IT system users around the world will be able to check the performance of their web servers in Y2K survival competition with others from New Zealand to New Jersey, thanks to a German web site. Marc Waesche, whose days are usually spent reporting German news on his port1.de site, set up Inferno2000, a free service, just for fun.
Waesche expects to enlist as many as 100,000 firms for the Inferno2000 service. He will ping data packets at corporate web servers to establish whether they are up and running in a simple yes/no response. Waesche created the site this week and says he has been surprised by the amount of interest. He is already in talks with Deutsche Telekom to switch the network traffic away from his 32 megabit pipeline onto Deutsche Telekom’s backbone network, lest the Y2K peepshow – www.inferno2000.de – become a victim of its own success.
Inferno2000 will be reporting on web server shutdowns which will start when New Zealand passes into January 1. Waesche is aiming to make checks every 10 seconds, but it depends on how many web sites he has to check.
Waesche will not make any money from the venture, but says he may enlist advertisers for a similar service on February 29 when IT systems have to deal with the leap year. As to why he’s set up Inferno2000, Waesche is very clear: It’s funny when you’re sitting in your office and watching your performance monitor. Who says Germans have no sense of humor?
