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• What's Not Happening - Broken Backbone
• Fast.Serv

What's Not Happening -
Broken Backbone

WHAT'S NOT HAPPENING
There isn't always something happening on Fidonet, but
there's always something which isn't happening. This
column is dedicated to the lost causes which make Fido
what it isn't today. Published semi-occasionally...

BROKEN BACKBONE
Douglas Myers, 1:270/720, doug@mdtnbbs.com

After George Peace resigned as zone hub and disconnected from John Souvestre (for echomail, anyway), several participants in the BACKBONE echo pronounced the North American Backbone "broken." It's been hard to detect at this node - echomail has been coming in and going out at a seemingly undiminished rate, and all the echomail here flows through George's system.

As a confirmed echomail junkie, I've attempted to follow the bloated BACKBONE echomail conference to get some idea as to what's going on. It's somewhat like panning for gold in the local Susquehanna River - I need to push through a lot of mud and debris to uncover a rare nugget. Some nuggets I've uncovered:

• George is still an ZHUB, but he's no longer a NAB ZHUB. The main distinction between the two is that a ZHUB merely moves the mail, but NAB ZHUBS take on other obligations being revealed gradually by John Souvestre. The only solid information I can offer at this point is that NAB ZHUBS follow published routing charts (most of the time) to move netmail.
• Of the major mail movers, George and John don't want to work together, Bob and John don't want to work together, and Ken wishes everyone would just get along.
• Up until recently, George retained his connections to Bob Seaborn and Ken Wilson and continued to supply all his downlinks with echomail, with no apparant loss of mail. However, dupes started appearing on John Souvestre's system, caused by the fact that mail sent through George's system no longer contained John's node number in the seen-by lines. This caused the tossing software at Bob's and Ken's system to BOTH pack echomail messages for John. As nearly as I can tell from the conversation, dupe detectors at John's system prevented these duplicates from flowing to his downlinks. George has since relinked echomail to John's system, presumably to prevent the duplicate generation which results if he doesn't.

The BACBONE isn't broken yet, but it seems like a marriage in trouble. The trial seperation didn't work out as the partners found that they have to work together, but they still haven't worked out a reconciliation.

Fast.Serv

Hello,

If you haven't yet heard of Fast Engines, Inc. or Fast.Serv, wel hello, hello. Fast.Serv is the Web server plug-in that turbo charges Web performance.

Fast.Serv has been be praised and welcomed with open arms in the booming Web technology arena. Companies such as Morgan Stanley, The Weather Channel, CNNfn, The Vanguard Group, Hewlett Packard, BBC and many more are implementing Fast.Serv to keep up with their ever increasing demands for speed and performance on their Web sites. And as the Worldwide Web continues to grow Fast Engines, Inc. will continue to provide effective, efficient and eloquent solutions for Web speed to the Web technology community.

As a respected member of high tech press, I am sending you a pre-release of a press release from Government Securities Clearance Corporation regarding their success and implementation of Fast.Serv. The release is scheduled for distribution by PRNewswire on February 3rd, 1999.

Fast.Serv is an amazingly versatile product due in part to being based on the open standard protocol FastCGI. You may have read Jonathan Roy's article in Web Review (http://webreview.com/wr/pub/98/12/04/feature/index.html [faulty URL [jb 4/25/01]] http://www.webreview.com/1998/12_04/developers/12_04_98_1.shtml) last month describing the benefits of FastCGI over CGI. Fast.Serv is now available for both Netscape and Microsoft Web servers with versions for Apache and O'Reilly servers on the way. It also runs on all Unix platforms as well as Windows NT. For more information regarding Fast.Serv please visit Fast Engines' site at http://www.fastengines.com.

I am looking forward to discussing Fast.Serv with you. Please contact me by email (roz@fastengines.com) or telephone 617 491-3333 with the best way and time to reach you.

Best Regards,

Roz Chapman
Director of Communications
Fast Engines, Inc.
Tel 617 491-3333
Fax 617 491-9933

For Immediate Release

Subject:

Government Securities Clearance Corporation implements Fast Engines Inc.'s Fast.Serv FastCGI software to ensure lightning fast Web site response.

Contact:

Alan L. Kosow, Fast Engines, Inc., 617-491-3333 / alan@fastengines.com

NEW YORK, NY, February 3, 1999 -- Government Securities Clearance Corporation (GSCC) today announced that it will be utilizing Fast Engines' Fast.Serv FastCGI software product to enhance its Web server performance.

"GSCC is moving rapidly to deliver information using Web technology to its participant community, which consists of approximately 100 of the major Wall Street firms. Due to the anticipated high volume and complexityof these Web based information requests, GSCC needed to provide its users with rapid, reliable connections and information." Said Sal Matera, a Vice President at GSCC.

"The Fast.Serv product gives GSCC the tools it needs to be successful in developing Web based application software and frameworks. Unlike expensive application servers, Fast.Serv provides the capability to leverage on existing software and hardware investment and expertise. The product allows for the initialization and establishment of persistent connections to databases and Corba servers BEFORE the client accesses our site. The result is that we are able to turn page requests around on our Digital Alpha servers very quickly. Fast.Serv was the right choice for the development process and fits well into GSCC's technology infrastructure." Continued Matera.

About GSCC
GSCC is the leading provider of centralized trade comparison, netting, in the world's largest marketplace. In 1998, GSCC processed more than $200 trillion in U.S. Government securities. It continually seeks to provide the latest technological advances to its Participants without compromising the stability and reliability of its systems.

About Fast Engines, Inc.
Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Fast Engines is the leader in developing and marketing high performance middleware tools for accelerating Web based applications. Fast Engines' Fast.Serv product for Netscape [NASDAQ:NS CP] and Microsoft [NASDAQ:MSFT] servers is being used by dozens of high traffic Web sites within Fortune 500 companies including The New York Times [NYSE:NYT], Morgan Stanley [NYSE:MWD], Lockheed Martin [NYSE:LMT], A.G. Edwards [NYSE:AGE], and Ziff Davis [NYSE:ZD]. For more information see the Fast Engines homepage at http://www.fastengines.com.