Telstra

Robots to monitor Telstra websites
Kate Mackenzie, JULY 19, 2002 , Australian IT Web Magazine

TELSTRA has created an ambitious monitoring system to oversee the performance of its network uptime.
A network of 43 dumb terminals throughout Australia will poll both Telstra's own websites and those it hosts for other companies, to test response times and locate the source of problems causing outages.
The terminals - 28 of which are in regional areas - will connect to Telstra's servers via several different means, including ADSL, satellite and dial-up internet. However they will not connect via third-party providers such as other ISPs.

The terminals will be monitored from Telstra's Global Operations Centre in Melbourne.
Telstra is hoping the system will address some problems which have struck its home customers as well as providing extra monitoring of sites owned by its large web-hosting clients.

Telstra's own Bigpond internet access customers, who are given some personal web-hosting space, have suffered outages and in one case, deletion of entire websites.

Testra infrastructure spokesman Nick Green said the deployment, which uses equipment manufactured by US company Mercury and was implmemented by TESCOM, was probably unique.

"In the sense of the actual scale of this, it's probably a first of its own in the world," Mr Green said. If you look at some of the companies in America like Bell South, they just do not have the geographic scale of customers that Telstra does."