[44878] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Single-vendor vs. best-of-breed network
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Marc Pierrat)
Fri Dec 21 15:35:48 2001
From: "Marc Pierrat" <marc@sunchar.com>
To: "Pete Kruckenberg" <pete@kruckenberg.com>
Cc: <nanog@merit.edu>
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 15:35:41 -0500
Message-ID: <NFBBKCHEKLKMKJELNNPPEEDHCDAA.marc@sunchar.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="Windows-1252"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.30.0112211042430.9291-100000@minot.kruckenberg.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
>What, if anything, makes a multi-vendor (wide-area) network
>successful and worth the risks over the "safe" single-vendor
>network nobody gets fired for buying (you can probably guess
>what vendor Powers my network now).=20
I like thinking of where an organization wants to be on a risk/reward =
spectrum. Newer and/or point solution vendors exist to leapfrog the =
status quo and give you an advantage, which they do very well. This is =
particularly true on the optical side, where lasers, components, and =
software have all changed dramatically. The price you pay is risk. If =
you don't have capacity problems or take an incumbent role, then you =
would prefer a defensive, conservative strategy favoring the =
single-vendor solution.
Smaller providers wanting to do more for less or be more aggressive in =
general would prefer the best in breed because of a higher risk =
tolerance and greater desire to advance the network.
Take this risk/reward concept and combine with some of the other posts =
and I can imagine a spreadsheet or graph that matches your company =
objectives (ie: double capacity) with vendor capabilities, reputation, =
etc. that lets you assess your risk tolerance quantitatively.
Hope this helps.
Marc Pierrat
marc@sunchar.com
