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Re: "Engineer" (Was: Tech contact for Qwest?)
by Sean Donelan 23 Aug '99

23 Aug '99

david(a)brouda.COM (David Brouda) writes: >Two of the definitions of an "engineer" are: In Missouri you can only call yourself an engineer if you hold a Missouri P.E. license or you wear a stripped hat and drive a train. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation

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"Engineer" (Was: Tech contact for Qwest?)
by David Brouda 22 Aug '99

22 Aug '99

I have to agree with the statement that the title of Engineer is thrown about a great deal. Two of the definitions of an "engineer" are: - a person who is trained in or follows as a profession a branch of engineering - a person who carries through an enterprise by skillful or artful contrivance (Engineering can be defined as: the application of science and mathematics by which the properties of matter and the sources of energy in nature are made useful to people) A "profession" is defined as: - a calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation <Definitions from Merriam Webster, http://www.m-w.com> I have been working as an "Engineer" (by title) for an ISP for the past three and a half years. I am also entering my fifth year in a five year undergraduate electrical engineering curriculum. In school we are taught what it means to be an "engineer" and what a "professional," "professionalism" are. Almost all engineering students at every college and university are taught 'engineering ethics.' The National Society of Professional Engineers has a code of ethics which has six fundamental canons: Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall: 1. Hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public. 2. Perform services only in areas of their competence. 3. Issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner. 4. Act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees. 5. Avoid deceptive acts. 6. Conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, ethically, and lawfully so as to enhance the honor, reputation, and usefulness of the profession. <National Society of Professional Engineers, http://www.nspe.org> Most engineering societies and professional organizations have similar codes of ethics. Now, I have mentioned three key words: engineer, professional, and ethics. As a student of engineering, I believe that these three words go hand-in-hand. While I am not trying to lecture anyone, I am merely trying to point out what an engineer really is. You don't have to have a degree or be part of a professional organization to be an engineer, you merely have to be trained with specialized knowledge in the application of mathematics and science and use that knowledge in a manner that will benefit the public. Of course, anyone can call themselves, or be called, or be given the title of engineer; but, that doesn't mean they are an engineer. (The English language has words that have specific meanings. By using the words for something they were not intended for, we make those words lose their original meaning.) Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. The above statements are merely the opinions which I have formed over the past four years. Someone else can feel free to define and discuss what an "operator" and "technician" are and how those are different from what an "engineer" is. David Brouda Four-Fifths of an Engineer by education, one year by application; One year operator by application and one and a half years technician by application.

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Re: FW: Tech contact for Qwest?
by Paul Vixie 22 Aug '99

22 Aug '99

ekgermann(a)cctec.com (Eric Germann) writes: > I think today most are a little too liberal with the term engineer. Those > of us who went the traditional route of education and earned the title as > an ME, EE or CE sometimes bristle that we're lumped in with the guy who > just passed his CNE from the books. hmmm. then, how do you feel about being lumped in with highschool dropouts who have no certification whatsoever? -- Paul Vixie <vixie(a)mibh.net> >> But what *IS* the internet? > It's the largest equivalence class in the reflexive transitive > symmetric closure of the relationship "can be reached by an IP > packet from". --Seth Breidbart

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Tech contact for Qwest?
by Brian Tackett 21 Aug '99

21 Aug '99

All, Anyone have a knowledgeable technical contact for Qwest? We've been working through the night to resolve some problems and been totally unable to talk to anyone who will tell us anything beyond "It must be your CPE". Any help would be greatly appreciated

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Re: Tech contact for Qwest?
by Vadim Antonov 21 Aug '99

21 Aug '99

>Maybe not an appropriate topic for Nanog... but... it is becoming a sad fact >that the clue level of 'internet engineers' is going down. >Christian I rather think that this is a sad fact that while throwing billions for equipment telcos are unwilling to provide adequate compensation for anyone with a clue. --vadim

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Re: FW: Tech contact for Qwest?
by Derek J. Balling 20 Aug '99

20 Aug '99

>That's a fairly strong statement to make. Large telcos/ISPs tend to through >"newbie" engineers into situations where a experienced or senior engineer >belongs. Let's face facts - there are not enough IP engineers/technicians to >fill all the needed positions. Companies need to either have more peer >review or expect the "clueless" attitude toward customers. No one could >expect a entry level engineer to handle complex ISP BGP issues when they >barely understand VLSM/CIDR. The industry is much larger than previous >years(obvious), thus more entry level engineers. I think also that many of the large companies don't devote enough of their "newbies" time to actually learning. When I worked at GTE (way back when) as a grunt in a call center, the administators of the center (GTE/North TelOps Fort Wayne, for those who care) looked down on me because I was learning HOW the billing system interacted with the switches (to do disconnects and stuff), and wanted to understand those things. I was eager to learn and had no problem sticking around after hours reading manuals to learn stuff, but if I wanted to do that "on company time", I would get my ass kicked for it. Not that any of the Call Center administrators had any problem with coming over to ask me questions about topics they wouldn't pay me to learn, mind you.... Allowing the techs/engineers the time to learn is an investment that many large companies just don't see as beneficial. That's the problem. If a tech wants to take a month out to learn more about his job, all bean-counters and managers see is the money they lose from his work (and have to pay someone else to do while he's "off learning") and don't see that he can do MORE work at higher quality when he comes back. D

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Re: cheap GPS
by Jeremy Porter 20 Aug '99

20 Aug '99

We weren't talking about NTP, but primary refence clocks for telcom timing solutions. In message <Pine.GSO.4.00.9908201341040.15720-100000(a)dartboard.halachmi.net>, Al an Halachmi writes: >jerry>The little birdies tell me that some of this >jerry>equipment failed its week rollover test the first >jerry>time, but patches were quickly made. Hopefully all >jerry>the telco's using the equipment read the engineering >jerry>field notices.... > >That's interesting... NTP is supposed to be a "Y2K proof" >timestamp because it operates on an absolute time reference. >Right? > >Alan > >-- >Alan Halachmi >Wide Area Network Specialist | Co-Director of >Ingram Entertainment Network Services | Undergraduate Computing >mailto:alan@halachmi.net | Duke Student Government >http://www.ingramentertainment.com | http://www.duke.edu/dsg/ > --- jerry(a)fc.net Freeside/ Insync Internet, Inc.| 512-458-9810 | http://www.fc.net #include <sys/machine/wit/fortune.h>

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Re: Tech contact for Qwest?
by Brett_Watson＠enron.net 20 Aug '99

20 Aug '99

i'm sure i'll be told by one of the nanog.police that this isn't appropriate but i think it might be relevant. i don't think the clue level of engineers is going down, i think what's happening is that more and more talent is needed as large emerging carriers (qwest, l3, williams, etc) spring up and the core high-level talent pool hasn't matched the growth. i think there are a lot of young, capable people out there that could learn if only they had a jedi master to teach them. if the newer engineers don't happen to land at one of the companies where the jedi's currently work, they don't get the benefit of learning from them. having said that (just my personal opinion), i wanted to point out an effort caida is leading with an organization called Internet Engineering Curriculum (IEC). this group is trying to help educators at universities build curriculum that revolve around current internet technologies and current best practices. i just attended the first one last week in san diego. they had 3 different "tracks" which were essentially "routing, tcp/ip", "NS2/VINT, or the network simulator package", and "traffic analysis". you can see the details at www.caida.org/iec. i thought it was a good start but the most alarming thing is the low numbers of universities that are actually focused on something other than tradition CS courses. a few have extensive "internet-like" classes and curriculum but many are just getting started. and there are ones like kansas state university, where i graduated, that have maybe two classes that even relate to tcp, routing, internet, etc. anyway, that's my plug so if you're interested, or want your universities to get more involved, have a look at the url or direct university folks to the url. i think this could go a long way in the long run to raising the *number* of people with a higher clue factor which is what i think we're lacking. -brett Christian Nielsen <cnielsen(a)nielsen.net> on 08/20/99 09:38:44 AM To: Mohamed Hirse <madlion(a)justin.net> cc: nanog(a)merit.edu (bcc: Brett Watson/Enron Communications) Subject: Re: Tech contact for Qwest? On Fri, 20 Aug 1999, Mohamed Hirse wrote: > I'm sorry your service needs were not met. In the future please feel free > to escalate your problems to senior engineers within Qwest IP Operations. > Though I understand your frustration, I do not believe NANOG is the > appropriate form for this topic. You can contact me via email at Maybe not an appropriate topic for Nanog... but... it is becoming a sad fact that the clue level of 'internet engineers' is going down. Christian

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The Cidr Report
by Tony Bates 20 Aug '99

20 Aug '99

This is an auto-generated mail on Fri Aug 20 12:00:00 PDT 1999 It is not checked before it leaves my workstation. However, hopefully you will find this report interesting and will take the time to look through this to see if you can improve the amount of aggregation you perform. The report is split into sections: 0) General Status List the route table history for the last week, list any possibly bogus routes seen and give some status on ASes. 1) Gains by aggregating at the origin AS level This lists the "Top 30" players who if they decided to aggregate their announced classful prefixes at the origin AS level could make a significant difference in the reduction of the current size of the Internet routing table. This calculation does not take into account the inclusion of holes when forming an aggregate so it is possible even larger reduction should be possible. 2) Weekly Delta A summary of the last weeks changes in terms of withdrawn and added routes. Please note that this is only a snapshot but does give some indication of ASes participating in CIDR. Clearly, it is generally a good thing to see a large amont of withdrawls. 3) Interesting aggregates Interesting here means not an aggregate made as a set of classful routes. Thanks to xara.net for giving me access to their routing tables once a day. Please send any comments about this report directly to me. Check http://www.employees.org/~tbates/cidr-report.html for a daily update of this report. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CIDR REPORT for 20Aug99 0) General Status Table History ------------- Date Prefixes 130899 63211 140899 63141 150899 62759 160899 63207 170899 63568 180899 62556 190899 62479 200899 62592 Check http://www.employees.org/~tbates/cidr.plot.html for a plot of the table history. Possible Bogus Routes --------------------- AS Summary ---------- Number of ASes in routing system: 5048 Number of ASes announcing only one prefix: 2612 (1328 cidr, 1284 classful) Largest number of cidr routes: 445 announced by AS701 Largest number of classful routes: 835 announced by AS701 1) Gains by aggregating at the origin AS level --- 20Aug99 --- ASnum NetsNow NetsCIDR NetGain % Gain Description AS271 335 145 190 56.7% BCnet Backbone AS2609 127 13 114 89.8% EUnet-TN AS1221 555 455 100 18.0% TELSTRA-AS AS577 290 196 94 32.4% Bell Canada Backbone AS174 574 480 94 16.4% Performance Systems International AS4293 235 145 90 38.3% IMCI AS7046 319 234 85 26.6% UUNET-CUSTOMER AS7657 237 160 77 32.5% The Internet Group Limited AS7545 140 65 75 53.6% TPG Internet Pty Ltd AS4200 176 101 75 42.6% AGIS (Apex Global Information Ser AS3749 139 64 75 54.0% TECNET AS209 318 243 75 23.6% Qwest Communications AS7496 108 34 74 68.5% Power Up AS10928 118 48 70 59.3% UNKNOWN AS9269 88 19 69 78.4% Hong Kong CTI AS1785 372 311 61 16.4% NYSERNet Backbone AS6944 63 6 57 90.5% RapidSite, Inc. AS4755 136 79 57 41.9% Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. India AS4740 359 304 55 15.3% Ozemail Pty Ltd (ASN-OZEMAIL) AS719 462 410 52 11.3% LANLINK autonomous system AS2493 156 107 49 31.4% iSTAR Internet, Inc. AS684 92 46 46 50.0% Manitoba Regional Network Backbon AS549 209 169 40 19.1% ONet Backbone AS3737 102 65 37 36.3% PenTeleData Inc. (ASN-PTD) AS1 506 469 37 7.3% BBNPLANET AS10724 42 8 34 81.0% UNKNOWN AS4307 32 1 31 96.9% SVINET-1 AS10479 40 9 31 77.5% ITESM-Rectoria Zona Norte AS8023 43 13 30 69.8% CASTLES AS7745 38 8 30 78.9% BIGSKY-AS For the rest of the previous weeks gain information please see http://www.employees.org:80/~tbates/cidr-report.html 2) Weekly Delta Please see http://www.employees.org:80/~tbates/cidr-report.html for this part of the report 3) Interesting aggregates Please see http://www.employees.org:80/~tbates/cidr-report.html for this part of the report

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MAE-West issues Aug 20 1999
by Sean Donelan 20 Aug '99

20 Aug '99

Some folks may have noticed MAE-West was a bit flakier than normal this morning. After about six hours, MCI Worldcom finally returned our phone calls. MCI Worldcom was conducting emergency maintenance, and took down some parts of some gigaswitches. No announcements were sent to customers before the switches were taken down. Which isn't unusual, I almost never get prior notification about any MAE maintenance. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation

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