back to article Microsoft reveals network simulator that keeps Azure alive

Microsoft has let the world in on one of its key Azure management tools: a simulator designed to help prevent nearly 70 per cent of the bugs that cause network downtime. The simulator, called CrystalNet, is a design tool Microsoft Research created for its admins to help avoid downtime during routine maintenance and upgrades. …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think they missed one..

    Whilst I agree with the "Human Errors", I think they forgot another category "User stupidity"..

    Would also be interesting to understand if they intend to open source something from this, if it was done in such a way that manufacturers could contribute a version of their "Virtual Appliances" it would certainly increase the reliability of multi-vendor projects.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I think they missed one..

      If user stupudity is causing network outages on Azure, they have a very flaky back-end. As I doubt users cause network outages on Azure, I can guess why they weren't listed...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So....

    ...why all the outages then?

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Pirate Dave Silver badge
      Pirate

      Re: So....

      Maybe Microsoft's internal admins sometimes forget whether they're testing an outage in CrystalNet, or on the real Office365 production servers.

      "Hey, let's simulate what would happen if we lost connection to all of our peering exchanges."

      "Hey, why's my phone saying it can't retrieve my email anymore"

      "Uh-oh..."

      1. Captain DaFt

        Re: So....

        Maybe Microsoft's internal admins sometimes forget whether they're testing an outage in CrystalNet, or on the real Office365 production servers.

        "Hey, let's simulate what would happen if we lost connection to all of our peering exchanges."

        "Hey, why's my phone saying it can't retrieve my email anymore"

        "Uh-oh..."

        "Confound this @&#%^ flat UI!! I can't tell which is which!"

  3. thondwe

    SDN

    Clearly a major "Plus" for SDN allowing you to build virtual models like this with easy rollback to known states etc. Building test rigs with real hardware obviously can be done but harder and $$$

  4. ecofeco Silver badge

    Read title

    Heard Queen, "Keep Yourself Alive."

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Network simulation systems able to cope with the whole Pentagon network

    Were available in the US in the late 90's.

    They used various RNG's for the failure rates of various components, viewed as objects.

    1. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: Network simulation systems able to cope with the whole Pentagon network

      But how large and complex was the Pentagon's network in the 90's?

      I'm going to guess that there was at least three completely separate and incompatible networks, each with their own departments, budgets and preferred vendors, which most of the actual work was done by people with typewriters.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MS staff...

    "Hongqiang Harry Liu, Yibo Zhu, Jitu Padhye, Jiaxin Cao, Sri Tallapragada, Nuno Lopes, Andrey Rybalchenko, Guohan Lu, and Lihua Yuan"

    Wont be long now 'till the valley thinks "why are we here?"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      The racism is strong in this one ....unless of course you are referring to the fact that MS is not "in the valley"

      Hongqiang “Harry” Liu is a Researcher in Mobility and Networking Research Group at Microsoft Research, Redmond. He passed his Ph.D. thesis defense at the Department of Computer Science, Yale University on May 7th, 2014. H

      Yibo is a full time researcher at Microsoft Research, Redmond.

      Jitendra Padhye, Principal Researcher at Microsoft, University of Massachusetts

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