On Jan 5, 2009, at 3:04 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
I can think of several instances where it _must_ be external. For instance, as I said before, knowing which intermediate networks are incapable of handling the additional load is useful information.
AUPs are a big issue, here..
Without arguing that point (and there are lots of scenarios where that is not at all necessary, IMHO), it does not change the fact that external testing can be extremely useful after "air-gap" testing.
Agree completely.
You live in a very structured world.
The idea is to instantiate structure in order to reduce the chaos. ;>
Most people live in reality-land where there are too many variables to control, and not only is it impossible guarantee that everything involved is strict to BCP, but the opposite is almost certainly true.
Nothing's perfect, but one must do the basics before moving on to more advanced things. The low-hanging fruit, as it were (and of course, this is where scale becomes a major obstacle, in many cases; the fruit may be hanging low to the ground, but there can be a *lot* of it to pick).
Remember, systems do not work in isolation, and when you touch other networks, weird things happen.
One ought to get one's own house in order first, prior to looking at externalities. Agree with you 100% that they're important, but one must do what one can within one's own span of control, first.
Here we agree: Entertainment has (should have?) nothing to do with it.
Implementing BCPs is drudgery; because of this, it often receives short shrift. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Roland Dobbins <rdobbins@cisco.com> // +852.9133.2844 mobile All behavior is economic in motivation and/or consequence.