This slide deck examines the effect that recent disasters had on Internet routing and availability including the September 11, 2001 attacks and the Japan earthquake and tsunami of 2011.

1. After the Catastrophe:
IP Network Availability and Resiliency In The
Post-Disaster Environment.
Rakesh Bharania
Network Consulting Engineer
Cisco Tactical Operations
http://www.cisco.com/go/tacops
E-Mail: rbharani@cisco.com
Twitter: @densaer

2. Agenda – After the Catastrophe
 The Need for Information In A Post-Disaster Environment
 Questioning Assumptions
 The role of Cisco in the Infrastructure picture
 Examples:
1. September 11, 2001 attacks
2. 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
3. 2010 San Bruno, CA gas pipeline explosion
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3. The Fundamental Problem…
NGO / International Orgs Public Safety
In complex disasters with multiple National, State &
Transportation
response organizations … Local Government
How to deliver the right information
in the right format to the right
person at the right time?
Critical Infrastructure
Healthcare
Defense
3
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4. Changing Technologies Affect Mission Success
Evolution in People, Process and Technologies to support
Disaster and Humanitarian relief
 Radio, Phone Integrated Mobile/Fixed
 Single Device Any Device Goal: Mission workflow
and productivity
 Voice only Voice, Video, Data
benefits that save lives
 Closed Teams Open Collaboration and speed recovery.
 Command&Control Centric In the field, social media, public
 Fixed Locations Deployable anywhere
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5. Mythbusting
 Assumption: “When a disaster happens, telecommunications will go down.”
 Reality: Not always. About 60% of Haiti telecom stayed operational after quake.
Other examples: Chile Quake, Japan.
 Assumption: “I have a cellphone, an ordinary telephone line, a PBX (etc). Why
should I care about the IP network?”
 Reality: Everything is IP now –and has been for some time.
 Assumption: “The Internet is an optional luxury for public safety.”
 Reality: Not anymore – just as critical as radio communications. Haiti was a data-
driven response.
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6. Cisco’s Role in IP Resiliency
 As a vendor, Cisco doesn’t have direct responsibility for the health of the national
telecommunications infrastructure (owned by the Service Providers such as
AT&T, Verizon, etc.)
 But our products constitute a large part of the national communications
infrastructure, We have an obligation to produce secure, reliable products and to
assist where appropriate with our expertise.
 We participate in the National Coordinating Center
for Telecommunications (DHS) –
http://www.ncs.gov/ncc/ - ongoing public/private
coordination for tech companies, service providers,
Federal gov. agencies.
 Cisco has aggressive customer support available
for crisis situations: CAP, Cisco Tactical Operations, etc.
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7. September 11, 2001
 Infrastructure to note: WTC 1/2: below-ground fiber from transatlantic
cables & Telehouse and 60 Hudson St.
60 Hudson St: termination point to many transatlantic cables
NYIIX at 25 Broadway Telehouse: peering site for 40 ISPs from NY, Europe
South America and South Africa.
 WTC 2 collapse severed fiber between 60 Hudson
and 25 Broadway
 Reachability disruption to <1000 BGP prefixes
(less than 1% of advertised prefixes globally)
 No global Internet routing instability occurred
(But there was with Nimda worm on 9/18/2011)
 Global Internet routing continued normally.
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8. Location of Critical Internet Infra on 9/11/2001
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9. 2011 Japan Quake and Tsunami
 M9.0 quake/tsunami on March 11, 2011 Internet impact:
Both IIJ redundant backbone fiber links Tokyo/Sendai were severed.
20% of Japan’s total traffic dropped immediately due to outages.
3 of 8 fiber links failed to USA, but good links remained available.
Japanese ISPs: “outside of immediately affected areas,
no region was disconnected from Japan or the world.”
Internet was used heavily by the Japanese public for
streaming video, social media, etc.
 Rapid recovery from the event:
One of the major Tokyo/Sendai fibers restored by March 12
All three trans-Pacific fibers restored by T+28 hrs
ISPs reported 85-90% normal traffic T+10 days after quake
 Were we lucky? Most of Japan’s core Internet
infrastructure was outside of the affected region.
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10. Example: SINET4
 Japan’s Science and Information Network (SINET4) links 700
universities, colleges, and national laboratories.
 While there was some network disruption (Sendai), restoration was rapid. Network
continued to work normally outside of immediate area and was used for emergency
information use (heavy ustream traffic, etc)
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11. San Bruno CA Explosion
 Local communications disruption to cellphones, mobile
data services immediately around the affected neighborhood.
 Cisco TacOps mutual aid request via NCRIC in support
of San Mateo County OES.
 Provided communications support to Incident Command Post.
 GIS support through
Google disaster response
team for NTSB.
 Extensive After Action:
“San Bruno Fire Technical
Debrief” from CMU-SV DMI
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12. Conclusion
 Internet infrastructure in developed countries is highly resilient to
disasters at a macro scale – redundant links + dynamic routing.
 Local disruptions are possible – prepare redundancy into your organization.
 Recent Internet history in disaster demonstrates it is
reliable and indispensable in a crisis.
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13. Questions?
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