Re: Pattern in Late Data

Bob,

Our IT folks have been using PacketShaper and it's made a world of
difference for us. Last year, we were experience all of the recently
reported latency problems and more. We lost many an AREA file because
the latencies often exceeded an hour for large products. It was also
killing up on using FX-Net, an Internet tool that we have been beta
testing for FSL. 

ITS now limits the bandwidth available for the P2P activity and actually
dedicates a nice chunk of bandwidth dedicated to meteorology. I haven't
detected latency problems this year and we've had a whole lab of FX-Net
workstations hitting the network simultaneously without any hiccups due
to network congestion.

With that said, we don't know how long this good performance will last
and we are working on a dedicated Internet II connection that we hope to
have installed within the next 30 days.

Jim 
-- 
James P. Koermer             E-Mail: koermer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Professor of Meteorology     Office Phone: (603)535-2574
Natural Science Department   Office Fax: (603)535-2723
Plymouth State College       WWW: http://vortex.plymouth.edu/
Plymouth, NH 03264

Bob Broedel wrote:
> 
> 
> >Like you, we have recently experienced latency and occasional lost
> >data during these time periods (and also in the hours when the 1200
> >UTC gridded data is flowing most rapidly). However, in our case, we
> >believe our problem is local to UAlbany. We believe that student use
> >of the internet (most likely via the use of file-sharing apps) is
> >overwhelming the University's internet gateway.
> 
> There is an interesting article in the Boston Globe that may or may
> not be helpful. It is about the file-swap thing.
> 
> Bob Broedel FSU MET
> 
> 
> 
> SOURCE  : The Boston Globe
> DATE    : October 7, 2002
> HEADLINE: GETTING TOUGH AGAINST COLLEGES' FILE-SWAPPERS
> BYLINE  : HIAWATHA BRAY
> 
> The digital file-swappers of Harvard got a nasty shock last week:
> a report that the university would soon block peer-to-peer (P2P)
> exchanges of digital music and movies.
> 
> The report turned out to be untrue - sort of. Nobody has approved
> an outright ban on file-swapping, but the bosses of Harvard's data
> networks are giving serious thought to the matter. It costs a lot
> of money to deliver high-speed Internet access to thousands of
> students and faculty members, and Harvard was hoping to get a
> decent return on its investment - a cure for cancer, perhaps, or
> the discovery of life on Mars. Instead, much of the school's
> network capacity has been given over to stolen Springsteen albums
> and illicit copies of "Reservoir Dogs."
> 
> It all goes to show that the death of Napster, the first great P2P
> file-swapping system, hasn't done a thing to halt the trade in
> pirated music and movies. Napster was a soft target, with its
> central bank of server computers that coordinated the theft of
> digital files. The music industry had little trouble persuading
> colleges to block the use of Napster on campus networks; then they
> drove Napster itself out of business.
> 
> But the current generation of P2P programs, like Kazaa and Morpheus,
> don't rely on a central server, with an operator who can be hauled
> into court. There are millions of Kazaa users, and each is his own
> server. The recording industry can't sue them all.
> 
> Then again, they can sue the companies that enable them. The
> Recording Industry Association of America is trying it right now
> with the telephone company Verizon, which is a major provider of
> Internet access. The RIAA has gone to court to force Verizon to
> reveal the names of customers who may be using their Internet
> service to swap illicit music files. Verizon says they won't give
> up their customer's personal information simply on the RIAA's
> say-so. It's probable that the US Supreme Court will settle this
> one.
> 
> The RIAA is also keeping an eye on the nation's colleges, where
> students armed with high-speed connections gobble up illegal
> files by the terabyte. But Frank Creighton, the RIAA's antipiracy
> director, insists that his group isn't trying to bully the schools.
> "Our main focus is not legal liability against the college," he
> said. "Our main focus is education."
> 
> At the Web site www.sound byting.com, you'll find a halfhearted
> effort to convince larcenous sophomores that stealing music is a
> bad thing. But making the case to college network administrators
> is a more promising approach.
> 
> Under federal law, any Internet provider, including a college,
> isn't immediately liable if somebody's using their service to
> deal in illicit data. The copyright holder is supposed to contact
> the Internet provider and urge them to put a stop to the
> violation - a process called "notice and takedown." If the ISP
> takes quick action, it faces no legal penalties.
> 
> Creighton said that colleges generally respond well to the
> notice and takedown approach, shutting down the most egregious
> file-swappers. But this method requires the RIAA to identify
> specific violations and inform the school. When there are so many
> violators, the process barely makes a dent in the flow of illegal
> files. Creighton admits his organization may lose its patience.
> "Ultimately if the problem doesn't significantly drop," he said,
> "there's a chance that we may have to get a little more
> aggressive."
> 
> In fact, universities are already taking action against the
> file-swappers, and not simply to mollify copyright holders. P2P
> activity costs a fortune in wasted Internet bandwidth. Consider
> the case of Oregon State University, which saw up to 80 percent
> of its network capacity used up by file-swappers.
> 
> The school fought back with network management systems that
> can detect the use of P2P programs like Kazaa. In principle, the
> adminstrators could just block all such traffic. But that idea
> doesn't sit well at places devoted to the free flow of information.
> 
> So they use the system with a little more subtlety. At Oregon
> State, they use Packeteer Inc.'s PacketShaper to examine each of
> the billions of packets moving over a network, and spot the ones
> being sent forth by P2P software. PacketShaper can then limit the
> amount of network capacity available to these programs. For
> instance, it can let them use no more than 10 percent of the
> network from, say, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., but let the file-swappers
> gorge themselves like vampires after dark.
> 
> A Packeteer spokesman said about 750 schools worldwide are using
> the software; perhaps Harvard will soon be among them. Not that
> this matters to the music companies. They're still being robbed by
> college students, and it's no comfort that the thefts occur at
> night.
> 
> So look for RIAA to get tough. The organization might not get
> a court order that would force schools to ban student
> file-swapping. But just trying it could put the fear of death
> into college administrators, who already resent the file-swappers
> for wasting so much of their bandwidth.  Lawrence Summers, the
> pugnacious president of Harvard, isn't one to run from a fight.
> But it's hard to imagine him going to the mattresses for his
> students' right to swap pirated copies of "My Big Fat Greek
> Wedding."
> 
> Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@xxxxxxxxx.

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