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Amadeus is reporting a routing issue this morning between their US operations and certain Canadian Internet Service Providers.

Ths issue is causing problems for some Canadian travel agencies. Agents are reporting problems logging into their GDS and opening/editing PNRs. Some agents are reporting receiving the following error: “Connector: Timeout waiting for a response. 1112″.

Amadeus believes the problem is with an Internet peering point and is working as quickly as possible to resolve the issue.

A peering point is where Internet Service Providers interconnect together to exchange traffic on a peering basis. Without a peering point, traffic on the Internet would never leave your Internet Service Provider’s local network.

1) Bottom right hand corner includes time and date. I never know what the date is, and always found myself “mousing over” the clock to find out what the date was… now I don’t have to, the date is always in the bottom right hand corner of my screen

2) Connect to VPN in 3 clicks. Network access sits in the tray beside the clock. One click opens a network panel, 2nd click on the VPN connection, 3rd click to connect. I don’t save my password, so still have to enter that, but this process is much more streamlined

3) General network connectivity. My notebook barely knew about my home network. I needed to print. I asked it to print from a shared printer on my home network. Windows 7 paused, reflected, downloaded and installed a driver, and then let me print. It was refreshingly easy.

4) Last night, one of my computers updated automatically (it is a test machine, not managed, automatic updates). When I logged into it today, it told me it had been updated, and then reopened all the programs and documents that were open before it decided to update itself. That was refreshing.

These are just 4 things I thought of while working late tonight. I thought I would tell you about them. Customers have been asking about Windows 7, asking if it is _that_ better than Vista… and while I never really had an issue with Vista, I have to say yes, it is better. It is a very nice operating system.

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After dealing with the Sabre reservation system being down system wide this morning, Amadeus Tours went offline at about 1:00pm EST. None of our travel customers are able to log into Amadeus Tours. They are receiving a permissions error.

We have spoken with Amadeus and they have no ETA on resolution.

The ruling has been feared by those in favor of net neutrality, who want all Internet traffic treated equally. However, this ruling puts Internet connections on the same footing as hydro and long distance services, where time of day and type of usage can impact prioritization or cost (think peaksaver programs and after 6pm calling). Prioritizing Internet service in a similar, controlled method may just make downloading episodes of Lost less important than a remote connection to a work computer so you can get your job done. If this ends up being the case, we would applaud the decision.

The CRTC ruling says that throttling can only occur if certain conditions are met, and customers must be notified in advance. Currently we are seeing throttling moved around from location to location with a very wide impact. In particular, we often see all encrypted traffic getting throttled. When we setup a customer to work from home, their connection to their office server is always encrypted, and therefore bandwidth throttling negatively impacts their connection, and the employee’s ability to work. 

The mobile worker trend is continuing to grow. Through mergers, aquisitions and organic growth, we are seeing customers adding employees to their companies without expanding their workspace. We are hoping the CRTC ruling will cause ISP’s to advance the technologies they are using to throttle traffic, and not restrict the relatively low bandwidth remote worker technologies. Time will tell.

If you have been on the Internet for any length of time, surely you have seen similar emails asking you to click and provide your bank details. While this particular ring has been dismantled, nearly 50,000 new phishing websites were setup globally in just the month of June, according to the article.

Banks typically do not email their customers, and each bank has information on their website with regards to their specific policy. Some examples are below:

• TD Canada Trust
• Scotiabank
• Bank Of Montreal
• CIBC
• RBC

The moral of the story is as always; don’t trust that unsolicited emails are legitimate, always go directly to your bank’s website to login (not via a link in an email) and use antiphishing and antispam software to protect your identity.

The average malware infection can cause a few hours of lost productivity. A severe infection could cost significantly more. Make sure you know what software is protecting your PC, and what measures are in place to protect your network as a whole. Make sure you know how to monitor those protection mechanisms to see when a problem occurs. GearyTech’s managed services customers are able to take advantage of GearyTech’s managed anti-virus solutions to protect their networks. Our managed anti-virus product is monitored for infection alerts by our technicians, and action can be taken remotely should a problem arise. If you aren’t sure what protects you, ask your IT department. Ensure your network is protected properly so that your PC isn’t part of the statistics on PandaLabs’ next report.

Amadeus appears to be back online. Amadeus customers should now be able to log in and access the Amadeus GDS. GearyTech customers that continue to have problems with Amadeus should please contact the GearyTech help desk.

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Customers that utilize the Amadeus GDS are reporting that they are unable to log into Amadeus this morning. GearyTech has spoken with Amadeus support who confirms that Amadeus services are currently down. When trying to log into Amadeus, the “Loading…” screen is shown, but the log in process never progresses beyond this point:

Amadeus does not currently have an estimated time to a resolution. There are no changes that Amadeus customers need to make on their side at this time. Unfortunately, Amadeus is asking their customers to simply wait it out. Amadeus Support suggests that customers continue to attempt to access Amadeus every 30 minutes until they are able to log in.

• fpnet.galileo.com
• fpvpn.galileo.com
• fppptp.galileo.com
• gids.galileo.com
• gids1.galileo.com

If your Contivity VPN Client is setup to use one of the above addresses, you must change your address prior to October 1, 2009 to prevent interruptions to your Galileo service. Depending on the type of connection that your agency uses, you will need to use one of the addresses below:

• fpnetipsec.galileo.com   (used for IPSEC connection types)
• fpnetnatt.galileo.com   (used for IPSEC/NAT-Traversal connection types)
• gidsvpn.galileo.com   (used for Galileo IDS connection types)

If you are unsure which type of connection your agency uses, please contact the GearyTech help desk, or your Galileo representative.

To check your destination address, simply launch the Contivity VPN Client and examine the contents of the Destination field:

If your destination requires updating, simply delete the contents of the Destination field and type in the new destination address that your agency is using.

GearyTech customers who require assistance updating their Galileo Contivity VPN Client configurations can contact the GearyTech help desk. More information on the required changes can be found on the Galileo Support Center site at support.travelport.com.

Out of band patches are typically critical in nature and require our immediate attention. GearyTech will provide further information to customers on our Managed Services platform as soon as it is known.

For those who relied on the 416 number as a toll-free connection to GearyTech, you can use our 647 number or our toll free 888 number. Both can be found on our contact page on our website.