[44881] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Single-vendor vs. best-of-breed network
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jon 'tex' Boone)
Fri Dec 21 15:59:16 2001
To: Irwin Lazar <ILazar@burtongroup.com>
Cc: 'Pete Kruckenberg' <pete@kruckenberg.com>, nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <53BBA8839E91D51194D200902728944E65CC9A@host3.tbg.com> (Irwin
Lazar's message of "Fri, 21 Dec 2001 11:16:50 -0700")
From: Jon 'tex' Boone <tex@delamancha.org>
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 15:58:39 -0500
Message-ID: <m3heqkqohs.fsf@amicus.delamancha.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
Irwin Lazar <ILazar@burtongroup.com> writes:
> We find the general trend is to go single-vendor whenever possible,
> primarily to reduce support and management costs.
> Engineers/Operators generally want single vendor, management
> generally wants best of breed (to put pressure on suppliers).
That's ironic. I started out in a multi-vendor environment and for
the last two years I've been working in my first single-vendor
environment.
In all of the multi-vendor environments I worked in, it was the
management pushing for single-vendor (deeper discounts) with the
technical staff pushing for best-of-breed (reduced need for
out-of-hours support).
I think you should get the best of breed for core function devices
(provided you stay within budget). Non-core functions can be from the
same vendor as the core, as long as they are with-in a reasonable
delta from the best-of-breed.
- For WAN purposes, core function is core and distribution routers
and should be best of breed. Customer routers, switches, hubs,
etc. could come from the same vendor or a different one provided
they are of acceptable quality.
- For Enterprise/Data Center environments, core function is more
likely to be distribution router and/or switches, with other
other devices taking back seat in the decision making process.
Multi-vendor environments rule, but are harder to scale with a small
finite-clued staff. :-) Single-vendor environments are easier to
scale in a manner disproportionate to the clue of the staff running
the network.
-jon
--
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Jon Allen Boone
tex@delamancha.org
CCIE #8338
