What frame relay switch is causing MCI/Worldcom such grief?

Mon Aug 9 15:10:18 UTC 1999

On Mon, 9 Aug 1999, Michael Dillon wrote:

> What frame relay switch is causing MCI/Worldcom such grief? 

The last time we had a Bay Networks salesperson visit he stated that MCI
(this was before the merger) was an all-Bay frame network.  Whether that
has changed or not, I can't say, but I can't see them ditching it all so
quickly.

And yep, having one Bay router left doing frame here, I'd love to know
what the problem is.  In NYC recently, we've had tons of problems as Bell
Atlantic migrates from frame to "frame emulation" on ATM switches.

Charles

> The above
> article contains this statement:
> 
>     "From what we know about the disruptions in the U.S., our UUNet is not
>      being affected because its network rides on a different platform,"
>      Wagner said. 
> 
> >From what I know of UUNet's frame relay network (which may be woefully
> outdated knowledge) they are using Cascade/Ascend/Lucent switches. This
> would tend to make one suspect that the problems are associated with
> non-Lucent switches rather than being some unusual effect within the frame
> relay protocol itself.
> 
> Is this another vendor related problem? If not, does it affect NNI
> customers of Worldcom?
> 
> With the growing profile of MPLS, I suspect that more networks are
> planning to roll out frame relay or ATM in their core in which case the
> technical facts behind these events should be of great interest to many of
> us on this list. 
> 
> I am less interested in the length of time a network is down and more
> interested in why it was down and how other operators could avoid the same
> problem.
> 
> --
> Michael Dillon                 -               E-mail: michael at memra.com
> Check the website for my Internet World articles -  http://www.memra.com        
> 
> 
> 