On Sat, 25 Nov 1995, Alan Hannan wrote:
Should we provide automated Darned Good Answers to our customers? - YES, it would be nice but not a NEED, rather a nifty service (IMHO)
Automated answers would be great...but what about implementation? "Press 1 for an automated status report...<click>" Keeping customer service staff well-informed (perhaps via an internal automated system) might be a better solution.
Should we provide automated Darned Good Answers to other NSPs? - YES, it would be nice but not a NEED, rather a nifty service and lower priority than #2.
I'm afraid I have to disagree...in a network of the level of complexity of today's Internet (in fact, in any system where communication between two points is dependent on more than just an "upstream" entity), connectivity issues are MORE likely to be caused by interaction with other NSP's. Dissemination of problem information between providers helps everyone diagnose difficulties and keep their customers better informed with respect to current status and predictions for the near future (solutions). A mailing list for this purpose seems like overkill...if dozens of NSP's were to be informed every time JoeNet has a problem, even if their service were not to be affected, the noise overload would reduce the informative value of the list, as well as provider attention to it. But how to determine when a problem is important enough to be distributed? A more interactive shared system (ticket-based?) makes more sense, but may prove far more difficult to design. Problem classification, impact, severity, and location are all issues here, as well as the problem of associating such a record of a problem with its effects. That is, when a provider "discovers" a problem, how are they to know if it has already been "registered", and if so, how to reference the information associated with it? [need for explanations]
This is a good point, and I have been more convinced that it is important.
Because of this discussion I am going to work to develop an automated WWW status page.
Good response, but how sound is the choice of implementation? If there is a problem with your network, there is no small chance that those most interested in acquiring this information would not be able to reach your server to do so.
] The current situation is the customer gets neither the explanation nor ] action solving the problem. I appreciate that NSP response is not always ideal. However, I would encourage all people who get a less than exceptional response from a NOC technician to escalate the question so as to improve the NOC quality. No, this isn't something you should have to do, and it's not something that makes anyone terribly proud but it does tend to improve the service by natural tech selection.
I hate to say it, but what may be needed here is standardization. NOC operating procedre varies greatly between providers, and the proper escalation, etc. of a problem may not be clear. // Matt Zimmerman Chief of System Management NetRail, Inc. // Work..........mdz@netrail.net | Play...gemini@alcor.netrail.net // (703) 524-4800 [voice] (703) 524-4802 [data] (703) 534-5033 [fax]