[149978] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Common operational misconceptions
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brandt, Ralph)
Fri Feb 17 10:02:38 2012
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:01:34 -0500
In-Reply-To: <4F3E69A7.2060008@gmail.com>
From: "Brandt, Ralph" <ralph.brandt@pateam.com>
To: "-Hammer-" <bhmccie@gmail.com>,
<nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Hammer, you are at least 75% right. You will get flamed and in most
cases, the 35 year age is close to right. =20
But then in Programming where I spent most of my IT time since Feb 1963,
few current programmers have skills that they need to be really
successful. Same thing. =20
It is the fault of the educational system like one school district here
that teaches Alice, VB and then two days of C++ to High School Kids.
Heck, they will fiddle with Alice on their own. They need some exposure
to one of the SQL's and how to build some tables, maybe a good script
language, some command line on SQL+ and unix or PostgresSQL and linux if
the school can't afford the unix licenses.=20
The fun and games is more important than the substance and it goes into
the colleges in spades.
BTW, I am a school board member who votes 1:8 often on things.... But
let me give you a perspective, one of the board members called Golf an
"Essential Life Skill." Maybe, but how about balancing a checkbook...
Ralph Brandt
Communications Engineer
HP Enterprise Services
Telephone +1 717.506.0802
FAX +1 717.506.4358
Email Ralph.Brandt@pateam.com
5095 Ritter Rd
Mechanicsburg PA 17055
-----Original Message-----
From: -Hammer- [mailto:bhmccie@gmail.com]=20
Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 9:52 AM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Common operational misconceptions
Let me simplify that. If you are over 35 you know how to troubleshoot.
Yes, I'm going to get flamed. Yes, there are exceptions in both
directions.
-Hammer-
"I was a normal American nerd"
-Jack Herer
On 2/17/2012 8:29 AM, Leo Bicknell wrote:
> In a message written on Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 08:50:11PM -1000, Paul
Graydon wrote:
>> At the same time, it's shocking how many network people I come across
>> with no real grasp of even what OSI means by each layer, even if it's
>> only in theory. Just having a grasp of that makes all the world of
>> difference when it comes to troubleshooting. Start at layer 1 and
work
>> upwards (unless you're able to make appropriate intuitive leaps.) Is
it
>> physically connected? Are the link lights flashing? Can traffic route
to
>> it, etc. etc.
> I wouldn't call it a "misconception", but I want to echo Paul's
> comment. I would venture over 90% of the engineers I work with
> have no idea how to troubleshoot properly. Thinking back to my own
> education, I don't recall anyone in highschool or college attempting
> to teach troubleshooting skills. Most classes teach you how to
> build things, not deal with them when they are broken.
>
> The basic skills are probably obvious to someone who might design
> course material if they sat down and thought about how to teach
> troubleshooting. However, there is one area that may not be obvious.
> There's also a group management problem. Many times troubleshooting
> is done with multiple folks on the phone (say, customer, ISP and
> vendor). Not only do you have to know how to troubleshoot, but how
> to get everyone on the same page so every possible cause isn't
> tested 3 times.
>
> I think all college level courses should include a "break/fix"
> exercise/module after learning how to build something, and much of
that
> should be done in a group enviornment.
>
