Netherlands faced this afternoon a short time with a major Internet outage. Due to a failure in the data center AMS-IX was not possible for nearly an hour to visit websites or even entering the Internet. How can that happen? And what we know about the data center?
What happened this afternoon doing?
The Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) carried out maintenance work on the servers. Under these agreements, a technician accidentally servers together so that they all Internet just kept sending each other around. Therefore, the servers were overloaded and they turned off automatically. All the web that enters via the Amsterdam Internet Exchange Netherlands, therefore, could not be reached. It involves a large number of websites.
The fault itself was incidentally already resolved within 10 minutes, but it took longer for example providers their servers were rebooted and everybody had full access.
The Amsterdam Internet Exchange? What is that?
The Amsterdam Internet Exchange is a large data center in our capital. It’s what you call a internet node , as there are several in the world. On an Internet node various internet cables come together.
Internet from a server to bring a computer, there must be a cable be laid from the data center, for example a provider. If those are servers in the US (such as large Internet companies like Google), then those cables come through the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. That happens – there running hundreds or even thousands of cables on the seabed to other countries. These cables are in America again collected together by other nodes, which are, for example, in New York. International Internet nodes send data to each other by so constantly. In this image you can clearly see where running cables:
How big is when the Exchange?
All the white dots on the map are data centers such as the Amsterdam Internet Exchange. But that does not mean that all data centers are equal. Some are just a few of those cables inside other weather very much. In the Netherlands just about most cables in the world: At the peak processing center about 1.3 terabits of data per second! In Germany, another big center, as in London. In terms of amounts of data differs sometimes which of the three largest data center, but Amsterdam or process the majority of European Internet traffic.
What happens when such a node goes offline?
If the Amsterdam Exchange it stops, many websites are no longer accessible. Also get providers like KPN and Ziggo their Internet traffic from the AMS-IX, so even those no longer able to deliver the Internet to subscribers. It is thus a critical node!
On the other hand, it is also not the only node in the world, and there are always backups. There are other nodes in Europe, where the Internet can be controlled. Because the AMS-IX is so great, however it is one of the most critical issues.
It is important to control it well. Who controls or owns it?
Such forward large amounts of data, which is of course not free. Someone has to pay for it – but who? Does anyone AMS-IX node ‘owns’? In this case – although that is “typically Dutch ‘
In other countries (particularly in America) are Internet nodes commercial companies.. Who make money by companies (like Google) to charge for access to the node. When the AMS-IX is, however, not the case. That is an association whose members determine what happens. The association consists of about 500 Internet companies that are connected to the node.
The members, some five hundred, the Internet companies are connected to the node. And everyone, big or small, they have just as Dutch, as much to say. One of these companies is Facebook, just about the biggest name of the association, but also YouTubes traffic is based mainly on the Amsterdam Exchange.
Is the AMS-IX than such a critical junction?
That’s not so bad. The Internet as a whole is not to take down with one broken cable. There are always options for websites and providers to get their traffic from elsewhere. That also happens, it may take some time alone. If the entire Exchange would fail, it would be possible within a few hours to get online via other Internet nodes
The node additionally comprises multiple data centers -. 12, to be exact. This means that traffic can be distributed to the 12 server spaces, making it less bad if for example one is broken.
The Amsterdam Internet Exchange is not the only party which, for example Facebook have traffic go sends. That goes partly through the Amsterdam cable, but also via cables in Frankfurt or London. If you lose the AMS-IX, Facebook can decide its data through to run one of the other centers.
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