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