[44657] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Network Operations Luminaries?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Miles Fidelman)
Fri Dec 7 10:48:12 2001
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 10:47:18 -0500 (EST)
From: Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@civicnet.org>
To: <nanog@merit.edu>
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On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, Pete Kruckenberg wrote:
> Though I can name off several 'credentialed' network
> engineering gurus and the 'bibles' of network engineering, a
> recent discussion about the source of network operations
> 'best practices' left me speechless, and curious.
>
> Who is/are the network operations equivalents of people like
> Peter Drucker and Jack Welch--people who are looked at not
> only has role models for operations success, but as
> luminaries in the industry for having established and
> educated the masses about best practices?
A very intersting question. I too can think of people, books, and
practices that lay out best practices for network design, but not
operations. [One can argue that if those practices are followed,
operations becomes simple - but, as we all know, that 's not the case].
I can also think of a few people who can be considered luminaries as
regards network security - Cliff Stoll, Mark Eichin and Jon Rochlis, and
more recently, the CERT organization.
But for general operations, your statement seems to hold true:
> Most network-oriented training seems to focus on the
> technology, not on operations (and those subtle but ever so
> critical differences between knowing how something is
> /supposed/ to work and how it /really/ works, and all of the
> effort it takes to create a smooth-running operations
> engine).
>
> What are the network operations equivalents to business
> programs such as Six Sigma? What about something similar to
I recall a lot of very good people from my days at BBN, and we certainly
developed a lot of internal policies and procedures - particularly for our
government customers, who tend to insist on such things. I expect there ar
also a lot of people, policies, and procedures hidden within various
carriers, ISPs, and corporate IT/networking departments - but a lot of
that doesn't get visibility, at least in part because carriers tend to
consider such things to be proprietary information.
We really do need such information.
Miles Fidelman
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