LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Adam Smith <adam.smith@sageautomation.com>
  To  : <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 20:16:43 +0930

RE: [OT] : Connection Speeds question

> You'd be unlikely 
> to see Windows running their exchanges. Potentially a variant 
> of unix, but more likely an obscure telco OS (although 
> remember that AT&T invented (or at least owned) Unix...)...

*Reminisces*

The exchanges do run a variant of Unix, however I don't know what
exactly it is, but it's definitely not a specific Telco OS.

I did some work for Telstra for a short time, and as I pointed out in a
previous email, changing a customer's system configuration requires
connecting to the exchange.  They use an text based "DOS" program called
"NAT CAM" to connect to the unix server.  I think the "DOS" version must
have grabbed your username from Windows NT because from what I remember
you didn't have to log in directly - it did it all for you, but we must
have had an individual user account which was granted specific
privelages, because I had to call some strange guy in Sydney to have
mine fixed when it wasn't working.

Then using a text-based program you navigate around these ASCII boxes
and configure stuff. Then that data gets written back to the exchange.

It was actually pretty cool to watch and I was always fascinated by it,
because the program let you watch the data get grabbed as it connected.
I could see all these funky initialization commands go by before it
executed the "CAM" program.
 
> of course I don't really *know* any of this, it's all hearsay...

And just out of Interest, Telstra's entire customerbase is all stored
with Unix based systems, called FlexCAB, Axis, & they used some other
ones that I can't remember for other information retrieval.

FlexCAB allowed you to query customer details, including billing
addresses, outstanding bill balances and some other info.  Axis gives
you information about which products each customer is running, eg
whether they have a Line Hunt system, ISDN, or PSTN lines, and what the
numbers for those lines are.

The software used to test connections, line quality and other such
problems was all Unix based.

They run a Windows-based fault logging service called Service*Plus,
which fell over repeatedly.

I remember several Service*Plus outages, but never any
FlexCAB/Axis/anything else outages.  I only ever had that one problem
with NATCAM.

They also have a really cool status report called the "Wellness Report"
on the Intranet, which gave you information regarding Telstra service
statuses, including which exchanges were down, and other such
information.
I'm sure regarding Telstra's recent recurring 0419 mobile outages, their
Wellness report has had a lot of red squares :-)  Shame it didn't report
any Internet outages because that would also be a big red section :-)

There was a cool utility where if a customer reported an outage, you
could put their PSTN number in a search box, and it would return some
information regarding why there is an outage, like if there are
roadworks in progress or something.

*memories*

I loved my job there :)

> or maybe there are people here who know... :)

:)


Adam Smith
IT Officer
SAGE Automation Ltd

adam.smith@sageautomation.com
http://www.sageautomation.com

Phone:   (08) 8276 0703
Fax:     (08) 8276 0799
Mobile:  0414 895 273





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