Funny that shim6 is being mentioned. The corresponding open mic session at 35 showed how gathering people for 20 minutes of complaining can effectively replace long, protracted email threads. There was even unicast chatter about trying to coordinate NOGs with engineering. Per, I'd like to take exception with your "exclude small companies" remark. This thread is about tighter engineering and ops involvement, so why shoot down those who have the two tightly coupled? Why eschew people who work both sides of the fence? Eddy -- Everquick Internet - http://www.everquick.net/ A division of Brotsman & Dreger, Inc. - http://www.brotsman.com/ Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national Phone: +1 316 794 8922 Wichita ________________________________________________________________________ DO NOT send mail to the following addresses: davidc@brics.com -*- jfconmaapaq@intc.net -*- sam@everquick.net Sending mail to spambait addresses is a great way to get blocked. Ditto for broken OOO autoresponders and foolish AV software backscatter.