Re: OT: "Packet Switch...Database Mismatch" Caused Massive Air

It depends on the "packet switch". If it's vtp your redundancy melts down
too. One of the funniest things I've ever seen was a managed network at a
previous job where the customer would not let us turn on spanning tree but
wanted us to turn on vtp so vlan's didn't have to be created manually.
Someone made the mistake of plugging a new switch with no vlans and of
course everything disappeared from the database, but the bridging loops
started first so some switches would wipe their DB's after engineers had
fixed them. After the huge outage someone has the bright idea of
configuring port-security to prevent the problem since we can't use stp.
The next day someone plugs in the same switch the same way. This time is
much worse because on top of the bridging loops and erased vlan.dats the
entire network went errdisable.

From:
Babatunde Sanda <sbabatunde1_at_ca.rr.com>
To:
Scott M Vermillion <scott_at_it-ag.com>
Cc:
Cisco certification <ccielab_at_groupstudy.com>
Date:
11/19/2009 10:47 PM
Subject:
Re: OT: "Packet Switch...Database Mismatch" Caused Massive Air Delays In
US Last Year?
Sent by:
<nobody_at_groupstudy.com>

Hahaha, classic. I saw that in the morning and said to myself "what
ever happened to redundancy". One would think a critical enviroment
like that will have backup links everywhere.

> "packet switch" indeed. Lol.

On Nov 19, 2009, at 4:46 PM, Scott M Vermillion <scott_at_it-ag.com> wrote:

> Most of this article will be of minimal interest to those outside of
> the US (and for that matter to many in the US):
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091119/ap_on_bi_ge/us_flight_delays
>
> But I'd like to draw your attention to the final line:
>
> "The FAA said at that time the source of the computer software
> malfunction was a "packet switch" that "failed due to a database
> mismatch."
>
> I couldn't help but wonder if this was a case of the infamous VLAN
> database mismatch? More likely it's just a common case of inexact/
> inappropriate use of technical jargon by a spokesperson.
>
> I have no idea what the FAA's network looks like, but it's obviously a
> real PoS (Piece of Sh..). Anybody ever hear anything about this
> incident? Surely we've got at least one member who works in the FAA
> vertical...
>
>
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Received on Sun Nov 22 2009 - 18:25:41 ART