We have received reports from a number of customers with services with Virgin Media that they are having intermittent connectivity issues to Node4’s network. We believe that this is an issue within Virgin’s network and we recommend that you raise a fault with them.

We suggest that you use WINMTR to gather end to end hop statistics which will help identify where the network issues are occurring.

Regards,

Node4 Support

Update at 0:00 – This maintenance is about to commence.

Background:
Engineers will be upgrading network switches and moving some inter-switch links on our DC1 Hall 1 internet facing network. This work will improve the performance and resiliency of our DC1 network.

Impact:
The work requires the replacement of an internet facing switch and some inter-switch links. During the upgrade, services directly terminating on these switches will be unavailable.

This maintenance will affect the following services:

• Internet connectivity in DC1 Hall 1 Derby. (IP Ranges 83.166.160.0/24, 83.166.161.0/24, 83.166.163.0/24)*
• All services within DC1 Hall-1 will be “at risk”. These services include: DNS, SIPLink, STUN, xDSL, Node4 web sites.

*All customers directly affected by this maintenance will be contacted directly by email before close of business on the 9th January 2012.

Maintenance Window
Tuesday 24th January 0:00 – 01:00
Actual downtime should be less than 20 minutes. All customers affected by this maintenance will be contacted directly before close of business on the 9th January 2012.

Our network operations engineers will closely monitor the work and will do everything possible to minimize any inconvenience to you. If you have any problems with your connection after this time, or if you have any questions regarding the maintenance at any point, please call Technical Support at 0845 1232229 or visit http://www.node4.co.uk/support

While it is important for Node4 to perform maintenance such as this to ensure the quality of our network, we do everything possible to minimize any inconvenience to our customers. We appreciate your patience and welcome any feedback.

Regards,

Node4 Technical Support

Update: 13:54

Most IPStream sessions appear to have reconnected and are stable. This was part of a wider issue within the BT broadband network.  If you continue to have connectivity problems, please restart you router and contact support@node4.co.uk if the issues persist.

Node4 Support

In recognition of reduced staffing levels across the industry over the Christmas period, Node4 will be conducting a network and provisioning change freeze from 21st December through to Wednesday 4th January 2012. Throughout this period, no non-essential changes will be made to the network or the services we provide. Please ensure any change requests are made before Wednesday 21st December to ensure they can be completed on time. Some exceptions will be permitted where prior agreement has been made (between the customer, the account manager and technical teams prior to 21st December).

Node4 will, of course, be available 24/7 over the Christmas period for any emergencies or outages on the core network and core services. Support will also be available to those customers with the appropriate support contract. Access to the data centres will always be available.

Should you have any questions or queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us via the ticket system at https://support.node4.co.uk or through your account manager.

Node4 Technical Support

We would like to apologise for the delays in producing these invoices and for the lack of automated CDR files.  We are not expecting extended delays for future invoices.

Kind Regards
The Voice Service Team

The existing DNS servers will be decommissioned on Friday 13th January 2012 therefore you must update your equipment configurations to use the new servers before this date

Old IPv4 DNS servers:

83.166.160.10
83.166.160.21

New IPv4 & IPv6 DNS Servers

IPv4 109.234.205.235
IPv4 109.234.205.243

IPv6 2a00:5600:101:0::2
IPv6 2a00:5600:101:1::2

Contact Node4 support if you require any technical assistance updating your equipment configurations.

Our call charges are determined by what is set by the relevant carriers and we always aim to be consistent in our pricing to our customers. In the past we have managed to absorb many of the rate changes into our existing tariffs, however this time there have been so many we are not able to and therefore have to re-calculate many of our charges.

Although the competitive rate for local and national calls is not going to change, all mobile rates as well as the majority of international rates are affected.  In the case of mobile rates there has been a lot of fluctuation in the market driven by OFCOM conversations with the mobile operators.  Other providers have already passed these changes on, but we have managed to hold off until now.  We are expecting some further changes in the next few months, so if there are reductions we will work hard to pass these on. 

Updated tariffs are available to download from the portal (www.node4.co.uk/portal).  If you do not currently have portal access, please contact your Account Manager who will be able to create an account for you.  We try to give as much notice as possible so these tariff changes will take effect on 25/08/2010.

We still continue to offer extremely competitive pricing and with our highly resilient SIP platform and focus on delivering excellent customer service we are confident you will still be able to enjoy the highest levels of service at the best possible prices.

Should you wish to discuss any further please contact your dedicated Account Manager.

Twelve of the thirteen root servers have already been upgraded and ICANN have not identified any harmful effects of the DNSSEC upgrade.

Node4 have carried out tests on their DNS servers and are confident that customers should not experience any problems using this service. Node4 are encouraging all their customers to perform their own checks on equipment that DNS traffic will flow through on the way to and from their equipment to ensure the larger packet sizes do not cause any problems. Particular attention should be paid to any devices that perform traffic inspection such as firewalls or security enabled routers.

An easy to use tool to check for any issues that might arise as part of the DNSSEC upgrades can be found at http://labs.ripe.net/content/testing-your-resolver-dns-reply-size-issues

If you experience any problems with regard to the DNSSEC upgrade please contact the helpdesk via email at support@node4.co.uk

 
Whilst we will aim to make the change-over as smooth as possible, there will be some disruption to the Broadband service on the day of the upgrade.  This will typically mean that end users may be unable to connect to their Broadband service for between 15 to 30 minutes.  Unfortunately we are unable to specify any specific timings of when exactly this will be happening on the day itself.

 
From the time the customers broadband automatically reconnects to the service, the new 21CN line will be rigorously tested to ensure it will deliver services of the highest quality both now and in the future.  During this period customers may experience drops in connection or a slower line speed for the first 4 to 10 days.  Once the stabilisation period has been completed the Broadband service will continue to work as normal.

Regards,

Node4 Support

Our Wakefield site makes use of a technology called free cooling. Well it’s not quite free (these things cost hundreds of thousands of pounds) but it is a highly efficient way of taking advantage of one of the main features of the UK climate. It’s cold most of the time!

Whenever the outside temperature is less than the temperature of the water coming back from the data centre, we don’t actively cool the water in our chillers. We let the atmosphere do the work for us. So for most day of the year (and pretty much every night) our chillers are doing very little work, but if it does get hot, they kick in to keep the air cool.

For resilience, each room has pairs of air conditioning units that are fed from different chillers. There is enough capacity to keep the rooms cool even if we lost ½ of the air con infrastructure. We also run the fans from the UPS system to keep the air moving at all times, even during a power failure.

In addition to all this, we are cutting the fan speeds needed to pressurise the raised floor void by using baffles under the floor space to direct cold air where it is needed. We can vary the fan speeds and the input temperatures to precisely control the conditions within the cold aisles. We are making use of Thermal Imaging technology to map our data centre airflow and temperature distribution to ensure the best possible environment for your equipment.

All in all we are doing everything we can to reduce our energy costs and carbon emissions. This is something we can pass on to our customers and, when carbon taxes start to take hold it could add up to some quite significant savings.