On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:57:07 -0400, Jared Mauch <jared@puck.nether.net> wrote:
I've come to the conclusion that if someone put a nice web2.0+ interface on creating and managing these objects it would be a lot easier.
If there were a customer portal where you could visit to say "update my prefix-list/acl to include the following new prefix(es), and push the change /now/" I presume that would drive customer utilization of these services and allow people to manage things "better".
That's fine... until you learn the hard way 9 times out of 10, the person heading to such a thing is a clueless moron. As much as it is a pain in the rear, having *people* proofing and editing the BGP configuration is far less work than creating the AI needed to keep idiots from doing idiotic things. I've never worked for any of the tier-1 beasts, but I have had to manage dozens of customer BGP sessions. Over a decade, I never dealt with a clueful customer... we cannot announce address space that doesn't belong to you; you cannot announce *our* address space to other ISPs; you have one f'ing link, why do you need BGP? (note: never actually ask that question or mute your phone immediately after asking.) How often do your prefixes change? In my experience adding new netblocks and/or customers, taking a few weeks to get things setup wasn't a problem; it'd take that long to get their connection turned up. (and if they were talking about BGP, sales would be talking to us before the contract was signed.) --Ricky