[86489] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Networking Pearl Harbor in the Making
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Blaine Christian)
Mon Nov 7 12:33:28 2005
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0511071700070.22139@parapet.argfrp.us.uu.net>
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
From: Blaine Christian <blaine@blaines.net>
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 12:33:03 -0500
To: "Christopher L. Morrow" <christopher.morrow@mci.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
>>>
>>> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/110405-juniper-cisco-
>>> hacker.html
>> Cisco, Juniper, or vendor "X". We all benefit by having "genetic
>> diversity" in our routing/switching systems. I have been bit hard,
>> as many of us on this thread have been bit, by bugs in vendor
>> software/hardware. Support your IETF! Don't use proprietary
>> protocols and insist on interoperability. If you have the
>> wherewithal install at least two different vendors for your critical
>> services. Then make them play nice together!
>
> How do the operators/engineers explain to 'management', or whomever
> asks,
> the 'training issues' that always crop up when more than one vendor
> are
> proposed? Has anyone had good luck with this arguement? (my answer
> is sort
> of along the lines of: "Its just a router, no matter the vendor and
> they
> all have command-line help" but that's not always recieved well :) )
>
> Just curious as I'm sure there are folks stuck in an all vendor X
> shop who
> look over the electronic fence and see vendor Y with 'so much
> better' or
> 'so much faster' or 'so much more blinkly lighty'... and try to
> have their
> management agree to purchasing new devices :)
Well, the last time I just whined a lot ? <grin>
Seriously, we actually put together a presentation that described a
series of major events that have occurred through the use of
monoculture networks/systems and stated that for many financial/
security reasons it is best to maintain at least two vendors.
We covered the following
o Security Implications: How monoculture networks/operating systems
are prone to attack.
o Financial Impact: How managing multiple vendors can reduce long
term expense.
o Stability: How monoculture networks/systems are prone to network/
system wide failures.
o Viability: How existing technology is capable of interop and how
we, the engineering team, were capable of making it happen.
o Customer demand: How our customers actually "felt better" about our
service as a result of it's genetic diversity.
Regards,
Blaine
