[52637] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: UUNET is not the Internet (and neither is AOL)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Petri Helenius)
Mon Oct 7 16:34:51 2002
From: "Petri Helenius" <pete@he.iki.fi>
To: <davei@algx.net>, "Tim Thorne" <tim.thorne@btinternet.com>
Cc: <nanog@merit.edu>, <sean@donelan.com>
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2002 23:32:23 +0300
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
> The assumption that it was untested is probably an unfair one. Once a
> network reaches a certain size, it is very difficult to simulate it in
> a lab. Number of routes/updates, variety of packet destinations,
> different card revisions and layouts... heck, even statistically, you
> have problems. An issue that appears 5% of the time will only show up
> in a a 10-router test lab half the time, but in a 400-router network
> it'll pop up on about 20 routers and wreck your whole day. And when
> you're out of cash, you can't really afford to devote lots of hardware
> to a lab.
>
Having a lab does help you but usually (this might be different if you
are WorldCom) vendors are not too interested in fixing problems you
unearth in a lab but instead only agree to raise priority of issues if their
boxes fail in production. Iīve been hearing that the change in economic
situation has been improving the response, but havenīt tried it personally.
Not too many years back, a "P2 case" could take a year to get a fix where
"P3" rested in never-never land longer. "P1" worked.
Pete
