Having been a participant of the NANOG list since 1995, twice a past host of the meetings, and someone that believes we should help and educate, I am most concerned over the trend that is showing itself here on the list. This is a list about knowledge, share, help, and operations. Some on this list are "Old Pro's" others are just "Old ....." I see new names, new faces, sometimes the same questions, sometimes slight variences of those questions. What then happens is people attack the sender (heck I've even been slightly guilty of this), banish them to newbie.dev.nul. Threads move quickly from the question to debates on random junk and thus become a waste to the community. When I first got on the Internet, 1984, it was full of cooperative and helpful people. 18 years later, not so much. We have real issues to deal with, DMCA, Clarke, The Implosion of ICANN (with means the ITU will run things me thinks, not good), and various other laws, acts and general clue.void from .void.gov. So instead of picking on each other, calling it "standard NANOG hazing" or whatever, lets help, be good in our technical honesty, or don't post. If someone doesn't listen to your answer, a BIGGER stick isn't going to help, take it private, or move along. We are all pro's here, right ?? We got a net to run, lets go do it. respectfully, john brown a person not speaking for anyone else
Well said. What happened to ihighway? On Thu, 8 Aug 2002, John M. Brown wrote: : :Having been a participant of the NANOG list since 1995, twice :a past host of the meetings, and someone that believes we should :help and educate, I am most concerned over the trend that is :showing itself here on the list. : :This is a list about knowledge, share, help, and operations. : :Some on this list are "Old Pro's" others are just "Old ....." : :I see new names, new faces, sometimes the same questions, sometimes :slight variences of those questions. : :What then happens is people attack the sender (heck I've even been :slightly guilty of this), banish them to newbie.dev.nul. : :Threads move quickly from the question to debates on random junk :and thus become a waste to the community. : :When I first got on the Internet, 1984, it was full of cooperative :and helpful people. 18 years later, not so much. : :We have real issues to deal with, DMCA, Clarke, The Implosion of ICANN :(with means the ITU will run things me thinks, not good), and various :other laws, acts and general clue.void from .void.gov. : :So instead of picking on each other, calling it "standard NANOG hazing" :or whatever, lets help, be good in our technical honesty, or don't :post. If someone doesn't listen to your answer, a BIGGER stick isn't :going to help, take it private, or move along. : :We are all pro's here, right ?? We got a net to run, lets go do it. : :respectfully, : :john brown :a person not speaking for anyone else : :
John, I agree with what you have said. I too have hosted nanog, and it was a pleasure... except if you ran out of cookies. What I have seen is that nanog was a "community" more then anything else. This list does not only exchange information, it represents built relationships among a lot of engineers. Some go well beyond simple business relationship and reach a personal level. The "old pro's" may simply remember a time not so long ago when nanog was 45 people or so in jeans talking about BGP and peering and sharing a t-shirt or two. Nanog pro's remember days when you knew everyone on the list and in the room, and knew their histories. So here we are, doing what most old foggies do and talk about the good ole days, and how these young whipper snappers dont knew how to behave. The truth is that while operations posts are the norm, an occasion piece of slightly off-topic information doesnt bother me, on the contrary I think it helps us remember that we are a community. I would love to see an off-topic nanog list we could subscribe to, but no efforts to create side lists have seemed to have taken off. I have noticed that many of the pro's have stopped posting. Is it because of their displeasure with the list or is it because now their boss's have now subscribed to the list. It's visibility in the internet world has squashed a lot of free discussion on this list is my opinion. Just as your sig mentions "not speaking for anyone else." And for the record, I learn a lot from the pro's and newbies on this list. So I hope both keep posting, and replying off-list with extremely helpful information. I have appreciated it greatly. Thanks, Dave PS- I have not seen great activity on any peering lists. Perhaps a bot unsubscribed a bunch of people. If I could be emailed off list, I would appreciate any current activities or small lists discussing peering openly. Perhaps something list visible. Thanks again. At 1:01 -0700 8/8/02, John M. Brown wrote:
Having been a participant of the NANOG list since 1995, twice a past host of the meetings, and someone that believes we should help and educate, I am most concerned over the trend that is showing itself here on the list.
This is a list about knowledge, share, help, and operations.
Some on this list are "Old Pro's" others are just "Old ....."
I see new names, new faces, sometimes the same questions, sometimes slight variences of those questions.
What then happens is people attack the sender (heck I've even been slightly guilty of this), banish them to newbie.dev.nul.
Threads move quickly from the question to debates on random junk and thus become a waste to the community.
When I first got on the Internet, 1984, it was full of cooperative and helpful people. 18 years later, not so much.
We have real issues to deal with, DMCA, Clarke, The Implosion of ICANN (with means the ITU will run things me thinks, not good), and various other laws, acts and general clue.void from .void.gov.
So instead of picking on each other, calling it "standard NANOG hazing" or whatever, lets help, be good in our technical honesty, or don't post. If someone doesn't listen to your answer, a BIGGER stick isn't going to help, take it private, or move along.
We are all pro's here, right ?? We got a net to run, lets go do it.
respectfully,
john brown a person not speaking for anyone else
-- David Diaz dave@smoton.net [Email] pagedave@smoton.net [Pager] Smotons (Smart Photons) trump dumb photons
I think you have some really good points. I think a lot of us have fairly dark but similar senses of humor. Its likely that aybe people not used to this take things the wrong way sometimes. I'm however not against being operation or careful and respectful but I actually enjoy some of the tongue and cheek responses on here. On Thu, 8 Aug 2002, David Diaz wrote:
John,
I agree with what you have said. I too have hosted nanog, and it was a pleasure... except if you ran out of cookies.
What I have seen is that nanog was a "community" more then anything else. This list does not only exchange information, it represents built relationships among a lot of engineers. Some go well beyond simple business relationship and reach a personal level.
The "old pro's" may simply remember a time not so long ago when nanog was 45 people or so in jeans talking about BGP and peering and sharing a t-shirt or two. Nanog pro's remember days when you knew everyone on the list and in the room, and knew their histories. So here we are, doing what most old foggies do and talk about the good ole days, and how these young whipper snappers dont knew how to behave.
The truth is that while operations posts are the norm, an occasion piece of slightly off-topic information doesnt bother me, on the contrary I think it helps us remember that we are a community. I would love to see an off-topic nanog list we could subscribe to, but no efforts to create side lists have seemed to have taken off.
I have noticed that many of the pro's have stopped posting. Is it because of their displeasure with the list or is it because now their boss's have now subscribed to the list. It's visibility in the internet world has squashed a lot of free discussion on this list is my opinion. Just as your sig mentions "not speaking for anyone else."
And for the record, I learn a lot from the pro's and newbies on this list. So I hope both keep posting, and replying off-list with extremely helpful information. I have appreciated it greatly.
Thanks, Dave
PS- I have not seen great activity on any peering lists. Perhaps a bot unsubscribed a bunch of people. If I could be emailed off list, I would appreciate any current activities or small lists discussing peering openly. Perhaps something list visible. Thanks again.
At 1:01 -0700 8/8/02, John M. Brown wrote:
Having been a participant of the NANOG list since 1995, twice a past host of the meetings, and someone that believes we should help and educate, I am most concerned over the trend that is showing itself here on the list.
This is a list about knowledge, share, help, and operations.
Some on this list are "Old Pro's" others are just "Old ....."
I see new names, new faces, sometimes the same questions, sometimes slight variences of those questions.
What then happens is people attack the sender (heck I've even been slightly guilty of this), banish them to newbie.dev.nul.
Threads move quickly from the question to debates on random junk and thus become a waste to the community.
When I first got on the Internet, 1984, it was full of cooperative and helpful people. 18 years later, not so much.
We have real issues to deal with, DMCA, Clarke, The Implosion of ICANN (with means the ITU will run things me thinks, not good), and various other laws, acts and general clue.void from .void.gov.
So instead of picking on each other, calling it "standard NANOG hazing" or whatever, lets help, be good in our technical honesty, or don't post. If someone doesn't listen to your answer, a BIGGER stick isn't going to help, take it private, or move along.
We are all pro's here, right ?? We got a net to run, lets go do it.
respectfully,
john brown a person not speaking for anyone else
On Thu, 08 Aug 2002 14:32:14 PDT, Scott Granados said:
I think you have some really good points. I think a lot of us have fairly dark but similar senses of humor. Its likely that aybe people not used to this take things the wrong way sometimes. I'm however not against being operation or careful and respectful but I actually enjoy some of the tongue and cheek responses on here.
I've said it about the IETF list, but it's equally applicable here. The average poster has a fairly high chance of not being "all there" - which is not surprising, as this is a self-reinforcing state in our industry. After all - most of us have as our claim to fame the ability to talk to inanimate objects and convince them they want to listen to us. -- Valdis Kletnieks Computer Systems Senior Engineer Virginia Tech
I've been a lurker on the list for a good long while now, and recently I have become pretty active. I think a lot of the pro's post, and the problem isn't that the people are banished to newbie.dev.nul (I like that by the way.), but that the people that originally asked the question endlessly debate the advice that gets posted by people that really know what they're talking about. This causes a great deal of frustration, and it's how the endless loops in threads end up happening (I.e. the deagg thread, or the verio/istop arrogance thread.) I think this is when people start to get seriously hazed. I really believe that if people that post a question sit back and honestly listen to the answers, it will go back to being a true resource for people having network issues, or reporting problems on the net. That being said, you're 100% right. I posted this so maybe the newer posters will sit back and really think about the technical merits of what people have to say, rather than just argue it because they didn't really think hard enough on it. My three cents. Derek
I've been a lurker on the list for a good long while now, and recently I have become pretty active. I think a lot of the pro's post, and the problem isn't that the people are banished to newbie.dev.nul (I like that by the way.), but that the people that originally asked the question endlessly debate the advice that gets posted by people that really know what they're talking about. This causes a great deal of frustration, and it's how the endless loops in threads end up happening
I've noticed that alot of the advise given is appropriate for larger, i.e. tier 1, setups but isn't necessarily as useful for tier 2/3/N+1. Things that work great in large scale might be unweildy or not even feasable on a smaller scale and vice-versa. North American Network Operators aren't necessarily just tier 1's... This might be one of the causes of "energetic" discussion when one tier answers what makes sense for its scale but another tier is puzzled why anyone would ever consider such an approach. To avoid confusion in the future it might be helpful for both questioner's and answerers to mention what scale their addressing in the question/answer. Just a suggestion, -Rob
I would go along with that. Not to create a 'loop' here. But if you think about what you said, you can be correct, but still not be able to change the behavior, nor should we try. A newbie or someone that might not 'know' the resume of the replier, does a post on something of great importance to him. He is unsure of the solution himself, and receives a wonderful response from a veteran on the list. Let's be honest here, most of the pros will post a very brief but curt reply. They dont have time to waste but want to be helpful. The newbie not knowing the backround of a Sean or a Manning, will question the brief advice since it is their router (etc) they are about to type COMMIT into. That makes the Pro feel like his advice was unheeded. In reality, it comes across as arrogant for us to expect the newbie not to question the advice. I am not saying it IS in fact arrogant but it does come across that way. And the newbie may in fact simply be playing devil's advocate back. I always learn from the threads I have time to read through, someone might have a better way of explaining something as simple as BGP. I also learn from each time in front of a white board, explaining the same thing I might have done 100 times. And yes Mr. Norton, I am learning to s-p-e-a-k s-l-o-w-e-r. FYI the only recent waste of mail space was the thread on that poor engineers signature. I am not sure how that really needed a thread. That was about as unforgiving a response Ive seen since someone wore a tie to nanog! David At 10:42 -0500 8/8/02, Rob Healey wrote:
I've been a lurker on the list for a good long while now, and recently I have become pretty active. I think a lot of the pro's post, and the problem isn't that the people are banished to newbie.dev.nul (I like that by the way.), but that the people that originally asked the question endlessly debate the advice that gets posted by people that really know what they're talking about. This causes a great deal of frustration, and it's how the endless loops in threads end up happening
I've noticed that alot of the advise given is appropriate for larger, i.e. tier 1, setups but isn't necessarily as useful for tier 2/3/N+1.
Things that work great in large scale might be unweildy or not even feasable on a smaller scale and vice-versa.
North American Network Operators aren't necessarily just tier 1's...
This might be one of the causes of "energetic" discussion when one tier answers what makes sense for its scale but another tier is puzzled why anyone would ever consider such an approach.
To avoid confusion in the future it might be helpful for both questioner's and answerers to mention what scale their addressing in the question/answer.
Just a suggestion,
-Rob
-- David Diaz dave@smoton.net [Email] pagedave@smoton.net [Pager] Smotons (Smart Photons) trump dumb photons
in my experience, and measuring by the contect of my .procmailrc, newbies are not the s:n problem randy
On Thu, 8 Aug 2002, Rob Healey wrote:
I've noticed that alot of the advise given is appropriate for larger, i.e. tier 1, setups but isn't necessarily as useful for tier 2/3/N+1.
Things that work great in large scale might be unweildy or not even feasable on a smaller scale and vice-versa.
...
To avoid confusion in the future it might be helpful for both questioner's and answerers to mention what scale their addressing in the question/answer.
I'm not so sure about that. It's kind of like the old adage... "if you have to ask how much it costs, it's too expensive for you." I love reading the peering papers from William Norton...but I also recognize that for my network, transit is always going to be more economical. IMO, it's pretty evident when advice applies to large networks and when it applies to small networks. How many small networks do you know of that, for example, verify routes announced by peers with the IRR? Few if any, because they don't have any peers big enough for that to be the solution. You simply use ACLs. Besides, small networks have small problems. There aren't many unanswerable questions pertaining to the best practice for operating a small network...but a big network? Different story. Andy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Andy Dills 301-682-9972 Xecunet, LLC www.xecu.net xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Dialup * Webhosting * E-Commerce * High-Speed Access
Personally, every time I post, it's from a Tier-2 perspective. This, honestly, changes absolutely nothing about how I build my network from a logical perspective. There are some minor differences, I.E. I don't own my own fiber, and I don't have many peering relationships. I use transit/transport the same as many other Tier-2's. But the best practices of a Tier-1 are the best practices of any other ISP regardless. Reinventing the wheel is, IMHO, a very bad thing. Over 90% of networking mistakes have already been made, and really, that's what NANOG is for. How many of you out there wish you had done some things different when you look back after rolling out a network? I think people should keep in mind that one of the hardest parts of network design isn't making it work, but making it scale properly. And generally, that's the advice the newer people tend to ignore. Sure other ways will *work*, but they generally won't scale. And the whole point of an ISP is to grow, right? Derek -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Dills Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2002 12:07 PM To: Rob Healey Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: NANOG, its decline in s/n On Thu, 8 Aug 2002, Rob Healey wrote:
I've noticed that alot of the advise given is appropriate for larger, i.e. tier 1, setups but isn't necessarily as useful for tier 2/3/N+1.
Things that work great in large scale might be unweildy or not even feasable on a smaller scale and vice-versa.
...
To avoid confusion in the future it might be helpful for both questioner's and answerers to mention what scale their addressing in the question/answer.
I'm not so sure about that. It's kind of like the old adage... "if you have to ask how much it costs, it's too expensive for you." I love reading the peering papers from William Norton...but I also recognize that for my network, transit is always going to be more economical. IMO, it's pretty evident when advice applies to large networks and when it applies to small networks. How many small networks do you know of that, for example, verify routes announced by peers with the IRR? Few if any, because they don't have any peers big enough for that to be the solution. You simply use ACLs. Besides, small networks have small problems. There aren't many unanswerable questions pertaining to the best practice for operating a small network...but a big network? Different story. Andy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Andy Dills 301-682-9972 Xecunet, LLC www.xecu.net xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Dialup * Webhosting * E-Commerce * High-Speed Access
On Thu, 8 Aug 2002, Derek Samford wrote:
Personally, every time I post, it's from a Tier-2 perspective. This, honestly, changes absolutely nothing about how I build my network from a logical perspective. There are some minor differences, I.E. I don't own my own fiber, and I don't have many peering relationships. I use transit/transport the same as many other Tier-2's. But the best practices of a Tier-1 are the best practices of any other ISP regardless. Reinventing the wheel is, IMHO, a very bad thing. Over 90% of networking mistakes have already been made, and really, that's what NANOG is for. How many of you out there wish you had done some things different when you look back after rolling out a network? I think people should keep in mind that one of the hardest parts of network design isn't making it work, but making it scale properly. And generally, that's the advice the newer people tend to ignore. Sure other ways will *work*, but they generally won't scale. And the whole point of an ISP is to grow, right?
The whole point of an ISP is to make money. Let's not forget that. Growing has ruined many a fine network. The best practices of a Tier-1 (such a useless term) are NOT neccessarily the best practices for all networks. For instance, a few years ago, I had to bitch at UUnet for three weeks to get them to configure per-packet CEF facing me (3 DS1s). Their first reaction was "No, we don't run proprietary protocols on our network." When I pointed out that I knew for a fact that they were already using CEF switching, cisco-proprietary or not, they finally agreed to try it out as a special circumstance, if it breaks, tough shit. Worked flawlessly for us till we migrated to the DS3 level. Now, it would seem like a reasonable thing for the UUnet's of the world to have such policy, to not run proprietary protocols on their network. (That's why they always turn up circuits with encap frame instead of HDLC.) When you have a network of that size, such sweeping policies are neccessary to maintain sanity. Not so for small networks. It wouldn't make sense for a small network to give up the very flexibility that differentiates it from the large networks. Andy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Andy Dills 301-682-9972 Xecunet, LLC www.xecu.net xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Dialup * Webhosting * E-Commerce * High-Speed Access
From a policy standpoint, I would entirely agree. A Tier3/2 cannot afford to be inflexible as can the big boys. Nor do they want to. People many times will pick a Tier 2 over a Tier 1, not necessarily due to
price, but to the flexibility it generally provides. But from a flat-out network design standpoint, I would have to argue that. Even if you only have 3 POP's, if you implement confederations or route reflectors (Just easy examples.) early as part of your network design, you save yourself a hell of a lot of work. If you interconnect your network, and keep your AS exactly what it's supposed to be (I.E. arrogance thread.), and *autonomous* system, then you save yourself work down the road. I'm sure every smaller ISP has clients that stay mainly because they know one or two engineers who will jump through hoops for them if they have problems, and that's just not the case for the big boys. But best practices in network policy and best practices in network design are two different things. Derek -----Original Message----- From: Andy Dills [mailto:andy@xecu.net] Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2002 1:18 PM To: Derek Samford Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: NANOG, its decline in s/n On Thu, 8 Aug 2002, Derek Samford wrote:
Personally, every time I post, it's from a Tier-2 perspective. This, honestly, changes absolutely nothing about how I build my network from
logical perspective. There are some minor differences, I.E. I don't own my own fiber, and I don't have many peering relationships. I use transit/transport the same as many other Tier-2's. But the best practices of a Tier-1 are the best practices of any other ISP regardless. Reinventing the wheel is, IMHO, a very bad thing. Over 90% of networking mistakes have already been made, and really, that's what NANOG is for. How many of you out there wish you had done some things different when you look back after rolling out a network? I think
a people
should keep in mind that one of the hardest parts of network design isn't making it work, but making it scale properly. And generally, that's the advice the newer people tend to ignore. Sure other ways will *work*, but they generally won't scale. And the whole point of an ISP is to grow, right?
The whole point of an ISP is to make money. Let's not forget that. Growing has ruined many a fine network. The best practices of a Tier-1 (such a useless term) are NOT neccessarily the best practices for all networks. For instance, a few years ago, I had to bitch at UUnet for three weeks to get them to configure per-packet CEF facing me (3 DS1s). Their first reaction was "No, we don't run proprietary protocols on our network." When I pointed out that I knew for a fact that they were already using CEF switching, cisco-proprietary or not, they finally agreed to try it out as a special circumstance, if it breaks, tough shit. Worked flawlessly for us till we migrated to the DS3 level. Now, it would seem like a reasonable thing for the UUnet's of the world to have such policy, to not run proprietary protocols on their network. (That's why they always turn up circuits with encap frame instead of HDLC.) When you have a network of that size, such sweeping policies are neccessary to maintain sanity. Not so for small networks. It wouldn't make sense for a small network to give up the very flexibility that differentiates it from the large networks. Andy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Andy Dills 301-682-9972 Xecunet, LLC www.xecu.net xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Dialup * Webhosting * E-Commerce * High-Speed Access
I'd tend to agree. B Then again I'm just bitter, I expect it:). On Thu, 8 Aug 2002, John M. Brown wrote:
Having been a participant of the NANOG list since 1995, twice a past host of the meetings, and someone that believes we should help and educate, I am most concerned over the trend that is showing itself here on the list.
This is a list about knowledge, share, help, and operations.
Some on this list are "Old Pro's" others are just "Old ....."
I see new names, new faces, sometimes the same questions, sometimes slight variences of those questions.
What then happens is people attack the sender (heck I've even been slightly guilty of this), banish them to newbie.dev.nul.
Threads move quickly from the question to debates on random junk and thus become a waste to the community.
When I first got on the Internet, 1984, it was full of cooperative and helpful people. 18 years later, not so much.
We have real issues to deal with, DMCA, Clarke, The Implosion of ICANN (with means the ITU will run things me thinks, not good), and various other laws, acts and general clue.void from .void.gov.
So instead of picking on each other, calling it "standard NANOG hazing" or whatever, lets help, be good in our technical honesty, or don't post. If someone doesn't listen to your answer, a BIGGER stick isn't going to help, take it private, or move along.
We are all pro's here, right ?? We got a net to run, lets go do it.
respectfully,
john brown a person not speaking for anyone else
participants (9)
-
Andy Dills -
Brian Wallingford -
David Diaz -
Derek Samford -
John M. Brown -
Randy Bush -
Rob Healey -
Scott Granados -
Valdis.Kletnieks＠vt.edu