The Wall Street Journal had an article Thursday about the problems executives with large multi-national companies are having re-engineering their telecommunication networks. None of this should come as a surprise to long-time readers of any of the networking lists. Just in Case, Many Firms Work to Set Up Redundant Telecommunications Systems By DENNIS K. BERMAN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Thursday December 20 2001 John Smiley typically wears suits. But as the executive in charge of telecommunications for Lufthansa Systems' North American operations, he recently put on jeans and work boots to inch his way into a dirty train tunnel beneath New York City's Grand Central Terminal. His mission: to inspect new fiber-optic cables that snake through abandoned gas pipes, ensuring that they are running on a safe, separate path from a set of nearby fibers carrying the German airline's reservations data. I've done something similar in the past. But it doesn't solve the problem. Even if the sales person promises you diversity, even if you physically inspect every meter of fiber, even if you pay more, after six months your network won't be diverse. On a long-term basis, how do you check carriers are keeping their promises? Are there any commercial products which let subscribers automatically check DLR's from carriers for changes and conflicts? Since DLR's only show the active components in a circuit, has anyone developed a product to check for passive and location risks?
On a long-term basis, how do you check carriers are keeping their promises? Are there any commercial products which let subscribers automatically check DLR's from carriers for changes and conflicts? Since DLR's only show the active components in a circuit, has anyone developed a product to check for passive and location risks?
I know that this is in some cases a matter of religion and to others risk management. So some risk management *is* religion. While (y)our job may be to ensure that the network works, IMHO the only inducement that most suppliers will listen to (regardless of the product or service they are selling) is big, nasty and consistently enforced penalties for failing to deliver on contractual obligations. Hell, in England punative clauses in civil matters are not enforceable at all. On many occasions in my prior life at Demon Internet we laughed sales people out of meetings when they offered SLAs that were limited to the value of a months service. But, in the end *all* the salepeople offered the same deal. Until when SLAs come with a pay back greater than the cost of the contract, and in fact cover consequential losses, most service providers will treat the failure to deliver within the SLA as a risk associated with the service and not something more serious. Note that I have been vague over the 'services'. This is another bugbear of mine. ISPs cannot offer SLAs to end customer until their upstreams offer at least the same to them. The upstreams cannot until their upstreams do, and so on. No IP service provider can offer a good SLA until the telecoms and network hardware are covered, and the telco can't until the fiber owner does... This is why the level of risk is a commercial decision. Do we buy from enough upstreams so that we can take the risk that one or more will fail to meet their SLAs ? The assumption currently amongst most is (or so I understand at any rate) that people use SLAs to view the 'seriousness' of their service provider and not view it as a real means of compensation for failing to deliver. At the end of the day, compensation is not what you want, and certainly not what normal end users want, but the willingness of the service provider (at any level) to offer an SLA with the teeth pointed back at them may be an indication of their objectives. Peter
participants (2)
-
Peter Galbavy -
Sean Donelan