Circuit numbering scheme - best practice?
We've grown to the point that "The MCI T-1 in Ontario" or "Bob's ethernet to port 6/23 on switch 7" aren't scaling. Also in working with carriers we are frequently asked to provide our internal circuit number. I've seen a lot of the the LEC scheme NN-XXXX-NNNNNN where XXXX has some significance with regard to the speed and type of circuit. The leading NN seems to be a mystery and the trailing NNNNNN is a serial number. I've also seen DS1-NNNNNNN as a straight speed-serial number type of thing and horrendously long circuit numbers including CLLI codes such as 101/T3/SNLOCAGTH07/SNLOCA01K15 . Any suggestions from those who have been down this road as to a schema that makes sense and is scalable? Are there documented best practices? -- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
I think it is really depending on what kind of provisioning system you have. Circuit ID is determined by your provisioning system for CLR/DLR reference. As long as you can find circuit info quickly, it doesn't matter that much. Alex Jay Hennigan wrote:
We've grown to the point that "The MCI T-1 in Ontario" or "Bob's ethernet to port 6/23 on switch 7" aren't scaling. Also in working with carriers we are frequently asked to provide our internal circuit number.
I've seen a lot of the the LEC scheme NN-XXXX-NNNNNN where XXXX has some significance with regard to the speed and type of circuit. The leading NN seems to be a mystery and the trailing NNNNNN is a serial number.
I've also seen DS1-NNNNNNN as a straight speed-serial number type of thing and horrendously long circuit numbers including CLLI codes such as 101/T3/SNLOCAGTH07/SNLOCA01K15 .
Any suggestions from those who have been down this road as to a schema that makes sense and is scalable? Are there documented best practices?
-- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009, Jay Hennigan wrote:
Any suggestions from those who have been down this road as to a schema that makes sense and is scalable? Are there documented best practices?
Many of the RBOCs (if they can be called that anymore) use the Common Language Circuit Identifier (CLCI) nomenclature for identifying circuits. Many large carriers, especially those that have spent more time buying up competitors then integrating previous acquisitions' provisioning systems, have a mish-mash of different circuit numbering schemes, depending on whose underlying plant and provisioning systems were used to build the circuit in the first place. Like you, I have seen everything from telcos that just use a number and not much else, to telcos that try to tell someone's life story in the form of a circuit ID, to forms that are somewhere in between. I won't say one is better than another, but I do favor shorter ones, if for no other reason than they're easier to key into provisioning systems, interface desciptions and put on wire labels :) I also got into the habit a long time ago of recording every circuit ID for a particular circuit. Many of the circuit I dealt with were long-haul circuits, or were provisioned by a LEC and had to be handed off to an incumbent carrier for final delivery to the customer, and one particular LEC burned me several times by stating, "Oh, I see we hand that off to $TELCO... I don't have a circuit ID for that piece....". Since you have the luxury of starting from scratch, you have the option of creating a system that best fits your needs. If you have or can build a provisioning system that captures all of the information you need, then you can get away with a simpler ID, such as a plain number. The information you want to capture would depend on the type of circuit, but would generally include things like carrier/customer handoff points, router interface/switch ports, VLANs, MPLS labels, patch assignments, etc... It's also a good idea to come up with a standard format for identifying your facilities/rooms/racks if you haven't already. Many providers use Common Language Location Identifier (CLLI) codes for this, which is another telco hold-over, but you can ID them however you want, as long as it makes sense to you and scales as you grow your network. jms
Jay Hennigan wrote:
We've grown to the point that "The MCI T-1 in Ontario" or "Bob's ethernet to port 6/23 on switch 7" aren't scaling. Also in working with carriers we are frequently asked to provide our internal circuit number.
I've seen a lot of the the LEC scheme NN-XXXX-NNNNNN where XXXX has some significance with regard to the speed and type of circuit. The leading NN seems to be a mystery and the trailing NNNNNN is a serial number.
I've also seen DS1-NNNNNNN as a straight speed-serial number type of thing and horrendously long circuit numbers including CLLI codes such as 101/T3/SNLOCAGTH07/SNLOCA01K15 .
Any suggestions from those who have been down this road as to a schema that makes sense and is scalable? Are there documented best practices? my fave: description "XO#SF/LUXX/500032/TQW Tel#877.792.5550 "; Adding the NOC phone number for carrier in question is immensely useful. I know, long hauls with different LECs complicates things, but guarantees that someone will thank you at some point in time :)
--Peter
On Friday 16 January 2009 19:55:44 Peter Wohlers wrote:
my fave: description "XO#SF/LUXX/500032/TQW Tel#877.792.5550 "; Adding the NOC phone number for carrier in question is immensely useful. I know, long hauls with different LECs complicates things, but guarantees that someone will thank you at some point in time :)
--Peter
What I would do is populate a database with carrier circuit ids and contact information and then make some tools that ops can use to query for things like the carrier phone number, rather than putting all of it into the circuit id. Regards, Jeff
The number idea is nifty until you have to change your number... On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 6:55 PM, Peter Wohlers <pedro@whack.org> wrote:
Jay Hennigan wrote:
We've grown to the point that "The MCI T-1 in Ontario" or "Bob's ethernet to port 6/23 on switch 7" aren't scaling. Also in working with carriers we are frequently asked to provide our internal circuit number.
I've seen a lot of the the LEC scheme NN-XXXX-NNNNNN where XXXX has some significance with regard to the speed and type of circuit. The leading NN seems to be a mystery and the trailing NNNNNN is a serial number.
I've also seen DS1-NNNNNNN as a straight speed-serial number type of thing and horrendously long circuit numbers including CLLI codes such as 101/T3/SNLOCAGTH07/SNLOCA01K15 .
Any suggestions from those who have been down this road as to a schema that makes sense and is scalable? Are there documented best practices?
my fave: description "XO#SF/LUXX/500032/TQW Tel#877.792.5550 "; Adding the NOC phone number for carrier in question is immensely useful. I know, long hauls with different LECs complicates things, but guarantees that someone will thank you at some point in time :)
--Peter
-- Josh Potter
participants (6)
-
Alex H. Ryu -
Jay Hennigan -
Jeff MacDonald -
Josh Potter -
Justin M. Streiner -
Peter Wohlers