Re: Advice on dealing with Sprint
At 10:03 9/27/96, Neil J. McRae wrote:
On Thu, 26 Sep 1996 15:57:06 -0700 Vadim Antonov <avg@quake.net> alleged:
When i was at Sprint it was customary to ask customers to provide some assurance that routing information Sprint takes from them is going to stay sane. That was usually achieved by asking customers to send in their border configurations for review by SL engineering, and some formal criteria (like "no unfiltered IGP to BGP redistribution") was applied and said configuration had problems worked out before the actual peering was enabled.
yes, true, but custom engineering was a 'free' service back then for customers. it was not built into the business plan as a revenue stream. this is exactly what Randy is talking about now. and was thought about years ago. it is really a service to offer customers and not a duty.
The solution I recommend is for the provider to charge T&M for dealing with CPE which they do not supply. When presented with the real costs, consumers tend toward wiser decisions.
randy
Anyway, that automatically made every customer with BGP to go down SCA (Special Customer Arrangement) route. I think sales didn't like that, for whatever reason, and i saw several attempts to make BGP peering a regular sale during my tenure there. I guess they succeded after coming with some "guidelines", but without any understanding of the issues involved.
and engineering didn't like sales giving so many custom solutions away. by the time the order got to engineering back then the contract was signed, so the goal was just make it work.
Somehow i became a big fan of Dilbert back then.
Vadim, When you were at Sprint, I was at Demon and we BGP peered with Sprint first using NetBSD/sparc IPX's with Morningstar PPP then using BSD/OS and RISCOM N2 cards. One thing that I remember is that your routers went insane _far_ more often that ours did.
that was me Neil. what a hack, but the business side of the issue is that the service was up. gees, i even remember connecting an old 3Com router just to say the service was up. the issue was not that engineering could not make it work, but when it broke the NOC had no policy or procedure for some special configurations and hardware. which led to the SprintLink Customer Handbook.
INSC were never much use and the only way we got things done was to cc: you and Sean in any reporting of faults. Nevertheless, both you and Sean where always very helpful.
aren't a high percentage of NOC's manage trouble tickets vs actually the responsible group for fixing?
Cheers, Neil. -- Neil J. McRae. Alive and Kicking. E A S Y N E T G R O U P P L C neil@EASYNET.NET NetBSD/sparc: 100% SpF (Solaris protection Factor) Free the daemon in your <A HREF="http://www.NetBSD.ORG/">computer!</A>
Tell your Sprint sales folks that I said it was fine and approve the SCA. If they have any questions, have them call me.
-Hank Kilmer Mgr Sprint IP OPS Engineering
like any large organization, you need to manage the mis-information and Hank obviously did a fine job of that. -craig -------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig A. Haney Cando Consulting - The Internetwork People 703-448-9826 :Tel 2031 Madrillon Springs Court 703-448-9786 :Fax Vienna, VA 22182-3764 http://seamless.kludge.net
On Fri, 27 Sep 1996 08:45:38 -0500 craig@kludge.net (Craig A. Haney) alleged:
that was me Neil. what a hack, but the business side of the issue is that the service was up.
Indeed, and it worked _well_. nether.demon.co.uk was a SPARC IPX with 32M of ram running NetBSD 1.0 driving a 256K line with full routes into Chicago and I remember the machine had an uptime of over 200 days, which was lost when Demon had a powercut at Finchley. BUT its a little alarming to see Sprint saying you can only use CISCO routers, when infact other routers work equally well, if not better. I just wanted to note that other routers can do the job. I hope this idea doesn't spread to any other backbone providers.
INSC were never much use and the only way we got things done was to cc: you and Sean in any reporting of faults. Nevertheless, both you and Sean where always very helpful.
aren't a high percentage of NOC's manage trouble tickets vs actually the responsible group for fixing?
True, but when you have a lot of customers, and your transit provider is down, you want to get things fixed fast. As I said both Vadim and Sean always sorted any problems out. There was only one time when I felt we were let down by Sprint and that was the PTAT cable break a year and a half ago. I liked working with Sprint, they may have had their problems but I think they supplied Demon with as good a service as any other transit providers would. Its certainly better than some UK backbone providers [Hello BTnet!] and as long as Sprint let me use what router I liked, I'd certainly deal with them again. I think I learned all I know about routeing and BGP4 because of problems that we had with Sprint, so in some strange way its Sprints fault that I'm interested in all of this :-) Cheers, Neil. -- Neil J. McRae. Alive and Kicking. E A S Y N E T G R O U P P L C neil@EASYNET.NET NetBSD/sparc: 100% SpF (Solaris protection Factor) Free the daemon in your <A HREF="http://www.NetBSD.ORG/">computer!</A>
On Fri, 27 Sep 1996, Neil J. McRae wrote:
BUT its a little alarming to see Sprint saying you can only use CISCO routers, when infact other routers work equally well, if not better. I just wanted to note that other routers can do the job. I hope this idea doesn't spread to any other backbone providers.
If it does, then it is time to get the anti-trust lawyers involved. It's one thing to have a close working relationship with Cisco and to recommend Cisco products, but quite another thing entirely to "require" the use of Cisco products. Michael Dillon - ISP & Internet Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-604-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com
On Fri, 27 Sep 1996 10:09:06 -0700 (PDT) Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com> alleged:
If it does, then it is time to get the anti-trust lawyers involved. It's one thing to have a close working relationship with Cisco and to recommend Cisco products, but quite another thing entirely to "require" the use of Cisco products.
I really hope it doesn't come to that. :( Regards, Neil. -- Neil J. McRae. Alive and Kicking. E A S Y N E T G R O U P P L C neil@EASYNET.NET NetBSD/sparc: 100% SpF (Solaris protection Factor) Free the daemon in your <A HREF="http://www.NetBSD.ORG/">computer!</A>
Ronald Barron Yokubaitis A Internet Access for the Texas NetWorking Inc. B REPUBLIC OF TEXAS and San Antonio (210) 272-8111 5 neighboring countries Austin (512) 472-2532 L Boerne (210) 249-7058 Houston (713) 222-2260 J Georgetown (512) 869-5947 _.. . ._ _... ..... ._.. ._ _ _ ._ _... ..... ._.. ._ _ _ _._ On Fri, 27 Sep 1996, Neil J. McRae wrote:
On Fri, 27 Sep 1996 10:09:06 -0700 (PDT) Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com> alleged:
If it does, then it is time to get the anti-trust lawyers involved. It's one thing to have a close working relationship with Cisco and to recommend Cisco products, but quite another thing entirely to "require" the use of Cisco products.
I really hope it doesn't come to that. :(
Me too. I don't see the anti-trsut issue here. Sprint customers have choices among providers other than Sprint. Sprint has no monopoly, not even close. Sprint has choices too. Sprint can stipulate requirements for connecting to its NetWork. Cisco is one. The market is at work here. A potential Sprint customer does not have to deal with Sprint. They can go down the Street to MCI, UUNet...etc. If Sprint judges that it is losing too much business then it will either change or lose money. It is Sprint's business decision to make. Likewise yours. You are both free to choose. Why cut down on both of "yous guys'"freedoms by involving the Government? Let's quit the talk of tattle taling to our big Uncle Sam when we don't quite get exactly our way. We in The United States are absolutely spoiled with connectivity choices, that is why we have the luxury of whining. Try complaining openly in one of the many countries where the Government monopoly is your ONLY Connection to the Net! Imagine waiting in line to to grovel for you Net connection from the Governmental Telecommunication Monopoly! Indulge your freedom of Choice to insure your having choices in the future. RonY
Ronald Barron Yokubaitis A Internet Access for the Texas NetWorking Inc. B REPUBLIC OF TEXAS and San Antonio (210) 272-8111 5 neighboring countries Austin (512) 472-2532 L Boerne (210) 249-7058 Houston (713) 222-2260 J Georgetown (512) 869-5947 _.. . ._ _... ..... ._.. ._ _ _ ._ _... ..... ._.. ._ _ _ _._
Regards, Neil. -- Neil J. McRae. Alive and Kicking. E A S Y N E T G R O U P P L C neil@EASYNET.NET NetBSD/sparc: 100% SpF (Solaris protection Factor) Free the daemon in your <A HREF="http://www.NetBSD.ORG/">computer!</A>
On Fri, 27 Sep 1996, Neil J. McRae wrote:
BUT its a little alarming to see Sprint saying you can only use CISCO routers, when infact other routers work equally well, if not better. I just wanted to note that other routers can do the job. I hope this idea doesn't spread to any other backbone providers.
If it does, then it is time to get the anti-trust lawyers involved. It's one thing to have a close working relationship with Cisco and to recommend Cisco products, but quite another thing entirely to "require" the use of Cisco products.
Michael Dillon - ISP & Internet Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-604-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com
Anti-trust against Cisco? Or Sprint? I don't see it... Avi
On Fri, 27 Sep 1996, Michael Dillon wrote: ==>If it does, then it is time to get the anti-trust lawyers involved. It's ==>one thing to have a close working relationship with Cisco and to recommend ==>Cisco products, but quite another thing entirely to "require" the use of ==>Cisco products. Wait a minute here. Anti-trust against whom? I don't see any monopoly here, I hear other providers allow you to use other vendors' equipment. You saw Sprint's ops manager just tell Jon that he could use his Bay equipment. /cah
On Fri, 27 Sep 1996, Craig A. Huegen wrote:
==>If it does, then it is time to get the anti-trust lawyers involved. It's
Anti-trust against whom? I don't see any monopoly here,
Anyone who wants to can lay anti-trust charges against another company. It is not necessary for there to be a monopoly.
You saw Sprint's ops manager just tell Jon that he could use his Bay equipment.
I did say "if" up there. Although it appears rather small, "if" is actually a rather big word. Michael Dillon - ISP & Internet Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-604-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com
participants (6)
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Avi Freedman -
Craig A. Huegen -
craig＠kludge.net -
Michael Dillon -
Neil J. McRae -
Ronald Barron Yokubaitis