It’s nearly impossible to automatically parse network maintenance notices from internet providers. Let me tell you about a few ways providers mess this up!

I was driven to create this article after receiving a network maintenance notice, which my parsing code rejected. The problem today? The maintenance was to begin and end at 6:00 GMT. Even the most trivial maintenance activities take a minute or two, but this escaped their system and found its way to my parsing code. Sadly this isn’t unusual.

What will it take for providers to send maintenance notices that can be parsed by a mere mortal?

Continue reading “The Sorry State of Network Maintenance Notices” →