[EAS] IPAWS RWT for Pacific zone today? Anyone?

[David Turnmire]

On 3/5/2013 4:31 PM, John Petter wrote:
> We have not missed any Monday RWT's as I recall, since we first turned the system up.
>
We haven't missed any on our DASDEC either.  I don't have any idea how 
frequently there is a polling error, as such things don't show up in the 
decoder logs (which just show alerts), and I seldom have reason to 
rummage through any of the other logs.  It apparently occurs sometimes 
because the current status is shown on the CAP configuration page and I 
have occasionally been viewing that page for other reasons and seen it 
hadn't received within the last 30 seconds... but if I look later it is 
polling OK.  Bottom line is that thus far I haven't missed any Monday RWTs.

We also poll the MyStateUSA server and I'm not aware of any polling 
problems there.  One possible consideration is network connectivity 
issues between a given broadcaster and a given CAP server.  Your local 
ISP could be reliable and so could FEMA's... doesn't mean there isn't a 
bad spot somewhere else in between.  And the longer that path, the 
greater the odds of a problem.  For those of us in the northwest, it is 
likely a shorter path from us to the MyStateUSA server (apparently in 
Kansas) than to FEMA's (I presume on east coast).

It is outside my area of expertise, but as I understand it, there is 
technology available to have multiple servers spread geographically, 
with the server "nearest" you automatically being the one you 
communicate with.  That would seem to kill three birds with one stone... 
providing redundancy in case of server problems, improving reliability 
of routine traffic, and keeping a given server from having to support 
the traffic of the entire country.  The latter may not be a big deal for 
"text only" messages, but if IPAWS is to be able to support audio... 
such as would be necessary for EANs... then bandwidth may become an issue.

Dave