SlickO's Site - TSN Visit

Time	Event
8:50am	Steve Ryan, Paul Meta and myself met at Caltex.
9:05am	Steve rang Nuke to see where he was (it was thought that possibly Bruce Anderson might also show up)
9:06am	We decided to give the boys (and any other possible suspects) time to show up – this time involved having breakfast…a great plan to start the day!
9:20am	The three of us left Caltex Highway Restaurant (Macksville) and headed for Port Macquarie in Steve’s car.
10:40am	We arrived at TSN (185 Lake Road) and rang Nuke – again no answer, upon closer inspection noticed that Shane Poole and Trevor Baxtor were already there and waiting. (also it was thought by all that Kalina was cute…)
10:45am	We got the friendly TSN helpdesk staff to ring Ken Saunders so he could lead us to the mystery location which housed the server room (and apparently a well used mattress – we’ll explain later)
10:50am	The two car’s (Steve’s and Trevor’s) followed Ken through the busy Port Macquarie traffic – kinda like a rally track with heaps of obstacles, wrong turns – you get the idea…
11:00am	We all arrived TSN’s Server Room (basically a small office with say 10 or so computers and heaps of cabling.) Over the next hour and a half we got the chance to talk to both Ken and Michael Saunders, who explained the workings of the ISP (Internet Service Provider) and who were more than happy to answer any questions we had. It was very appreciated by the small group (five in total) for Ken and Michael to give up their Sundays for a guided tour of their workplace. (thanks guys)
12:30pm	We all (sadly) left the server room with a much better insight into TSN and just how much effort goes into such an excellent ISP.
12:35pm	After the thankyous and blessings Trevor and Shane headed off for home, however Steve, Paul and myself re-visited the TSN shop (opposite Harvey Norman) to purchase some heavily discounted (and very current) DVD titles...(and have one last look at Kalina. – ed. Note :^)

TSN (The Saunders Network) started approximately three years ago by Michael, who basically hired an ISDN line and rented it to a group of his mates. After the initial success, Michael re-invested the money made back into bigger and better things (aka TSN as seen today)

The server room is a bunch of networked PC’s running Linux and Windows 2000 Server, all powered by an APC “Power Symmetra” UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). - see below

Currently TSN is has just finished upgrading their network topology to a complete LAN based system (whereby all POP’s now have "at least" a 2mb backbone in and out - which is great for gamers and those who download!)

Above: One of the servers (this one is actually a gaming server) Left to Right: Shane, Michael, Trevor

Below: Michael showing us some of the TSN usage stats. (You are welcome to visit “status.tsn.cc” to view current statistics. e.g. usage logs)

(notice the coffee) This desk is where all the programming is done. (and not to far away is that mattress for the frequent over-nighters. As you can imagine a lot of effort goes into this great ISP.)

Above: Just some of the many cables that are in the room.

Below: Michael showing us the mail server - he explains that its probably the busiest machine in the room.

In this system say Stuarts Point might start to bog down, while Port Macquarie is only using half its bandwidth allocation. Half an hour later the roles might be reversed. This makes it quite frustrating trying to manage the network.

All Pops share the same bandwidth. If one POP is not utilising their share of the bandwidth it will immediately be taken up by another POP if they need it. The new network dramatically improved the ping time for gamers operating in both Stuarts Point and Pacific Palms.

It is also much easier for us to manage this new system, since extra bandwidth can be added within 24 hours and it becomes available to all Pops.

This option has never been available to us before and we are certainly making the most of our new network.

Statistics: Internet Statistics (from Bureau of Statistics - March Quarter 2001.)

If your not into numbers don't go any further... These figures and also June quarter when released will be affected by large Service Providers collapsing. This quarter most of the free Internet providers went down. Next quarter it's another big supplier (One Net) biting the bullet.

Term	Meaning
TSN	The Saunders Network
POP	Point of Presence
ISDN	Integrated Services Digital Network
PSTN	Public Switched Telephone Network
UPS	Uninterruptible Power Supply
LAN	Local Area Network
WAN	Wide Area Network
ISP	Internet Service Provider
DVD	Digital Video Disk / Digital Versatile Disk
Coffee	Great substitute for lack of sleep! (best if filtered through hot water)

	This thing is huge - and can power the entire operation for hours (it cost $30,000, which they were lucky to score at a good price, as it is ex Olympic surplus equipment.)
Steve holding one of the possible 12 batteries. (NB: don't let the picture, and Steve's strength, fool you - this thing is darn heavy, about say 3-4 car batteries.) Left to right: Michael, Ken, Paul, Steve and Shane.

	This picture show the DNS and the "Kick" server.
More network cables and machines (good idea to store them this way - easily accessible)