In an odd fashion, Skype has announced that the millions of computers rebooting after a Windows Update brought down its network.
At first, the default Windows Update time and default options don’t seem like much until you figure out that an entire timezone, each with millions of people, have the default options chosen. X minutes after check in, most computers in that timezone reboot, put strain on their ISPs and other services. This is effectively like a rolling brownout/blackout due to too many air conditioners being on in hot areas. The system crashes and restarts, but crashes again and again due to load.
For this reason, as well as the fact that I don’t like my computer rebooting in the middle of something (like a document or my BeyondTV box recording something), I don’t leave the default options on.
Now, to their credit, Skype said that this wasn’t Microsoft’s fault, but I think otherwise. Sure, Skype needs open ports and the ability handle massive amounts of traffic, but so does your average Telephone company. Imagine if everyone in the US picked up the phone all at once. What do you think would happen? Well, you don’t have to imagine because it happened on 9/11. The system had massive problems, dropped calls, crossed trunks, millions of busy signals - even the Internet was effected that day.
I was working at Earthlink the day it happened. We saw our call Q’s go from 120+ calls on hold to less than 10 in minutes. We also saw a huge drop in internet traffic as events played out on live TV but within an hour, global bandwidth was eaten up by people switching from Phone to Internet Communications causing massive loads on the ISP side. Earthlink was even visited by the FBI, they requested that we stay open and even authorize overtime for any employee that works on keeping the network up - Earthlink had a heart that day and agreed.
Anyway, this problem was ultimately created by Microsoft. If they had introduced a random time generator for Windows updates between Midnight and 6am, This type of situation would have never happened. No domino effect, no lost service for millions of customers.
…Then again, if you’re using VOIP, you know the risks of going fully digital at the moment.
