+1 for GBICs, SFPs I don't know if it's just me, but I have the worst luck with them. -----Original Message----- From: Jonathan Lassoff [mailto:jof@thejof.com] Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 1:40 PM To: Jay Ashworth Cc: NANOG Subject: Re: WW: Colo Vending Machine On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 10:35 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

Please post your top 3 favorite components/parts you'd like to see in a vending machine at your colo; please be as specific as possible; don't let vendor specificity scare you off.

This is a riot! I'd love to have something like this at facilities I'm in. Some useful stuff that comes to mind: - Rack screws of various common sizes and threadings - SFPs, GBICs, etc. - Rollover cable / DE-9->8P8P adapter - Screwdrivers - Cross-over Ethernet, patch cables - zip ties, velcro tape, etc. - Label tape Cheers, jof

----- Original Message -----

From: "Aled Morris" <aledm@qix.co.uk>

On 17 February 2012 18:43, Eric Tykwinski <eric-list@truenet.com> wrote:

...

+1 for GBICs, SFPs

You'll need to be carrying a lot of loose change then :-)

In fact, vending machines with builtin card readers and radio credit card validation are stock items these days.

My ideal vending machine would dispense Cat5e by the foot, the more you pull the more you pay, RJ45 plugs in pairs, and a crimp tool on a long chain (like the way you buy chain in a hardware store)

"in pairs" is nice; chained crimper -- or more likely "we'll authorize your card for $60; if you give us back the crimper, we'll only settle for $5". Not sure how much trouble "cable by the foot" would be, but I like it. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

My ideal vending machine would dispense Cat5e by the foot, the more you pull the more you pay, RJ45 plugs in pairs, and a crimp tool on a long chain (like the way you buy chain in a hardware store)

Aled

except for that -usually- when you -need- the crimp tool, you only know at which position to put the connectors after you have laid it in place, and then need the crimptool -there-, not at the vending machine. (usually between racks, for everything else, there is pre-fab patchcables)

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 10:40 AM, Jonathan Lassoff <jof@thejof.com> wrote:

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 10:35 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

...

Please post your top 3 favorite components/parts you'd like to see in a vending machine at your colo; please be as specific as possible; don't let vendor specificity scare you off.

This is a riot! I'd love to have something like this at facilities I'm in. Some useful stuff that comes to mind:  - Rack screws of various common sizes and threadings  - SFPs, GBICs, etc.  - Rollover cable / DE-9->8P8P adapter  - Screwdrivers  - Cross-over Ethernet, patch cables  - zip ties, velcro tape, etc.  - Label tape

HAHA! Great list. Add to this Cable Tester Thumb Drive RJ45s RJ45 crimper Box knife LED flashlights Blank CDs/DVDs

----- Original Message -----

From: "Jay Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com>

2) Power cords: C19 to L6-15, C19 to C20, C13 to C20 (latter 2 for 208V PDUs)

Oh: "in black and red" Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

Sven Olaf Kamphuis <sven@cb3rob.net> writes:

3.5" HD floppies (yes, they're still around ;)

Really? I thought Deutsche Bahn was last company using them: "Unfortunately we can't display reservation information." Okay, knowing Deutsche Bahn the disks might not be 3,5". ;-) Jens -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Foelderichstr. 40 | 13595 Berlin, Germany | +49-151-18721264 | | http://blog.quux.de | jabber: jenslink@guug.de | ------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know I'm being a freaking idealist. My tool bag carries all my required sets of screws and cage nuts. Works great until the first level guy decides to borrow something and not put it back. Thanks, Erik -----Original Message----- From: Sven Olaf Kamphuis [mailto:sven@cb3rob.net] Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 2:02 PM To: Erik Soosalu Cc: NANOG Subject: RE: Colo Vending Machine On Fri, 17 Feb 2012, Erik Soosalu wrote:

1) Patch cables every 1' length from 3-10' 2) Velcro wrap 3) Tools (screwdrivers, etc)

And since the racks usually come with the cage nuts, maybe the colo should just provide them.

they do? nonono, you have to buy those seperately :P racks don't even come with "doors" and "side walls" etc by default *grin* you have to buy them seperately anyway if you want to make sure your company uses all the same ones, so you don't have to take them out again and replace them because some fukkin idiot put the wrong size into the hole as it "came with something else"

...

Thanks, Erik

-----Original Message----- From: Jay Ashworth [mailto:jra@baylink.com] Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 1:35 PM To: NANOG Subject: WW: Colo Vending Machine

Please post your top 3 favorite components/parts you'd like to see in a vending machine at your colo; please be as specific as possible; don't let vendor specificity scare you off.

Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

noise/ear protectors! On Fri, 17 Feb 2012, Leigh Porter wrote:

On 17 Feb 2012, at 18:37, "Jay Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

...

Please post your top 3 favorite components/parts you'd like to see in a vending machine at your colo; please be as specific as possible; don't let vendor specificity scare you off.

Pizza, condoms and headache tablets.

-- Leigh

______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service. For more information please visit http://www.symanteccloud.com ______________________________________________________________________

if a pop doesn't come with a hotel with a bar in front of the door, or at least around the corner, and preferably free beer, coffee, etc in the cantina as well, we're not a customer of theirs haha. headace tables are good.. but then again, with noise protectors you would not get the headace in the first place :P and a buttwarmer to sit on the floor (or maybe even a chair!) On Fri, 17 Feb 2012, Tom Perrine wrote:

On 2/17/12 10:52 AM, Leigh Porter wrote:

...

On 17 Feb 2012, at 18:37, "Jay Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

...

Please post your top 3 favorite components/parts you'd like to see in a vending machine at your colo; please be as specific as possible; don't let vendor specificity scare you off.

Pizza, condoms and headache tablets.

Stone Brewery Arrogant Bastard beer - "A bitter brew for your bitter life", "You are not worthy"

You must have a pre-dotcom bubble datacenter... Sent from my iPhone On Feb 17, 2012, at 10:52, Leigh Porter <leigh.porter@ukbroadband.com> wrote:

On 17 Feb 2012, at 18:37, "Jay Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

...

Please post your top 3 favorite components/parts you'd like to see in a vending machine at your colo; please be as specific as possible; don't let vendor specificity scare you off.

Pizza, condoms and headache tablets.

-- Leigh

______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service. For more information please visit http://www.symanteccloud.com ______________________________________________________________________

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Leo Bicknell <bicknell@ufp.org> wrote:

In a message written on Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 01:35:15PM -0500, Jay Ashworth wrote:

...

Please post your top 3 favorite components/parts you'd like to see in a vending machine at your colo; please be as specific as possible; don't let vendor specificity scare you off.

USB->Serial adapters.  Preferably selected so they are driverless on both OSX and Windows. :)

The trick is to look for one that works on OpenBSD. If it works there, it will work on Windows, Mac, and Linux. YMMV. :-)

Leo Bicknell <bicknell@ufp.org> writes:

USB->Serial adapters. Preferably selected so they are driverless on both OSX and Windows. :) ^^^^^^^

Wahahahaha.... There is no such thing. I've seen people reinstalling their Windows after trying to use another USB->Serial adapter. I also have seen people running a Linux VM so they can use a USB->Serial adapter they borrowed from me. Jens -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Foelderichstr. 40 | 13595 Berlin, Germany | +49-151-18721264 | | http://blog.quux.de | jabber: jenslink@guug.de | ------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 2/17/12 11:55 AM, Leo Bicknell wrote:

USB->Serial adapters. Preferably selected so they are driverless on both OSX and Windows.:)

If you preinstall the Prolific PL-2303 (either commercial or open source driver version, at least on Mac) or MOSChip, you'll have drivers for 99% of the USB to serial adapters out there. I still long for the day when someone makes a true 16550 based USB to serial adapter... Some of the stuff I need to reprogram at the shop at times does not like the cheapie chips that are most common - I've bricked an APC network manager card at least once for that specific reason... -- Brielle Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group http://www.sosdg.org / http://www.ahbl.org

On 2/17/12 5:17 PM, Sven Olaf Kamphuis wrote:

...

I still long for the day when someone makes a true 16550 based USB to serial adapter... Some of the stuff I need to reprogram at the shop at times does not like the cheapie chips that are most common - I've bricked an APC network manager card at least once for that specific reason...

says more about the apc network manager card...

if it can't handle rs232 properly... well... (or, from what i understand from this, doesn't have checksums on its firmware files or doesn't check them ;)

:P I totally agree that the APC network cards are... for lack of a better term, a steaming pile. Unfortunately, when you have quite a few older UPSs and PDUs with old cards like the AP9606 that are still in service... I work pretty heavily these days in repair, refurbishment, and upgrading of legacy equipment from various fields - changes of career can be fun and rewarding, and in this case, a bit more relaxing from not being on call 24/7. When the vendor is long gone, replacement parts are scarce, and everything is serial based, you learn pretty quick that quirks and timing issues can wreck and trash a controller. Usually equals the junking of whole pieces of machinery or expensive replacement parts. So, while some people have messaged me off list giving me grief for suggesting it, I have my reasons for desiring such a 'strange beast'. In the meantime, I've got a passive ISA backplane, a collection of 286, 386, and higher proc boards, and misc ISA serial boards (why oh why did some vendors use RS-485 on some controllers???). <rant> On an unrelated side note and not directed at you... I read messages on this list at times, and I have to wonder if some people here forget where they came from when they first started out in the field or building their own company. Sometimes, its not possible to just replace or upgrade things in active service just because they are older, or because they are quirky. Yeah, its easy to say, "switch vendors!", but in reality, we all know that is far from the truth. I guess its easy lose sight of the fact that there's alot of companies and groups that don't have the luxury of million dollar budgets... or even tens of thousands in budget... Or run what they do as a hobby or charity. </rant> -- Brielle Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group http://www.sosdg.org / http://www.ahbl.org

or you just use your datacenter access rfid pass to pay and they put it on the bill later on. -- Greetings, Sven Olaf Kamphuis, CB3ROB Ltd. & Co. KG ========================================================================= Address: Koloniestrasse 34 VAT Tax ID: DE267268209 D-13359 Registration: HRA 42834 B BERLIN Phone: +31/(0)87-8747479 Germany GSM: +49/(0)152-26410799 RIPE: CBSK1-RIPE e-Mail: sven@cb3rob.net ========================================================================= <penpen> C3P0, der elektrische Westerwelle http://www.facebook.com/cb3rob ========================================================================= Confidential: Please be advised that the information contained in this email message, including all attached documents or files, is privileged and confidential and is intended only for the use of the individual or individuals addressed. Any other use, dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. On Fri, 17 Feb 2012, George Bonser wrote:

Diagonal cutters Screwdriver with interchangeable Phillips/straight blade Small flashlight (with the data center provider's logo even!) Headlamp Small mirror (inspection mirror) Rack screws Zip ties Velcro ties Sharpie markers Pens Notebook of shirt pocket size with pages that can be easily torn out for leaving notes. Post-It Assortment of electrical tape in various colors. SFPs (optical and RJ-45, short and long range) USB stick (sans viruses) Patch cords 1, 3, 5 meter. Copper, multi-mode, single-mode fiber USB to DB9 dongle (with driver on USB stick or one the computer can discover on the Internet) Standard charger of sort used for most smart phones these days or the proper USB cable (micro USB)

The vending machine should use a card like an ATM/gift card, not accept cash. You should be able to "charge" the card with some cash via a web portal and keep the card in the facility in your space. If something is needed, one can purchase it with the card. If there is no money on the card, a person can add cash to the card via a web portal somewhere. Scenario: remote hands guy arrives on site, needs an SFP, card doesn't have enough money on it, calls me, I can add the cash to the card, he can purchase the SFP and leave the card in the space for the next time it is needed.

i just want to pay a compliment to the fibercloud colo in the seattle westin. there are crash carts, a tool-chest, rack screws, other screws, garbage cans, ... and, if you are polite, they'll loan you usbs, blank cds, ... and, as remote hands, they are smarter than i. oops, maybe that's not a compliment. randy

The vending machine should use a card like an ATM/gift card, not accept cash. You should be able to "charge" the card with some cash via a web portal and keep the card in the facility in your space. If something is needed, one can purchase it with the card. If there is no money on the card, a person can add cash to the card via a web portal somewhere. Scenario: remote hands guy arrives on site, needs an SFP, card doesn't have enough money on it, calls me, I can add the cash to the card, he can purchase the SFP and leave the card in the space for the next time it is needed.

Actually pricing should be 8 bits, 16 bits, or maybe 32 bits for the really important stuff. George

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 5:00 PM, George Herbert <george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 1:44 PM, George Carey <george@montco.net> wrote:

...

...

The vending machine should use a card like an ATM/gift card, not accept cash.  You should be able to "charge" the card with some cash via a web portal and keep the card in the facility in your space.  If something is needed, one can purchase it with the card.  If there is no money on the card, a person can add cash to the card via a web portal somewhere.   Scenario:  remote hands guy arrives on site, needs an SFP, card doesn't have enough money on it, calls me, I can add the cash to the card, he can purchase the SFP and leave the card in the space for the next time it is needed.

Actually pricing should be 8 bits, 16 bits, or maybe 32 bits for the really important stuff.

Will IANA accept netblock transfers as an exchange medium for datacenter goodies vending machine payments? ...  ;-)

Joking while busy discouraged. s/IANA/ARIN/d'oh -- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 7:13 PM, Gary Buhrmaster <gary.buhrmaster@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 01:02, George Herbert <george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote: ....

...

...

Will IANA accept netblock transfers as an exchange medium for datacenter goodies vending machine payments? ...  ;-)

Joking while busy discouraged.  s/IANA/ARIN/d'oh

I suspect ARIN would follow its policy to recognize any transfer and update its records as long as the needs assessment was successfully completed, but any compensation between the seller and buyer of the resource is not part of the ARIN process.

(This is a (bad?) joke reference to a currently ongoing discussion on the ARIN PPML list).

Hah. So, this should work, provided both entities are on the STSL then. --- Harrison

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 11:21 AM, John Curran <jcurran@istaff.org> wrote:

On Feb 18, 2012, at 1:55 PM, Astrodog wrote:

...

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 7:13 PM, Gary Buhrmaster <gary.buhrmaster@gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 01:02, George Herbert <george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote: ....

...

...

Will IANA accept netblock transfers as an exchange medium for datacenter goodies vending machine payments? ...  ;-)

Joking while busy discouraged.  s/IANA/ARIN/d'oh

I suspect ARIN would follow its policy to recognize any transfer and update its records as long as the needs assessment was successfully completed, but any compensation between the seller and buyer of the resource is not part of the ARIN process.

(This is a (bad?) joke reference to a currently ongoing discussion on the ARIN PPML list).

Hah. So, this should work, provided both entities are on the STSL then.

"Sure..."  ;-)

That means you'd want about $2K worth of gear because of the existing /24 minimum, in addition to vending machine able to explain why it needs the address space.

Have fun, /John

p.s. A /16 might be about right for a pack of 100G SMF CFP modules...

This gives me an idea. The vending machine could also sell hosting. Sometimes, the box just won't come back to life and you need somewhere to stuff the data. *grin* (Actually, based on a few of my DC visits, there are times where I'd have gladly shelled out $2k for a small baggie of screws.) --- Harrison

Nice idea of future! :) Btw as side question - I heard transfer rates from S3 are capped badly. Something like 5-10Mbps. Is that true? Anyone of you ever came across such cap? On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 11:08 AM, Jimmy Hess <mysidia@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 3:05 PM, Astrodog <astrodog@gmail.com> wrote:

...

This gives me an idea. The vending machine could also sell hosting. Sometimes, the box just won't come back to life and you need somewhere to stuff the data. *grin*

How about a vending machine, where you insert a hard drive, swipe your card, and it either gets vaulted to S3 or an EC2 intance is spawned on the cloud, and the data on the drive becomes the instance's boot media and gets streamed to the instance storage over a 10-gigabit connection from the vending machine, until all the data's uploaded.

That solves the problem of end users getting their data to the hosting provider quickly, with no need to stress out their low-speed WAN.

-- -JH

-- Anurag Bhatia anuragbhatia.com or simply - http://[2001:470:26:78f::5] if you are on IPv6 connected network! Twitter: @anurag_bhatia <https://twitter.com/#!/anurag_bhatia> Linkedin: http://linkedin.anuragbhatia.com

On 12-02-17 03:05 PM, Leigh Porter wrote:

Did anybody say beer yet?

Don't forget the 30lb sledgehammer for those times when, ah, "percussive maintenance" is the only possible solution. ;) (Might be a bit hard to fit into a vending machine though... maybe the colo staff could just rent one out...) - Pete

Leigh Porter <leigh.porter@ukbroadband.com> wrote;

On 17 Feb 2012, at 20:10, "Peter Kristolaitis" <alter3d@alter3d.ca> wrote:

...

On 12-02-17 03:05 PM, Leigh Porter wrote:

...

Did anybody say beer yet?

I think it's safe to say that the Datacenter operators generally want customer visits to be as un-beer-able as they can make it.

...

Don't forget the 30lb sledgehammer for those times when, ah, "percussive maintenance" is the only possible solution. ;)

(Might be a bit hard to fit into a vending machine though... maybe the colo staff could just rent one out...)

- Pete

Ahh yes, I recently used a universal adjuster to assist with some installation issues..

Another handy item would be little packets of pixie dust for when things just don't work,,

Speaking of _that_, add to the list the traditional item(s)z for debugging SCSI problems.

On 2/17/2012 3:06 PM, Peter Kristolaitis wrote:

Don't forget the 30lb sledgehammer for those times when, ah, "percussive maintenance" is the only possible solution. ;)

My previous job had me managing our presence in a data center. For several months, in the row of racks across the hot aisle from ours, there was another customer of the data center who had apparently decided to only plug in one of the two power supplies for some drive array they had ... which resulted in a nice, steady beep. While not excessively loud, you could still make it out from several rows away. For those months, within five minutes of being in the data center, I wanted to perform percussive maintenance ... first on that equipment, then on the idiot who let it go for more than day beeping like that. -- Eric Stewart - Network Administrator - eric@usf.edu University of South Florida, Information Technology

PC LOAD LETTER?!?!?!?!? On 02/21/12 08:39, Mike Gatti wrote:

The 30lb sledge hammer should be in the parking lot in a enclosure with a front glass that reads "Break in case of extreme frustration" right next to the dumpster for recycling hardware.

You could make a living just with that business, replacing the front glass.

-- Mr. Flibble King of the Potato People

----- Original Message -----

From: "Robert Hajime Lanning" <lanning@lanning.cc> On 02/21/12 08:39, Mike Gatti wrote:

...

The 30lb sledge hammer should be in the parking lot in a enclosure with a front glass that reads "Break in case of extreme frustration" right next to the dumpster for recycling hardware.

You could make a living just with that business, replacing the front glass.

PC LOAD LETTER?!?!?!?!?

I prefer OUT OF CHEESE myself. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

PC LOAD LETTER?!?!?!?!?

PC LOAD LETTER is not the issue. One country that insists on using different paper sizes to everyone else, but also happens to set a lot of hardware and software defaults is the issue :(

On Feb 22, 2012, at 2:02 AM, Tim Franklin wrote:

...

PC LOAD LETTER?!?!?!?!?

PC LOAD LETTER is not the issue.

One country that insists on using different paper sizes to everyone else, but also happens to set a lot of hardware and software defaults is the issue :(

While there is some truth to this, in reality, if everyone else would just use 8.5" x 11", then, the US would no longer be different. :p Owen

On 2/22/12 07:50 , Owen DeLong wrote:

On Feb 22, 2012, at 2:02 AM, Tim Franklin wrote:

...

...

PC LOAD LETTER?!?!?!?!?

PC LOAD LETTER is not the issue.

One country that insists on using different paper sizes to everyone else, but also happens to set a lot of hardware and software defaults is the issue :(

While there is some truth to this, in reality, if everyone else would just use 8.5" x 11", then, the US would no longer be different. :p

If we just stop printing things the problem goes away.

Owen

On 22-Feb-12 10:34, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 08:09, Joel jaeggli <joelja@bogus.com> wrote:

...

If we just stop printing things the problem goes away. I think Xerox promised me a paperless office (starting in the 1980s?). I am still waiting.

That's an odd thing to expect from a company that made its name in photocopiers, printers and fax machines, i.e. machines that enabled using /more/ paper in the office rather than less. However, my office /is /almost entirely paperless today; everything is done via email/web except where paper is required by the legal system. Nearly all of what I do print is signed, scanned to PDF and shredded within minutes. S -- Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

On Feb 17, 2012, at 5:55 PM, Jason Baugher <jason@thebaughers.com> wrote:

Do you guys ride your bike to the colo and show up in shorts and a t-shirt? Who goes to the colo without things like their laptop?

Think of it as one less thing to carry to carry to the colo :-)

On 2/17/2012 4:22 PM, Rodrick Brown wrote:

...

On Feb 17, 2012, at 1:35 PM, Jay Ashworth<jra@baylink.com> wrote:

...

Please post your top 3 favorite components/parts you'd like to see in a vending machine at your colo; please be as specific as possible; don't let vendor specificity scare you off.

atom based 10" laptop with serial interface and cable. $15 day charge would rock!

4 Port 10/100/1000 hub. $20?

USB sticks 2/4/8GB

Cage nuts various common sizes.

Vending machine should double as wireless AP with open Internet access $5 should give you AP code and min 8 hour access time.

Sent from my iPhone.

...

Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth& Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

I have, on occasion been away from my laptop and gotten the call to go to the colo and deal with XYZ hardware problem and the colo was either: A in the opposite or orthogonal direction from my house and significantly closer or B the colo was between my present location. In such cases, I will occasionally stop by the colo without going home to retrieve the laptop. 90% of the time it works out OK. 10% of the time I end up leaving the colo, going home, retrieving the laptop and returning to the colo. Obviously, if there was a loaner laptop available for a $15 rental in the colo as described, it would probably be worth $15 to me and/or my organization to avoid the delay and bother of the round-trip between colo and home. Owen On Feb 17, 2012, at 2:55 PM, Jason Baugher wrote:

Do you guys ride your bike to the colo and show up in shorts and a t-shirt? Who goes to the colo without things like their laptop?

On 2/17/2012 4:22 PM, Rodrick Brown wrote:

...

On Feb 17, 2012, at 1:35 PM, Jay Ashworth<jra@baylink.com> wrote:

...

Please post your top 3 favorite components/parts you'd like to see in a vending machine at your colo; please be as specific as possible; don't let vendor specificity scare you off.

atom based 10" laptop with serial interface and cable. $15 day charge would rock!

4 Port 10/100/1000 hub. $20?

USB sticks 2/4/8GB

Cage nuts various common sizes.

Vending machine should double as wireless AP with open Internet access $5 should give you AP code and min 8 hour access time.

Sent from my iPhone.

...

Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth& Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

On 18/02/12 18:42, Matthew Palmer wrote:

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 05:39:34PM -0800, Owen DeLong wrote:

...

In such cases, I will occasionally stop by the colo without going home to retrieve the laptop. 90% of the time it works out OK. 10% of the time I end up leaving the colo, going home, retrieving the laptop and returning to the colo. Obviously, if there was a loaner laptop available for a $15 rental in the colo as described, it would probably be worth $15 to me and/or my organization to avoid the delay and bother of the round-trip between colo and home.

As previously advised, typing passwords/phrases into such devices is... not recommended. At $ORK, we've got DC tech laptops in each suite for just such occasions, preconfigured with everything you might need (bookmarks into all internal systems and likely wiki pages, a "DC tech" jabber account, etc). Works well, and I'm sure they've paid for themselves many times over.

The old colo at $JOB[-1] used to have an old Wyse 50 kicking around which I was happy enough to use (yes they can still be made to snarf credentials, but it's less likely) once or twice when I forgot my USB-Serial.

Once upon a time, John Osmon <josmon@rigozsaurus.com> said:

At my $JOB[-1] they laughed at me when I pulled a Wyse out of the trash bin and stuck it on a spare crash cart.

We have a VT-510 in the data center and at least one VT-420 sitting in a closet. I have a VT-102 (well, a C.Itoh CIT-101 rebadged by Intergraph) at home. "Dumb" terminals are sometimes very smart. -- Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.

Just give me a gumball machine with RJ45 ends and a crimper on a chain. I'll find some wire that can be shorter. -- Joe Hamelin, W7COM, Tulalip, WA, 360-474-7474

Take a look at Raritan. We use their product to gain remote access to system consoles. No more driving 100s of miles. Ok, it would be 200 feet for us. matthew black information technology services bh-188 california state university, long beach -----Original Message----- From: Jon Lewis [mailto:jlewis@lewis.org] Sent: Monday, February 20, 2012 7:35 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: WW: Colo Vending Machine On Sat, 18 Feb 2012, John Osmon wrote:

At my $JOB[-1] they laughed at me when I pulled a Wyse out of the trash bin and stuck it on a spare crash cart.

Then I fixed something while they were still looking for USB-Serial, etc.

Speaking of that sort of thing, I'd really LOVE if there were a device about the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless machines in colos that would give you keyboard, video & mouse. i.e. a folding netbook shaped VGA monitor with USB keyboard and touchpad. I know there are folding rackmount versions of this (i.e. from Dell), but I want something far more portable. Twice in the past month, I'd had to drive 100+ miles to a remote colo and took a full size flat panel monitor and keyboard with me. Has anyone actually built this yet? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis, MCP :) | I route Senior Network Engineer | therefore you are Atlantic Net | _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________

Can someone give me a link or part number on the Raritan site? I see LCD consoles but they are the generic slide out versions. Looking for the netbook concept referenced below.... -Hammer- "I was a normal American nerd" -Jack Herer On 2/21/2012 3:51 AM, Owen DeLong wrote:

+1 for Raritan... I was very happy with their KVM switches at my last job.

Owen

On Feb 20, 2012, at 7:40 AM, Matthew Black wrote:

...

Take a look at Raritan. We use their product to gain remote access to system consoles. No more driving 100s of miles. Ok, it would be 200 feet for us.

matthew black information technology services bh-188 california state university, long beach

-----Original Message----- From: Jon Lewis [mailto:jlewis@lewis.org] Sent: Monday, February 20, 2012 7:35 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: WW: Colo Vending Machine

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012, John Osmon wrote:

...

At my $JOB[-1] they laughed at me when I pulled a Wyse out of the trash bin and stuck it on a spare crash cart.

Then I fixed something while they were still looking for USB-Serial, etc. Speaking of that sort of thing, I'd really LOVE if there were a device about the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless machines in colos that would give you keyboard, video& mouse. i.e. a folding netbook shaped VGA monitor with USB keyboard and touchpad. I know there are folding rackmount versions of this (i.e. from Dell), but I want something far more portable. Twice in the past month, I'd had to drive 100+ miles to a remote colo and took a full size flat panel monitor and keyboard with me. Has anyone actually built this yet?

---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis, MCP :) | I route Senior Network Engineer | therefore you are Atlantic Net | _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________

I too would be VERY interested in something like this. There are many times when I am out on site with customers who don't have anything connected to it and you need to figure out what is up. Even a VGA input USB keyboard/mouse and application to match it for an Android/iFail tablet would be AWESOME. I'm sure our office would buy about 10 of them the first week they were out... I have USB inputs on my tablet that work for USB headphones and USB keyboard so I would think it would just be driver and software fun.... -----Original Message----- From: Jon Lewis [mailto:jlewis@lewis.org] Sent: Monday, February 20, 2012 8:35 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: WW: Colo Vending Machine On Sat, 18 Feb 2012, John Osmon wrote:

At my $JOB[-1] they laughed at me when I pulled a Wyse out of the trash bin and stuck it on a spare crash cart.

Then I fixed something while they were still looking for USB-Serial, etc.

Speaking of that sort of thing, I'd really LOVE if there were a device about the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless machines in colos that would give you keyboard, video & mouse. i.e. a folding netbook shaped VGA monitor with USB keyboard and touchpad. I know there are folding rackmount versions of this (i.e. from Dell), but I want something far more portable. Twice in the past month, I'd had to drive 100+ miles to a remote colo and took a full size flat panel monitor and keyboard with me. Has anyone actually built this yet? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis, MCP :) | I route Senior Network Engineer | therefore you are Atlantic Net | _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________

On 2/20/12 08:54 , Matthew Petach wrote:

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 7:34 AM, Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org> wrote:

...

Speaking of that sort of thing, I'd really LOVE if there were a device about the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless machines in colos that would give you keyboard, video & mouse. i.e. a folding netbook shaped VGA monitor with USB keyboard and touchpad. I know there are folding rackmount versions of this (i.e. from Dell), but I want something far more portable. Twice in the past month, I'd had to drive 100+ miles to a remote colo and took a full size flat panel monitor and keyboard with me. Has anyone actually built this yet?

http://www.startech.com/Server-Management/KVM-Switches/Portable-USB-PS-2-KVM...

I'm sure there would be dozens of companies that would order them in a heartbeat, to be able to do away with the constant need for crash carts rolling around the datacenter aisles. Heck, even I'd order one--I could finally get rid of the old monitors I keep around the house for debugging random server problems in the rack upstairs. :/

Dozens is a rather small market when a production run is a couple hundred thousand units... Things with legacy ports on them are on the way out. given an ipmi manager that doesn't suck there should be no reason to connect to the machine at all, to console in. the rats nest is a lot more tractable when there is ethernet and power and nothing else.

On 2/20/12 09:55 , Leo Bicknell wrote:

In a message written on Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 09:51:59AM -0800, Joel jaeggli wrote:

...

Things with legacy ports on them are on the way out. given an ipmi manager that doesn't suck there should be no reason to connect to the machine at all, to console in. the rats nest is a lot more tractable when there is ethernet and power and nothing else.

This reminded me of another gizmo I'd like to have...

How about a Bluetooth to Serial adapter? Routers don't (yet) have iLO, but I have this fantasy about being able to walk into a colo with a handfull of small adapters that I simply plug on to consoles and then sit down with my laptop and can access all the serial ports without having to run cables.

such a thing exists, I wouldn't consider it part of permanent oob solution. http://www.amazon.com/SIIG-ID-SB0011-S1-RS-232-Bluetooth-Converter/dp/B001AZ... http://www.quatech.com/catalog/bluetooth_serial.php

Talk about eliminating the rat's nest....

Ive wished this for years. Seems like it could be easy to achieve in theory. -Mario Eirea On Feb 20, 2012, at 11:55 AM, "Matthew Petach" <mpetach@netflight.com> wrote:

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 7:34 AM, Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org> wrote:

...

Speaking of that sort of thing, I'd really LOVE if there were a device about the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless machines in colos that would give you keyboard, video & mouse. i.e. a folding netbook shaped VGA monitor with USB keyboard and touchpad. I know there are folding rackmount versions of this (i.e. from Dell), but I want something far more portable. Twice in the past month, I'd had to drive 100+ miles to a remote colo and took a full size flat panel monitor and keyboard with me. Has anyone actually built this yet?

Seeing as how most laptops have a VGA connector and a keyboard/mouse connector on them, albeit wired in the wrong direction (VGA connector feeds video out from the video card, keyboard port takes in input from external keyboard), the wiring and hard parts are already mostly done; I'd *love* to have a vendor release a laptop line that has a toggle switch on it that a) only engages when the laptop is off, and b) flips the logic--keyboard port gets connected to the output of the laptop keyboard, and sends data out rather than receives data, while the VGA port is disconnected from the video card, and is instead connected to the LCD panel of the laptop. If an enterprise vendor added support for a toggle like that, I'm sure there would be dozens of companies that would order them in a heartbeat, to be able to do away with the constant need for crash carts rolling around the datacenter aisles. Heck, even I'd order one--I could finally get rid of the old monitors I keep around the house for debugging random server problems in the rack upstairs. :/

Matt

Interesting thought..... You know you can easily put together something like such... Some ideas for you:-- Screens: (these are mostly designed to be 2nd Screens on laptops). http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=lt1421&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=13474581570&ref=pd_sl_8j9d6nstmk_b <http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=lt1421&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=13474581570&ref=pd_sl_8j9d6nstmk_b> More Screens: Mostly designed for industrial / POS applications. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=lilliput+vga+lcd&_sacat=0&_stpos=33155&_sop=16&gbr=1&_odkw=10.1%22+vga+lcd&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313 <http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=lilliput+vga+lcd&_sacat=0&_stpos=33155&_sop=16&gbr=1&_odkw=10.1%22+vga+lcd&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313> http://store.earthlcd.com/LCD-Products For Keyboards: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/search.asp?keywords=smal... ----------------------- Or if you can order one of these..... Exactly what you are looking for !!! http://store.earthlcd.com/LCD-Products/Portable-Monitors Regards. Faisal Imtiaz Snappy Internet& Telecom 7266 SW 48 Street Miami, Fl 33155 Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232 Helpdesk: 305 663 5518 option 2 Email: Support@Snappydsl.net On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 7:34 AM, Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org> wrote:

...

...

...

Speaking of that sort of thing, I'd really LOVE if there were a device about the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless machines in colos that would give you keyboard, video& mouse. i.e. a folding netbook shaped VGA monitor with USB keyboard and touchpad. I know there are folding rackmount versions of this (i.e. from Dell), but I want something far more portable. Twice in the past month, I'd had to drive 100+ miles to a remote colo and took a full size flat panel monitor and keyboard with me. Has anyone actually built this yet?

There are also these, work with anything with a USB port: http://www.blackbox.com/Store/Detail.aspx/USB-Laptop-Console-Crash-Cart-Adap ter/KVT100A You could mate this with a cheap used Netbook too. -----Original Message----- From: Jon Lewis [mailto:jlewis@lewis.org] Sent: Monday, February 20, 2012 5:05 PM To: Faisal Imtiaz Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Laptop with reverse VGA On Mon, 20 Feb 2012, Faisal Imtiaz wrote:

Or if you can order one of these..... Exactly what you are looking for !!! http://store.earthlcd.com/LCD-Products/Portable-Monitors

That does look like pretty much exactly what I wanted...but a palm sized IP KVM for less than half the price seems much more sensible and useful. I'm already pushing for us to buy a few...and might even just buy a personal one. It just goes to show, sometimes you don't know what you're looking for until you find it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis, MCP :) | I route Senior Network Engineer | therefore you are Atlantic Net | _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________

On Mon, 2012-02-20 at 23:23 +0200, Jussi Peltola wrote:

The display would require a scaler/processor/ADC/TMDS receiver, which are found in every standalone LCD. This stuff consumes multiple watts (it becomes hot enough to cook itself in a few years after all) so it will not appear in a laptop any time soon.

I think the form-factour is already there. I have a Motorola Atrix smartphone. It's available with a laptop-dock unit. This is essentially a USB hub and display. The display is connected by outputting from the phone's HDMI port. The rest of the input/output device (keyboard and trackpad) are seen as USB connected devices and interfaced via the phone's USB port (Atrix supports USB host mode). Essentially, this laptop dock is what people are talking about except for a generic host instead of for a phone. We would want to expose the HDMI input generically and probably with an additional VGA input. Of course there are also VGA-HDMI converters. Anyone wanna ring up Motorola to see if they're interesting in adapting the Atrix laptop-dock technology? -- /*=================[ Jake Khuon <khuon@NEEBU.Net> ]=================+ | Packet Plumber, Network Engineers /| / [~ [~ |) | | -------- | | for Effective Bandwidth Utilisation / |/ [_ [_ |) |_| NETWORKS | +==================================================================*/

On 21/02/12 14:48, Jay Ashworth wrote:

----- Original Message -----

...

From: "Jake Khuon"<khuon@neebu.net> I think the form-factour is already there. I have a Motorola Atrix smartphone. It's available with a laptop-dock unit. This is essentially a USB hub and display. The display is connected by outputting from the phone's HDMI port. The rest of the input/output device (keyboard and trackpad) are seen as USB connected devices and interfaced via the phone's USB port (Atrix supports USB host mode).

Essentially, this laptop dock is what people are talking about except for a generic host instead of for a phone. We would want to expose the HDMI input generically and probably with an additional VGA input. Of course there are also VGA-HDMI converters. Anyone wanna ring up Motorola to see if they're interesting in adapting the Atrix laptop-dock technology? As someone who's done video for 20 years, I can tell you, Jake:

It ain't that easy.

The interface on the Atrix is purpose-built, and it's almost certainly just a DVI/HDMI digital interface to a panel that expects that.

What's necessary for a standalone KVM of the sort we're talking about is what the video people call a "genlock" circuit -- most machines that need this at all have analog VGA out, and you have to have a chip that can lock up to it, and extract the video from that analog signal cleanly.

This is, to quote the Jargon file, decidedly non-trivial to do well.

That's the reason why a single port unit, not on sale, is generally around $400. If it was DVI/HDMI *only*, it could be substantially cheaper, but I've never seen one that was.

Cheers, - jra

High prices are more likely to do with the small market for such devices, than to do with the cost of the underlying technology. It isn't so much genlock, as accurate pixel clock recovery, that's the hard thing. It is indeed hard to do well, but fortunately the chipmakers have done all that for you. It's a common enough need (think flat panel monitors) that there are inexpensive single-chip solutions for it that not only do the A/D conversion, but handle the pixel clock recovery for you as well: see, for example, the Analog Devices AD9884A or ADV7441A. Data sheets at http://www.analog.com/en/audiovideo-products/analoghdmidvi-interfaces/ad9884... and http://www.analog.com/en/analog-to-digital-converters/video-decoders/adv7441... respectively. -- Neil

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 12:45:02PM -0500, Jay Ashworth wrote:

Yeah; I knew (or was pretty sure) that it was down to the chip level at this point, but as you say, for driving the price down, there's nothing like the single-chip solution, and this is apparently just far enough off the edge of the popularity curve that it's not in any single-chip solutions (that I know of, and board-level hardware isn't really my game).

Practically all desktop LCDs do have a single chip that eats VGA and outputs LVDS. All you would need is a suitable ROM with modelines for it to work with a laptop screen. But these parts run hot and come in gigantic TQFP packages (when compared to the form factor of ICs in laptops.) Making a replacement card that fits in a laptop instead of the motherboard is quite possible. Sadly, I have neither the time nor the motivation since I already have a SpiderDuo :)

Speaking of that sort of thing, I'd really LOVE if there were a device about the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless machines in colos that would give you keyboard, video & mouse. i.e. a folding netbook shaped VGA monitor with USB keyboard and touchpad. I know there are folding rackmount versions of this (i.e. from Dell), but I want something far more portable. Twice in the past month, I'd had to drive 100+ miles to a remote colo and took a full size flat panel monitor and keyboard with me. Has anyone actually built this yet?

Not that I know of. We used to be able to buy Proview PL456S / Mag Innovision LT456S's 14" LCD's, which are fairly portable and small, and combined with a small form factor keyboard, that's not a horrible compromise. You just jam one in a little spare space in the top of a rack. But you can't *get* them anymore. Monitor sizes have exploded in the last half a decade. Bah. But from our own experience, the need for a keyboard and display has decreased dramatically in recent years. Most server grade gear these days can be had with IPMI/iLO/whatever, and the use of ESXi makes it uncommon for us to actually need physical KVM, which means that a small laptop is an ever-more-flexible tool. I'm a little curious to know if this sort of arrangement is still relatively uncommon. I must admit that our planning and preparedness is designed around a multi-level strategy to avoid having to go on-site to a site nearly a thousand miles away, so we've probably instrumented things a bit more heavily than many networks, but when the cost difference between IPMI- capable gear and standard gear is a handful of dollars, I guess I am a bit mystified that anyone would want to "drive 100+ miles to a remote colo" twice a month for a task that it sounds like KVMoIP or IPMI might be able to tackle. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 10:34:58AM -0500, Jon Lewis wrote:

Speaking of that sort of thing, I'd really LOVE if there were a device about the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless machines in colos that would give you keyboard, video & mouse. i.e. a folding netbook shaped VGA monitor with USB keyboard and touchpad. I know there are folding rackmount versions of this (i.e. from Dell), but I want something far more portable. Twice in the past month, I'd had to drive 100+ miles to a remote colo and took a full size flat panel monitor and keyboard with me. Has anyone actually built this yet?

http://www.lantronix.com/it-management/kvm-over-ip/securelinx-spiderduo.html Get a usb ethernet adapter to plug it in if you don't want to use the only one in your laptop. Ethernet is a great convenience for this purpose. It is much nicer to use a long cable to get away from the heat and cramped aisle so you can stretch your legs while typing. The spider duo even allows RS232 access with reverse telnet and ssh. IMO having a portable IP KVM at every site is a very good investment. Just ask remote hands to connect it. Then you can diagnose at home and drive only when it is necessary. In customer sites the customer will usually be very happy to be the remote hands, so they will get faster repairs for less cost.

From nanog-bounces+bonomi=mail.r-bonomi.com@nanog.org Mon Feb 20 09:40:44 2012 Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:34:58 -0500 (EST) From: Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org> To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: WW: Colo Vending Machine

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012, John Osmon wrote:

...

At my $JOB[-1] they laughed at me when I pulled a Wyse out of the trash bin and stuck it on a spare crash cart.

Then I fixed something while they were still looking for USB-Serial, etc.

Speaking of that sort of thing, I'd really LOVE if there were a device about the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless machines in colos that would give you keyboard, video & mouse. i.e. a folding netbook shaped VGA monitor with USB keyboard and touchpad. I know there are folding rackmount versions of this (i.e. from Dell), but I want something far more portable. Twice in the past month, I'd had to drive 100+ miles to a remote colo and took a full size flat panel monitor and keyboard with me. Has anyone actually built this yet?

You might want to look at "Lilliput Computer" offerings <http://www.lilliputweb.net> Add an "Adesso Flexible compact keyboard" <http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&cid=6658121900308964173> And you're in the 'in a briefcase, or a backpack' range, and nearly in the 'in a coat pocket' range. Not _exactly_ what you asked for -- it's two pieces, not one -- but close.

Hi Jon, On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 2:34 AM, Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org> wrote:

Speaking of that sort of thing, I'd really LOVE if there were a device about the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless machines in colos that would give you keyboard, video & mouse.  i.e. a folding netbook shaped VGA monitor with USB keyboard and touchpad.  I know there are folding rackmount versions of this (i.e. from Dell), but I want something far more portable.  Twice in the past month, I'd had to drive 100+ miles to a remote colo and took a full size flat panel monitor and keyboard with me.  Has anyone actually built this yet?

What about something like this? http://www.comsol.com.au/SL-PCC-01 cheers, Dale

Neat. But, apparently comsol does not sell outside of the US.

I obviously need more coffee - I meant they do not sell *into* the US. Apologies for the double-mail.

On Thu, 1 Mar 2012, Dale Shaw wrote:

Hi Jon,

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 2:34 AM, Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org> wrote:

...

Speaking of that sort of thing, I'd really LOVE if there were a device about the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless machines in colos that would give you keyboard, video & mouse.  i.e. a folding netbook shaped VGA monitor with USB keyboard and touchpad.  I know there are folding rackmount versions of this (i.e. from Dell), but I want something far more portable.  Twice in the past month, I'd had to drive 100+ miles to a remote colo and took a full size flat panel monitor and keyboard with me.  Has anyone actually built this yet?

What about something like this?

http://www.comsol.com.au/SL-PCC-01

cheers, Dale

Or something like this: http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-Console-Portable-Adapter-NOTECONS01/dp/B002CL... Ted Hatfield

On 18 Feb 2012, at 01:46, "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com> wrote:

I have, on occasion been away from my laptop and gotten the call to go to the colo and deal with XYZ hardware problem and the colo was either: A in the opposite or orthogonal direction from my house and significantly closer or B the colo was between my present location.

In such cases, I will occasionally stop by the colo without going home to retrieve the laptop. 90% of the time it works out OK. 10% of the time I end up leaving the colo, going home, retrieving the laptop and returning to the colo. Obviously, if there was a loaner laptop available for a $15 rental in the colo as described, it would probably be worth $15 to me and/or my organization to avoid the delay and bother of the round-trip between colo and home.

Owen

Yeah done that a few times.. Now all our colo sites have a kit with laptop (that boots win 7, XP and Linux) serial USB things, USB ethernet things and that has a DVD/cd burner and a stock of blanks and a 3G dongle thing. I.e. everything I have ever had to go home/office/nearest-shop for.. So now when our guys to go colo, they can usually take anything and have most things they need there already. Now we need to nail them down so people DON'T BRING THEM BACK TO THE OFFICE. -- Leigh ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service. For more information please visit http://www.symanteccloud.com ______________________________________________________________________

Do you guys ride your bike to the colo and show up in shorts and a t-shirt? Who goes to the colo without things like their laptop?

Quite frankly, when the colo is 800 miles away and you've flown out to do something important, only to be tripped up by a lack of some stupid $something, and it's 11PM at night, you get a very different (*very* different) outlook on it all. Especially with the way it is these days to fly, you don't want to be carrying odd stuff with you if you can avoid it. We'll ship gear via FedEx or UPS. We rely on existing on-site supplies to cover most unexpected stuff. It is easy to justify keeping a well-stocked toolbox with a ton of generally-useful tools, and also some specialty tools, for example. Our Ashburn toolbox contains, among other things: Laminated maps of the area with distributors like Graybar located (now probably useless, 8 years out of date, anyone familiar with NoVA will understand, haha), Notebook and pen, pencil Precision flat & Phillips screwdrivers, Mini Maglite, Sharpie RGB Markers, Utility Knife (cutting boxes), Xacto Knife set, hex bit extensions, DB25 pin inserter/extractor tools, scissors, surgeon's clamp, metal nibbler, wire stripper, various general crimp tools, several pliers, several needlenose/ bent-nose, flush cutters, adjustable wrenches, Victorinox Swiss CyberTool, Milwaukee Power Screwdriver #6546. 22" (not a typo) hex Phillips bit. Outlet wiring tester, telephone line tester, RS232 snooper, AUI xcvr (don't laugh, I actually used one within the last 5 years), wire wrap tool and wire, pencils and sharpener, anti-static wrist strap, logic probe, tool magnetizer, digital multimeter, soldering iron and supplies, electrical tape, punchdown tool, heat shrink tubing kit, hex key sets, socket drive sets, medium screwdrivers. Tap & drill set, 20' tape measure, hammer, rubber mallet, big pliers, big utility knife, torp level, various bit kits, large adj wrench, tongue and groove pliers, big wire cutters/needle nose, spare charger and battery for power screwdriver, small cordless drill, crimpers, first aid kit, big MagLite, test lead kit, serial adapter kit. Now I will concede that we've used a lot of this stuff only a few times over the years, and some of it maybe even never, but the point is that it really stinks to be on-site and in-need without an easy way to address the need. It's really amusing that there've been people who have made it a habit to borrow tools out of our toolbox "because we have just about anything." Since you guys like pictures: http://www.sol.net/tmp/nanog/toolbox1.jpg http://www.sol.net/tmp/nanog/toolbox2.jpg http://www.sol.net/tmp/nanog/toolbox3.jpg We also keep some small roughtotes with: Fiber supplies Copper supplies Power cords etc Server parts Telecom supplies So, yes, sometimes I show up at the colo in shorts and a t-shirt. Matter of fact, most of the time I do. It's more fun that way. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.

On 17 February 2012 23:23, david raistrick <drais@icantclick.org> wrote:

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012, Pierre-Yves Maunier wrote:

6 - plastic cable clamps (don't know the exact english term for that but I

...

mean this --> http://www.hellopro.fr/images/**produit-2/9/3/8/serre-cables-**261839.jpg<http://www.hellopro.fr/images/produit-2/9/3/8/serre-cables-261839.jpg> )

also known as "zip tie" or "plastic cable tie" more generically

Though wax string is nicer. http://www.repsole.com/ProductGroup.asp?PGID=254 Aled

On Feb 17, 2012, at 3:23 PM, david raistrick wrote:

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012, Pierre-Yves Maunier wrote:

...

6 - plastic cable clamps (don't know the exact english term for that but I mean this --> http://www.hellopro.fr/images/produit-2/9/3/8/serre-cables-261839.jpg)

also known as "zip tie" or "plastic cable tie" more generically

I'd much rather see Velcro cable ties like this: http://www.amazon.com/Velcro-Hook-Loop-Fastening-Cable/dp/B004AFUJZC/ref=pd_... Owen

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012, Sven Olaf Kamphuis wrote:

...

7 - compressed air can to clean dust

dust?!?!? sounds like time to find a whole new colo and move everything out of there haha.

I also hope that duster can would not be used by someone who is attempting to clean fiber end-faces. Incredibly bad idea. See a recent thread on cisco-nsp. jms

Sven Olaf Kamphuis wrote:

...

7 - compressed air can to clean dust

dust?!?!? sounds like time to find a whole new colo and move everything out of there haha.

i've -never- encountered one with dust in it.

that stuff usually gets sucked out before it gets the idea to land on anything should it even get in in the first place

I'e seen a "state of the art" San Jose equinix data centre with a leaking roof, accompanied by buckets on the floor (so we're safe) and the occasional cricket like insect crawling through the racks (but hey, they do have traps for those :-) But... no dust. Regards, Jeroen -- Earthquake Magnitude: 4.6 Date: Tuesday, March 6, 2012 09:50:22 UTC Location: near the east coast of Honshu, Japan Latitude: 37.7614; Longitude: 141.6382 Depth: 46.10 km

rfid scanner for billing through the datacenter bill with your access card. (which is linked to your customer id anyway ;) On Fri, 17 Feb 2012, George Bakos wrote:

Key features required:

Running an OS that can be patched/updated by someone other than the machine vendor

Deployment in a screened subnet, not trusted by the rest of the administrative net

(^^I've run into NT4.0 on a vending machine in a physical DMZ!)

RFC 2324 implementation

g

On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:35:15 -0500 (EST) Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

...

Please post your top 3 favorite components/parts you'd like to see in a vending machine at your colo; please be as specific as possible; don't let vendor specificity scare you off.

Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

--

1. A blow-up mattress and pillow set. 2. A magic wand 3. A highly caffeinated Noc-Tech

On Feb 17, 2012, at 1:35 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

...

Please post your top 3 favorite components/parts you'd like to see in a vending machine at your colo; please be as specific as possible; don't let vendor specificity scare you off.

Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

Tim Connolly Director of IT Web: www.farecompare.com