[53796] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Spanning tree melt down ?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen J. Wilcox)
Wed Nov 27 11:06:48 2002
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 16:06:13 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Stephen J. Wilcox" <steve@telecomplete.co.uk>
To: Joe Abley <jabley@isc.org>
Cc: Marshall Eubanks <tme@multicasttech.com>, nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <5C492038-0220-11D7-ADCE-00039312C852@isc.org>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
Sure, which is why
"Within a few hours, Cisco Systems, the hospital's network provider, was loading
thousands of pounds of network equipment onto an airplane in California, bound "
seems somewhat excessive! :)
and
"The crisis began on a Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 13, and lasted nearly four
days"
sounds like an opportunity for any consultants on nanog who have half a clue
about how to setup a LAN!
Steve
On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, Joe Abley wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, Nov 27, 2002, at 10:25 Canada/Eastern, Stephen J. Wilcox
> wrote:
>
> > Hmm, well until the comment about STP it sounded like the guy did
> > something
> > stupid on a program/database on a mainframe..
> >
> > I cant see how STP could do this or require that level of DR. Perhaps
> > its just
> > the scapegoat for the Doc's mistake which he didnt want to admit!
>
> If it's anything like any other layer-2 IT network meltdown I've seen,
> it'll be some combination of:
>
> + no documentation on what the network looks like, apart from a large
> yellow autocad diagram which was stapled to the wall in the basement
> wiring closet in 1988
>
> + a scarcity of diagnostic tools, and no knowledge of how to use the
> ones that do exist
>
> + complete ignorance of what traffic flows when the network is not
> broken
>
> + a cable management standard that was first broken in 1988 and has
> only been used since to pad out RFPs
>
> + consideration to network design which does not extend beyond the
> reassuring knowledge that the sales guy who sold you the hardware
> is a good guy, and will look after you
>
> + random unauthorised insertion of hubs and switches into the fabric
> by users who got fed up of waiting eight months to get another
> ethernet port installed in their lab
>
> + customers who have been trained by its vendors to believe that
> certification is more important than experience
>
> + customers who believe in the cost benefit of a large distributed
> layer-2 network over a large distributed (largely self-documenting)
> layer-3 network.
>
> Just another day at the office.
>
>
> Joe
>
>
