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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN
style='font-size:12.0pt'>http://www.voip-news.com<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN
style='font-size:12.0pt'>April 14, 2006<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Several hundred NASA employees were forced to rely on
personal cell phones and PDAs Wednesday when a new VoIP system shut down at
their <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Washington</st1:City> <st1:State
w:st="on">D.C.</st1:State></st1:place> headquarters.<br>
<br>
The system outage, which occurred at approximately 1:30 p.m., April 12,
disabled the phone system and all computer networking for several hours. While
technicians were able to reinstate network connectivity by 3 p.m., VoIP phone
service did not return until 7:30 p.m.<br>
<br>
"The technicians were doing standard configurations and adding new users
when the system shut down," said Sonja Alexander, spokesperson for NASA.
"But, during the outage, key NASA employees were able to continue working
by using their cell phones."<br>
<br>
According to an internal NASA memo circulated the following day, the system
shutdown occurred when a contracted technician inadvertently deleted the entire
NASA Headquarters VoIP user database while adding 19 new VoIP user accounts to
the system. Although a safety net is built into the system, and a warning
question appeared advising against the action, "the technician answered
the question incorrectly," the memo said.<br>
<br>
NASA headquarters began installing the VoIP system in January, a project that
is expected to be finished sometime this month. Spokesperson Alexander said
that, in response to the shutdown, a series of safety measures are being put
into place to ensure against future malfunctions, as well as to reduce recovery
time should another one take place. <br>
<br>
"I know that we are creating additional procedural changes so that, if
something happened again, the system would be restored more quickly," she
said.</span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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