Photo voltaic Flares Can Lead to of Network Hardware Failures

Did you have any Network Hardware Failures on the night time of August 3 2010? If so, the root trigger may perhaps perhaps have been because of to a photo voltaic storm that directly strike Earth as documented commonly on the information.

NASA astronomers described that on August 1, there was a sizable eruption on the sun that ejected positively charged plasma from it is surface headed instantly towards Earth. These billed particles entered the Earth’s environment a several days later on and collided with oxygen and nitrogen molecules creating what is regarded as cosmic radiation.

Typically, the ambiance of the Earth does a great work of deflecting cosmic radiation on the upper element of the ambiance. That is why the dialogue of electronics failures owing to solar flares or cosmic radiation is often limited to satellites in orbit. Satellites are a lot much more very likely to be hit with the radiation since they are greater up in the atmosphere.

When solar flares are bigger than usual having said that, cosmic radiation can strike the Earth’s surface. Typically, the closer the tools are to the North and South poles, the a lot more susceptible they are to being hit with radiation.

I was functioning for a firm in Chicago a number of many years in the past when we experienced two Cisco Supervisor modules on independent Catalyst 6500 sequence switches die in the identical evening. The components was located in two different destinations with totally distinctive electricity resources. Knowing the failure rate of this tools, acquiring two failures in one evening is extremely exceptional. Following a prolonged investigation by the Cisco technological help crew, it was determined that the failures have been owing to a similar solar flare that strike our internet site with cosmic radiation. At the time, I did not think their explanation, but searching back on it now, it is feasible. In truth, Cisco has cosmic radiation documented as 1 of the leads to of components failures. Network machines these kinds of as high conclusion switches are extra susceptible to cosmic radiation compared to other electronics tools due to the fact of the delicate electronics expected to shift packets at this sort of a high level of pace.

So the subsequent time you see information stories for photo voltaic flares heading toward Earth, hold a shut eye on any hardware difficulties you encounter on your community gear.