141–150 of 218 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One (amongst many) NTP server going down creates less issues than an NTP server spreading wrong time.
General rule of thumb: a misbehaving/slow server in any well-architected distributed system is vastly worse than a dead server.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe this is the disaster plan: There's not a smouldering hole where NIST's Boulder facility used to be, and it will be operational again soon enough. There's no present need for important hard-to-replace sciencey-dudes to go into the shop (which is probably both cold, and dark, and may have other problems that make it unsafe: it's deliberately closed ) to futz around with the the time machines. We still have other…
> And the orbital GPS clocks are controlled by the US Navy, not NIST. I thought it was US Space Force / Air Force. Was the Navy previously or currently involved?
In this context, they feed timing updates to the GPS operators https://www.cnmoc.usff.navy.mil/Our-Commands/United-States-N...
Wind gusts were reaching 125 MPH in Boulder county, if anyone’s curious. A lot of power was shut off preemptively to prevent downed power lines from starting wildfires. Energy providers gave warning to locals in advance. Shame that NIST’s backup generator failed, though.
Somewhat interesting that they themselves don't have access to the site. You'd think there would have been some disaster plans put in place?
Time services are available from other locations. That's the disaster plan. I'm sure there will be some negative consequences from this downtime, especially if all the Boulder reference time sources lose power, but disaster plans mitigate negative consequences, they can't eliminate them.
Utility power fails, automatic transfer switches fail, backup generators fail, building fires happen, etc. Sometimes the system has to be shut down.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many backup clocks/clusters that NIST uses as redundancies all around Boulder too, no need to even go up to Fort Collins. As in, NIST has fiber to a few at CU and a few commercial companies, last I checked. They're used in cases just like this one. Fun facts about The clock: You can't put anything in the room or take anything out. That's how sensitive the clock is. The room is just filled with asbestos. The…
I'm the Manager of the Computing group at JILA at CU, where utcnist*.colorado.edu used to be housed. Those machines were, for years, consistently the highest bandwidth usage computers on campus. Unfortunately, the HP cesium clock that backed the utcnist systems failed a few weeks ago, so they're offline. I believe the plan is to decommission those servers anyway - NIST doesn't even list them on the NTP status page an…
Can anybody speak to the current best practices around running underground power lines? I see these types of articles about above-ground distribution systems from time-to-time, particularly in California. I feel lucky that my area has underground power, but that was installed back in the 1980s. Would it be prohibitively expensive for Boulder’s utility provider to move to underground distribution? I can’t help but thi…
Some of it is physical infrastructure (transformers, wire, poles), but a lot of it is labor.
Labor is expensive in US. It’s a lot of labor to do, plus they’ll likely need regulatory approval, buying out land, working through easements.
At the same time you have people screaming about how expensive energy is.
Furthermore they have higher priorities, replacing ancient aging infrastructure that’s crumbling and being put on higher load every day.
This was an NTP 0 server right? What is the actual failback mechanism when that level of NTP server fails? This is some level of eldritch magic that I am aware of, but not familiar with but am interested in learning.
There's two other sites for the time.nist.gov service so it'll be okay. Probably more interesting is how you get a tier 0 site back in sync - NIST rents out these cyberpunk looking units you can use to get your local frequency standards up to scratch for ~$700/month https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/frequency-measurement...
Can anybody speak to the current best practices around running underground power lines? I see these types of articles about above-ground distribution systems from time-to-time, particularly in California. I feel lucky that my area has underground power, but that was installed back in the 1980s. Would it be prohibitively expensive for Boulder’s utility provider to move to underground distribution? I can’t help but thi…
While underground distribution systems are less prone to interruption from bad weather it depends on the circuit design. If the underground portion of the circuit is fed from overhead power lines coming from the distribution substation you will still experience interruptions from faults on the overhead. These faults can also occur on overhead transmission circuits (the lines feeding the distribution substations and/or very large industrial customers).
Underground distribution comes at a cost premium compared to overhead distribution. It’s akin to the cost of building a picket fence vs installing a geothermal heating system for your home. This is why new sub divisions will commonly have underground cable installed as the entire neighborhood is being constructed - there’s no need to retrofit underground cable into an existing area and so the costs are lower and borne upfront.
It’s more cost effective for them to turn the power off as a storm rolls through, patrol, make repairs and reenergize then to move everything underground. Lost revenue during that period is a small fraction of the cost of taking an existing grid and rebuilding it underground. This is especially true for transmission circuits that are strung between steel towers over enormous distances.