Outrageous and worrisome news on this remarkable date! On Sat, Apr 1, 2023, 11:07 a.m. Alex Balashov <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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." > > -- > Alex Balashov > Principal Consultant > Evariste Systems LLC > Web: https://evaristesys.com > Tel: +1-706-510-6800 > > __________________________________________________________ > Kamailio - Users Mailing List - Non Commercial Discussions > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > Important: keep the mailing list in the recipients, do not reply only to > the sender! > Edit mailing list options or unsubscribe: >
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