outages, quality monitoring, trouble tickets, etc
Matt Zimmerman
mdz at netrail.net
Sun Nov 26 01:40:44 UTC 1995
On Sat, 25 Nov 1995, Alan Hannan wrote:
> Should we provide automated Darned Good Answers to our customers?
> - YES, it would be nice
> but not a NEED,
> rather a nifty
> service (IMHO)
Automated answers would be great...but what about implementation? "Press
1 for an automated status report...<click>" Keeping customer service
staff well-informed (perhaps via an internal automated system) might be a
better solution.
> Should we provide automated Darned Good Answers to other NSPs?
> - YES, it would be nice
> but not a NEED,
> rather a nifty
> service and
> lower priority
> than #2.
I'm afraid I have to disagree...in a network of the level of complexity
of today's Internet (in fact, in any system where communication between
two points is dependent on more than just an "upstream" entity),
connectivity issues are MORE likely to be caused by interaction with
other NSP's. Dissemination of problem information between providers
helps everyone diagnose difficulties and keep their customers better
informed with respect to current status and predictions for the near
future (solutions).
A mailing list for this purpose seems like overkill...if dozens of NSP's
were to be informed every time JoeNet has a problem, even if their
service were not to be affected, the noise overload would reduce the
informative value of the list, as well as provider attention to it. But
how to determine when a problem is important enough to be distributed?
A more interactive shared system (ticket-based?) makes more sense, but
may prove far more difficult to design. Problem classification, impact,
severity, and location are all issues here, as well as the problem of
associating such a record of a problem with its effects. That is, when
a provider "discovers" a problem, how are they to know if it has already
been "registered", and if so, how to reference the information associated
with it?
[need for explanations]
> This is a good point, and I have been more convinced that it is
> important.
>
> Because of this discussion I am going to work to develop an
> automated WWW status page.
Good response, but how sound is the choice of implementation? If there
is a problem with your network, there is no small chance that those most
interested in acquiring this information would not be able to reach your
server to do so.
> ] The current situation is the customer gets neither the explanation nor
> ] action solving the problem.
> I appreciate that NSP response is not always ideal. However, I
> would encourage all people who get a less than exceptional
> response from a NOC technician to escalate the question so as to
> improve the NOC quality. No, this isn't something you should have
> to do, and it's not something that makes anyone terribly proud but
> it does tend to improve the service by natural tech selection.
I hate to say it, but what may be needed here is standardization. NOC
operating procedre varies greatly between providers, and the proper
escalation, etc. of a problem may not be clear.
// Matt Zimmerman Chief of System Management NetRail, Inc.
// Work..........mdz at netrail.net | Play...gemini at alcor.netrail.net
// (703) 524-4800 [voice] (703) 524-4802 [data] (703) 534-5033 [fax]
More information about the NANOG
mailing list