FDDI Gone, News Crashed, Satelite Adapter dead...

[Robert Dinse <nanook@eskimo.com>]

     We've replaced the FDDI backbone with a switched 100-base-T backbone but
most of the machines are not hooked up 100-base-T yet, just eskimo and mail.
Need to string a bunch of wire.  The Ultra machines are all 100-base-T but not
yet wired for it (I had just 4-wire wire, so all of the cable has to be
replaced with Cat-5 which I am working on). 

     When I went to change the wiring to the satelite adapter, it's the box
that sits between the satelite receiver and the news machine, the 100-base-T
connector fell off the net card.  I attempted to solder it back on but now the
SA won't boot, drive is making bad noises. 

     I called SkyCache/Cidera and explained what happened and apparently this
has been a common occurance with this particular unit and they're shipping the
latest and greatest.  In the meantime our satelite newsfeed is down, we get
some over the T1's but there is no way the current news volume can be handled
with anything short of a T3.

     And while all of this was going on, at some point the news server crashed.
I don't know if it's because of something we did or it just thought we were
having so much fun already it should join in.  Anyway, it's presently going
through the fsck's from hell.

     Changing the infrastructure from a combo of FDDI and switched 10-base-T to
switched 100-base-T was necessary because Linux doesn't have good support for
FDDI, and we have been migrating to Linux.  I'm trying to migrate everything
off of SunOS because it doesn't scale as well as Linux, doesn't run on modern
hardware, and doesn't support IPv6 which eventually Sprint will route.