RFC440 - Scheduled network software maintenance

Network Working Group David C. Walden

RFC#440 BBN-NET

NIC #13772 January 1973

Updates: 381,406

Scheduled Network Software Maintenance

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As eXPlained in RFC381, we believe that we can minimize

the disruption caused by the release of new IMP software systems by

doing them on a regularly scheduled basis. In the past we have

reserved the one hour period from 7am until 8am every Tuesday morning

for our IMP system scheduled software maintenance period. As the size

of the network has grown to about forty IMPs, we find we can no longer

complete a system release to all IMPs in the one hour scheduled.

Therefore, we are extending our scheduled software maintenance period

to two hours from 7am until 9am eastern time every Tuesday

morning. The extended period will take effect as of the first Tuesday

in February. As we said in RFC381, we will not always use the

Tuesday morning period, but we always reserve it. On Tuesday mornings

when we _do_ use the scheduled software maintenance period, a type 2 IMP

to Host message* will be sent to all Hosts about an hour in advance of

the period.

We understand that the software maintenance period cannot

continue to grow linearly with the number of IMPs, and we will find a

way around this problem before software releases start taking 168

hours a week.

*An IMP-GOING-DOWN-FOR-SCHEDULED-SOFTWARE-MAINTENANCE message.

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