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(U) Losing Traffic and Wondering Why?
FROM: Janice Strauss
Deputy Chief, CSRC's Office of Targeting and Mission Management (S3C3)
Run Date: 12/13/2005
(C//SI) Maybe a collection outage was to blame -- and there's an easy way to find out...
(C//SI) Have you ever wondered why your collection wasn't arriving as anticipated? Eventually,
you might learn from a co-worker that a collection site was undergoing maintenance or a
processing system had a problem. The CSRC Resource Outage Coordination Center (ROCC) and
the Collection Officer in NSOC document this information in the SPRINGRAY database that
records, stores, and alerts you to upcoming and past outages.
(C//SI) This excellent resource is readily available to determine if there have been any
collection, forwarding or processing related outages impacting a target or collection site. If
you're curious how often outages actually occur, for CY 2005, SPRINGRAY currently contains
more than 4,220 collection, forwarding or processing outages.
(C//SI) Can you imagine not taking care of your car? Routine maintenance may be postponed
but eventually you'll pay the unhappy and expensive price if you put it off too long. This is
analogous to the status of equipment and systems found throughout NSA's global enterprise.
Since September 2001, many routine maintenance procedures were neglected to ensure we
remained vigilant to the Global Threat of Terror . As a result, we must perform these
maintenance tasks now or suffer the inevitable consequences: degradation or complete loss of
equipment. Most of these tasks require downtime to be performed, and it's the enormous task of
the ROCC to coordinate outage requests within SID and with Enterprise customers to help
alleviate lost collection. SPRINGRAY is now being used to notify customers around the world
about maintenance and other system outages.
(C//SI) On 26 September, a new version of the SPRINGRAY tool was launched with many new
upgrades that enhance the collection outage coordination and reporting process. Easier to
navigate, this improved tool will help you track past outages and enable you to prepare for
upcoming outages. You will be able to determine if there are any conflicts, and provide
necessary mitigation for any lost collection. This should be especially helpful to analysts who find
that they are missing hours of traffic. Instead of looking for the lost traffic in a burn bag or
calling for help, you can query the SPRINGRAY database for the SIGAD of the site in which
you're interested to determine if it was down in some capacity. All you need to access this tool
are three things:
1. JAVA 1.4 or higher
2. A PKI certificate
3. A SRINGRAY account (available upon request on the web page)
(U//FOUO) Needless to say, while the size of the ROCC is very small, its task is daunting:
making sure that data that impacts mission reaches its intended destination. By regularly
accessing SPRINGRAY and remaining alert for Agency email notices, you can stay aware of
pending outages and assist the ROCC in accomplishing its challenging mission. To get started,
just enter " Go SPRINGRAY " in your web browser and outage information will be yours for the
asking.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108