My thoughts and prayers are with ordinary hard-working German families as they navigate this unprecedented national calamity together. May they find tranquility and calm, and may there be peace on this earth.
— Sent from mobile, apologies for brevity and errors. > On Apr 1, 2023, at 10:59 AM, Markus via VoiceOps <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Saw the conference. It's all over the news here right now. > > Tough times ahead. Good luck to us. > > Greetings from Germany. > > > :-D > >> Am 01.04.2023 um 10:24 schrieb Alex Balashov via VoiceOps: >> For immediate release: >> ATLANTA, GA (1 April 2023)--The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and >> Energy of Germany was forced to disclose today that it has been tasked with >> assessing whether Germany will be able to operate its Kamailio through the >> next >> winter. >> This initiative comes amidst considerable uncertainty, shared in some other >> EU >> member states, about whether the enormous fossil fuel energy footprint of >> Kamailio is sustainable after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. >> Pioneering Atlanta energy market analysts Evariste Systems were tapped to >> assist with forecasting whether German strategic natural gas reserves and >> liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports could keep Kamailio's enormous turbines >> spinning under a variety of stress-test scenarios outlined by regulators, >> including SIPP and SIPVicious. >> Alex Balashov, Evariste's principal, said in a news conference earlier this >> week: >> "Simply put, the political leadership wanted a dispassionate, technocratic >> kind >> of analysis, data-driven and the rest, free of the inflection of ideological >> bias and tendentious policy angles in charged German domestic >> politics. Whether it's the centre-right or the Greens, there are strong ideas >> about what to do with energy-greedy megaprojects like Kamailio." >> Florida-based energy turnaround vet Fred Posner, parachuted in to assist with >> the fast-tracked study, agreed: >> "It's well-understood that the German GDP is almost a perfectly linear >> function >> of gross annual SIP packets routed. The Nord Stream 1 shut-off situation in >> September only exposed Germany to further Kamailio-related energy >> vulnerabilities." >> At issue are the basic physics of SIP message routing in Kamailio. Due to a >> fixed-size worker process pool, Kamailio routing consumes about 1500 BTUs per >> packet-kilometre travelled. While 1500 BTUs/packet-kilometre is efficient in >> distance terms as compared to a typical automobile, which consumes roughly >> 3800 >> BTUs of fossil fuel energy per passenger-kilometre travelled (at typical load >> factors), the dizzying number of SIP packets routed through German territory >> in >> a typical business day greatly outstrips passenger-kilometres travelled. >> Balashov noted that sometimes, the activation energy requirement can be >> higher >> than 1500 BTUs when INVITEs with large SDPs are launched toward the next hop, >> though this varies with the altitude of the destination above mean sea level, >> wind direction, weather and other factors involved in ballistics. >> "It's a bit of a fool's errand to play these guessing games with averages. >> The >> energy budget can vary enormously depending on whether there is DTLS, video >> codecs, PASSporTs and other stuff. I find it helpful to think in >> kilowatt-hour >> terms: sometimes it's less than half a kWh, so like US $0.20 if you're >> counting >> the beans, and sometimes it's more like $0.38, we just don't know. The >> Bundestag always wants these big, round numbers, but if you've ever looked at >> the TM module, you know that's not how this works." >> A milder-than-expected winter, a 9% year-over-year increase in US LNG exports >> (to about 300 million cubic metres per day) in 2022, dependable imports from >> Norway and the Netherlands, and other favourable factors gave German SIP >> regulators a reprieve. Despite energy market volatility, premium LNG spot >> prices, and occasional 408 Request Timed Out scenarios, the country dodged a >> widely-feared Kamailio energy crisis. However, it is difficult to say whether >> energy market conditions will be as propitious next year. >> "Then there's the whole climate change goals thing. Nobody even wants to talk >> about that, especially for the WebRTC gateway side," says Posner. >> "There's a persistent fantasy that we can just power Kamailio with solar or >> wind if we just had enough generating capacity. I think that's really missing >> the forest for the trees. The worker processes stay running whether you need >> them or not, it all depends on how many listeners you have set and what the >> children config value is. Either way, I've got two words for you: base load. >> Even if we completely ignore that the energy density is just not there per >> hectare of solar or wind installation, how do you provide the constant power >> to >> the child processes?" >> Past feasibility studies published jointly by Balashov and Posner support >> this >> assessment. One such study, initiated in 2018 and concluded during the >> COVID-19 >> global pandemic, found that an area equivalent to the size of the entire >> state >> of North Rhine-Westphalia would need to be devoted to batteries, even using >> the >> latest lithium ferrous phosphate (LFP) technology. >> "But wait, there's more!" says Posner: "Show me the amperage." >> "The packet forwarding mechanism is similar to a railgun, at least if you're >> doing stateful. Where are you going to get the millions of amps? It's either >> setting up huge banks of capacitors god-knows-where, or the pulsed power >> system >> that's undergirded by the original OpenSER turbines. I think we already know >> the answer to that." >> Balashov noted that, even beyond the political and economic challenges that >> Kamailio downtime would introduce, there are other tightropes to walk. As the >> most economically dynamic, export-oriented EU member state, Germany is prone >> to >> flirt with SIP proxy privatisation schemes in its national discourse, all >> while >> messaging a stronger Euro to the ECB. >> "There is a vocal minority," says Balashov, "who push for research into more >> modular, regionally sited SIP gateways. They're always talking about >> sclerotic, >> unresponsive federal regulations and listless, bumbling Brussels bureaucrats >> and making it all smaller and leaner. Listen, I'm all for the Invisible Hand, >> but setting the Request URI and adding custom headers requires a truly >> integrated, national-scale infrastructure. It's the stuff of public-private >> partnerships and megaprojects. Even if you're a market zealot who is not sold >> on basic INVITEs as a public good, think about Presence or IMS. You really >> need >> the full capacity of a nation-state on deck for that." >> If devolution to smaller, more numerous SIP routing sites is not feasible--at >> least, at the unit cost and reliability level demanded by advanced >> economies--then excessive complexity offers a cautionary tale from the >> opposite >> extreme. >> In a particularly notorious example of technical and policy failure, the >> Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), following the guidance of >> northern Californian advisors Unicorn & Moonshot, attempted to scale down >> traditional Kamailio turbine blades into newer, so-called Kubernetes "Pod" >> chasses to increase exhaust recapture. This made for a much more intricate >> installation with an exponential growth of moving parts, telemetry and site >> support skill requirements. This proved unmanageable, and the now-famous >> explosion that followed the deterioration of the site led to unprecedented >> casualties in US history. Furthermore, it also resulted in the long-term >> humidification of large expanses of East Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and >> southern Alabama, rendering most of these areas uninhabitable. These events >> discredited the Unicorn & Moonshot approach in the eyes of most industry >> analysts. >> While it will take some months for Evariste to reach a conclusion regarding >> the >> resilience of the German Kamailio through the winter and beyond, and it will >> take still longer to issue policy recommendations, one factor is universally >> agreed upon already: this prolonged test of Germany's resilience is part of a >> Russian strategic calculation. >> A conservative MP from the CDU/CSU faction of the Bundestag, speaking on >> condition of anonomity, offered this summary: "The Russians think they can >> wait >> this out. They are waiting for us to fold and switch to an OpenSIPS reactor, >> knowing full well this will keep us busy with troubleshooting and diminish >> our >> ability to support Ukraine militarily." > > _______________________________________________ > VoiceOps mailing list > [email protected] > https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list [email protected] https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
