Re: Other flapping prefixes. Compare and contrast.
Well, while Sean's wording at times is, ahem, suboptimal, he is referring to a real problem in the Internet System, and in fact one that the North American Network Operators Group should take responsibility for, at least for the North American part. The problem is what others believe is a strength: an anarchic system of many autonomous service providers with little or no service model/metrics (neither for the local nor for the system level), and no well defined rules of conduct for interoperation and problem resolution. A few weeks back I had problems with getting to another CONUS site. Not exactly capillary connectivity, source was at SDSC, destination at FIX-West. My service provider is CERFnet. Some days after emailing about the problem (it happened on a Friday evening that I had very intermittent connectivity, with packets from my traceroute getting lost in Sprintlink land) I got actually quite polite and professional responses that, based on my traceroute, it was outside of CERFnet's domain and best they can do is inform Sprint. As I network engineer I understand the context and the issues. As a network user I do not find the service model acceptable. I thought my service provider was selling me Internet connectivity, not regional connectivity. This is not to single out CERFnet or Sprint, given the way The System is run, the service providers likely are all the same, at least above the 90th percentile. Certainly because there is no global (or even domestic) problem resolution procedure that has any leverage with other service providers. Eventually something hits the roof for someone, and he starts bitching more publicly as his only remaining leverage, which is what seemed happening to Sean. What choice did he have? Run to the government and ask for regulation, as the service providers just can't get their act together at a systemic level? Well, that may not be one of *his* first choices, but sooner or later Real Users (rather than us networking bigots) get pissed. You know, those you sell services to? That you give, say, T1 connectivity to without being clear what it means to a user, who's traffic may have to traverse five ISPs? And who may not be interested in hearing about finger pointing from the service provider or deferred problem resolution? I mean, what would you say if your electrical power would drop to 80 Volts (more than once in a year) and your local power company would tell you "uh, that's not our fault, it is just power company 2000 miles away ran out of oil, or misplaced some nuclear refuelment rod?" This all should be critical to the NANOG agenda if the service providers would want to continue to provide quality services. I think it is an attitude problem of people largely caring about their own swamp.
On Mon, 11 Sep 1995, Hans-Werner Braun wrote:
The problem is what others believe is a strength: an anarchic system of many autonomous service providers
Eventually something hits the roof for someone, and he starts bitching more publicly as his only remaining leverage, which is what seemed happening to Sean. What choice did he have?
IMHO, given that this *IS* an anarchic system, the proper place to get pissed is in public, i.e. this list or another list. That is how anarchic systems work! Because everyone is autonomous and makes their own decisions, it is neccessary that the information required to make those decisions be fully public. In this case, new people are continually joining this anarchic system and the only way they can understand it is to see it in action *IN PUBLIC*. I'm not just talking about ISP's who are moving to multihoming and BGP, but also new employees at existing NSP's. Another characteristic of anarchy is that if you are smart and you know something, then you get to impart that knowledge however you please and there is no big brother out there who is going to tell you that this is conduct unbecoming to a teacher. Well, Sean is imparting knowledge.... Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-546-8022 Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-542-4130 http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com
Well, while Sean's wording at times is, ahem, suboptimal, he is referring to a real problem in the Internet System, and in fact one that the North American Network Operators Group should take responsibility for, at least for the North American part. The problem is what others believe is a strength: an anarchic system of many autonomous service providers with little or no service model/metrics (neither for the local nor for the system level), and no well defined rules of conduct for interoperation and problem resolution.
... stuff deleted ...
This all should be critical to the NANOG agenda if the service providers would want to continue to provide quality services.
I think it is an attitude problem of people largely caring about their own swamp.
And to make matters more confusing, not all service providers agree on what level of service should be provided. I think the NANOG is the perfect place to discuss what we think should be the minimum acceptable service level, as well as what can be expected in terms of inter-provider help and cooperation. Sean's comments are, in my opinion, useful as a basis for discussion, and completely appropriate. I think we all need to discuss our expectations in an open forum. We may never agree, but at least we can disagree politely, Larry Plato ANS Network Operations include <std.disclaimer> /* I speak only for myself */
On Mon, 11 Sep 1995, Larry J. Plato wrote:
And to make matters more confusing, not all service providers agree on what level of service should be provided. I think the NANOG is the perfect place to discuss what we think should be the minimum acceptable service level, as well as what can be expected in terms of inter-provider help and cooperation. Sean's comments are, in my opinion, useful as a basis for discussion, and completely appropriate. I think we all need to discuss our expectations in an open forum. We may never agree, but at least we can disagree politely,
Larry Plato
Politely is the operative word here. I thinks Sean's comments are the only way we will have any significant changes that benefit the customer, as opposed to benefiting the "network" itself. Mike Nasto. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael A. Nasto Customer Support Manager NYSERNet, Inc. Phone: 315-453-2912 x 256 200 Elwood Davis Road Fax: 315-453-3052 Suite 103 Email: mnasto@nysernet.org Liverpool, NY 13088-6147 mnasto@transit.nyser.net +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Carpe Diem +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Legend: LJP - Larry Plato MAN - Mike Nasto LJP> NANOG is the perfect place to discuss what we think should be the LJP> minimum acceptable service level, as well as what can be expected LJP> in terms of inter-provider help and cooperation. Sean's comments LJP> are, in my opinion, useful as a basis for discussion, and completely LJP> appropriate. I think we all need to discuss our expectations in LJP> an open forum. We may never agree, but at least we can disagree LJP> politely, MAN> Politely is the operative word here. I thinks Sean's comments are the MAN> only way we will have any significant changes that benefit the customer, MAN> as opposed to benefiting the "network" itself. I'm not sure I want to embrace the Nader approach to networking, but at the same time, let's consider our climate, and the market in which we live. Providers who play fairly, are considerate, and make intelligently designed networks are considered far superior to others who don't. Correspondingly, those in the know (integrators, consultants, other NSPs) spread the word, and they tend to get a high class, and larger quantity of customers. Correspondingly, these folks propogate, and the customer benefits. My point, don't talk about the customer and how they benefit. The best internet provider will, by natural selection, be best for the customer. How does this relate to the discussion at hand? Sean points out some considerable problems at hand on the net, and he continually proposes intelligent ways to resolve the situations. In my opinion, this is a highly acceptable, and terribly desirable thing. As well, those who caution politeness are heard, however, I don't think we can demand this. Quite often people in our positions are rather busy, and don't have time to mince words so as not to offend. I view the internet right now as quite similar to the torrid gene pools of our evolutionary birth. If people sound rather rude, or short of time, it's because they are too busy doing things correctly, and are dissapointed in the poor quality of others. Perhaps I speak too unkind, but I appreciate these frank, blunt corrections, and hope to see more of them. -- Alan Hannan Email: alan@mid.net Network Systems Administrator Voice: (402) 472-0239 MIDnet, Lincoln NOC Office Fax: (402) 472-0240 "The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him" - Henry Stimson
Folks, <soapbox mode=on> I am sorry I was not clear. I thought Sean's message was appropriate. I felt Mr Nittman was off base for his comments RE: Sean's message. I did not want to single people out so my last message did not mention names. By polite I do not mean ingratiating, merely that we do have to make comments like this:
Can we stop this bashing right here, Sean? I don't believe that this list is the adequate forum four such childish behaviour. I have a collection of your past emails and I am rather fed up withthis.
Can Sean be removed from the list? These are not contributions in any sense of constructivity at all.
Sprint can very well chose a different person to make their corporate views known on an nanog scale.Mike
Mike
When we happen to disagree with someone. I did not intend to propagate ad hominems, <soapbox mode=off> So let's return to our regularly scheduled discussions, Alan Hannah> Perhaps I speak too unkind, but I appreciate these frank, Alan Hannah> blunt corrections, and hope to see more of them. As do I. I don't have time to mince words, I'm late for a meeting as is, Regards, Larry
What I mean is constructivity. Repeated shows of faults does not contribute to the solution. This is just whining in public. So, here is my try to discuss what we all can do: I propose: Whoever has dial up customers, and cannot, for one reason or the other convince them, to keep the interface up, should do the following: 1)- explain the customer that the link cannot go up and down all the time. - that rapid changes in the link will not be propagated, but result in unreachability of his computer/network. - that such an arrangement is not suitable to announce reachability of his host to the outside, since nobody knows when he will actually be reachable (so, no email directly to his address, don't advertise it as ftp address, etc.) 2) pull the route up via a loopback interface and a bigger metric. When the dial interface comes up, the route via the loopback will be overridden by the better 'connected' route. this keeps the route flap within the same router This is not 'announcing lies', the customer 'lives' in that router. This is a contribution to the stability of the routing environment. I myself do not attach LANs via dial-up, and if, the route is aggregated to the overall routes of the communication server where the customer dials into. Opinions, please? Mike ------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael F. Nittmann mn@ios.com Senior Network Architect ------------ IDT/IOS - Internet Online Services ---------- 294 State Street -------- Hackensack, NJ 07601 ------ ---- +1 (201) 928 1000 xt. 500 -- +1 (201) 928 1057 FAX +1 (201) 441 5861 Pager \/
participants (6)
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Alan Hannan -
hwb＠upeksa.sdsc.edu -
Larry J. Plato -
Michael Dillon -
Michael F. Nittmann -
Mike Nasto