will run on any 386 or better processor. Those with a P4 will not get to utilize P4 specific enhancements.
The other reason I like a source based distro like Gentoo is that I can install only those apps that I want and configure and compile in the options I want. I don't have to rely on the makers of a bloated distribution to make those choices for me. They are shooting to please the majority of people with a single release.
The full distributions like Red Hat and Mandrake are quick and easy installs and great for probably the majority of users BUT if you want to try a fully and easily customizable and optimized distro, try a source based one.
Plus emerge rocks
Joe
My company requires a Bachelors degree to move into the higher levels of our IT organization. This is not because it makes you a better system or network admin but it show two things, you are willing to stick with something (your education) to better yourself and that you know a little more than just how to use a PC.
My CS degree did not come close to preparing me to become a network admin but those years of math taught me good problem solving skills and occasionally I actually do use the Calculus. When getting a degree though you learn about more than just computers, you learn a little literature and history. Although this will not help you program, it does give perspective and rounds out the tech skills. You also may learn a little accounting and business law, skills that you will need as you move up the ladder and need to worry about budgets and personnel issues. These are just a few examples.
A college education is not for everyone but it is a good way to round out your knowledge base and the parties are cool.
I have had a similar experience with Viewsonic. I bought a G810 monitor about a year ago. About a month after I bought it, it would only display a thin vertical line up the middle of the screen. I had to send it back at my expense ($60+) and they repaired it and sent it back at their expense. It worked for about 2 months and the same thing happened. In the end it happened 4 times. Each time I asked for a new monitor and each time they said that it was repairable. I had already spent $240+ in shipping costs and was not happy the 5th time I had to send it back.
Luckly the monitor was destroyed in shipping when they sent it back to me. They send me a new one and I have not had a problem since. Seems to me both Viewsonic and I could have save a lot of time and money had they just replaced it after the second failure like I had asked.
Sometimes these companies can't see past the immediate costs of replacement to the long term savings if they did not have to repeatedly repair equipment.
You have your router/switch send messages to a syslog server as well as the routers log. That way, when it reboots you can still see the logs.
Joe
As it turns out, I was not a good programmer (I can code most anything as long as you are patient enough to wait for me, a long wait sometimes). They then gave me a chance to become their IT department for all 30 employees since I knew how to fix PCs. I ended up staying there for 3 years as a full time IT person after I graduated and that is where I got all of my on the job training for my future career, and they paid me for it (a great deal).
Now (10 years later), I am still in the IT industry and work in the networking group of a large corporation.
The point is that, a co-op job is what you make of it. Be aggressive and try to learn what you can and take whatever opportunities are given to you, no matter how small, they may grow into great opportunities. Use this job not just to learn but to help figure out what it is you want to do in the high tech world. There are many options, try out as many as you can before you settle down to a specific career path.