On May 12, an earthquake of 7.8 scale hit Wenchuan of Sichuan Province, and the traffic volume of CAS Chendu branch suddenly dropped on CSTNET monitor, and on the monitor, the main outbound port of Chendu node was DOWN, CAS Chendu branch, Chendu Institute of Optic-Electronics of CAS, Chendu Institute of Institute of Mountain Hazards And Environment of CAS, Chendu Institute of Biology of CAS, Chendu Literature and Information Center of CAS, Chendu Institute of Computing technology, Chendu Institute of Organic Chemistry all showed warning signals. CNIC contacted the sub-network center of CAS Chendu branch at the earliest possible time and learned that such situation was caused by power cut-off due to earthquake or due to withdrawing of staff. And later, after contacting China Railcom and the general network dispatcher, it was confirmed that the line between Beijing and Chendu operated normally, and no interruption warning.
During the special period, CNIC people contacted CAS Chendu branch and the network administrators of all Chendu institutes several times to learn the situation and after contacting with the sub-network center of CAS Chendu branch, they learned that the people of network department of Chendu Literature and Information center has gone to work and the power supply was under recovery. And they learned from network monitors that the link between Beijing and CAS Chendu branch was under recovery, and all the ports has a small amount of traffic and according to analysis of port status, the problem was caused by power cut-off for the computer equipment because people had left.
As of 11:30, May 14, it was learned from the network system operation monitor that all the lines for institutes under CAS Chendu branch were operating normally.
On May 14, CSTNET cooperated with China Netcom to set up an optical link between CCTV and China Earthquake Station Network, and provided a strong support for CCTV’s live broadcast of China Earthquake Station Network, made an urgent plan of “Non-conditional provision of network bandwidth expansion and technical support”, giving full support to the commanding work of anti-quake and disaster relief conducted by China Seismology Bureau. Currently, the bandwidth for Institute of geology under China Seismology Bureau and Institute of earth-physics under China Seismology Bureau has been expanded from 10M to100M.
As for CNNIC, all the top nodes in different locations were not affected by the quake and operated normally. Its leased line for long-distance disaster-preparing center connected normally. Meanwhile, to ensure that the whole country can concentrate their efforts on fighting the disaster and the smooth Internet communication, and to help the users to avoid the unnecessary loss caused by failing to renew the registration of expired domain names, CNNIC has decided that the expiration date for all the English and Chinese domain names expired between May 13 and June 13, 2008 will be extended for one month.
CNIC has shouldering the important responsibilities of management and services of CSTNET and CNNIC, and the related technical department have monitored and controlled the whole system to ensure the normal operation of the network, and prepared to handle the emergency at any time according to the emergency plan, and at the same time keep smooth communications with Chendu area and all the network administrators of Chendu institutes.
