On Sat, 23 Aug 1997, Wookie wrote:
Sorry if this is the wrong place for this question...
Actually, this is the right place :-)
I work for an ISP and we're looking at hooking up our own links to MAE-East and MAE-West. A problem we forsee is that we're 1,000+ miles from both of these locations, and we'd rather not have to drop everything and jump on a flight if the router goes down and needs a reboot or hardware replacement, and we dont really want to have to take on an employee living near each MAE to do this stuff.
I can only speak for MAE-East, but... MFS can do install, etc. for you, but you're SOL on assuring spares if it's not a router bought thru MFS (which they've done primarily for 7505 or 7010 for int'l ISPs). EUnet uses some company that runs Cisco training courses in the area, although I thought they were a little green at real hands on. Talk to Per Bilse. Craig Hainey (Cando Consulting) does some stuff, and he's been around since the old SprintLink days. You can ask the Goodnet guys how to get ahold of him. Also Rob Seastrom and Tim Scanlon (Knowledgable Hands, Inc.) have some rack space at the MAE and manage some routers in it. Ask the geo.net guys. Both Craig and Rob are good at all around advanced config, routing, security, etc.
How do other ISPs deal with hardware problems at remote MAEs?
uh..huhuh.
Someone told me that there are companies (possibly MFS themselves?) who can do 24x7router hardware management, and even install the router in the first place. Does anyone have experience of these services? Are they reliable? Can they provide "out of band" router access, eg through the console serial port to a console server?
No, you should order a POTS or ISDN line, and either go directly to your console port or set up a 2511 or something. Just be careful on your security. Hope this helps. -Lane
Any contact details would also be very helpful.
Thanks!
Wookie