Uhm, the usual problem is the contact person leaves the company. The exit interview rarely includes updating the contact information. Everyone else will know the information is out-dated, assuming you ban people from setting up procmail to auto-ack the message. But how do you get the rplacement's contact information if the replacement doesn't know about the list, database, server, etc and you don't know who the replacement is?
This describes another major problem in our industry. Policy and Procedure. Can you think of any other industry where the =primary= contact to the World could leave the company and no one from an operational perspective would think to let the world know they had left? :)
If you would like a sample message, how about something similar to what a previous government contractor used to send every six months or so when they managed the NIC database. Perhaps change the "do not respond," to "respond with 'ok 123456'" to make the procmail folks work a little harder writing their auto-ack scripts.
Precisely what I had in mind. And as usual, I agree with the rest of your message as well. However, the solution that I proposed was an attempt to develop an idea that was reasonable non-intrusive, didn't rely on adding new gear and monthly recurring cost, and had the potential of working. It could be -way- more sophisticated than this. I can think of neat things involving push (We all have a computer in the NOC don't we?), and probably some other things if I spent some time on it. But what it has to boil down to is that inter-NOC communications has to become something so much a part of the day-to-day life that it can't be neglected. If that can be done in the wild, wild west of our industry as it stands now, I don't know. OK -- off to the waterslide :) Derek