Benefits (and Detriments) of Standardizing Network Equipment in a Global Organization

Thu Dec 29 19:14:34 UTC 2016

On 12/29/16 10:22 AM, Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Dec 2016 07:44:45 -0800, Leo Bicknell said:
> 
>> But I think the question others are trying to ask is a different
>> hyptothetical.  Say there are two vendors, of of which makes perfectly
>> good edge routers and core routers.  What are the pros to buying all
>> of the edge from one, and all of the core from the other?
> 
> The *original* question, which seems to have gotten lost, was:
> 
> Say you're doing business in 100 countries, with some stated level of
> possible autonomy for each business unit.
> 
> Is it better for upper corporate to say "all 100 national business units
> will use vendor A for edge devices and vendor B for routing", or "all 100
> business units shall choose, based on local conditions such as vendor
> support, a standard set of vendors for their operations"?
> 
> Stated differently, "Which causes more trouble - a mix of Vendor A in
> Denmark talking to Vendor B in Finland, or corporate mandating the use
> of Vendor Q even if Q doesn't have a support office in Kazakhstan while
> vendor F has an office in the building next door"?

ok I'll bite.

imho, repeatable patterns of deployment are a great  economic and
organizational simplification. imho that doesn't mean they are
identical. There may be generational differences even in what otherwise
would be cookie cutter deployments, e.g. because devices go end of sale,
new ones become available, regional vendor preference or vendor
diversification.

If these are centrally organized and operated or coordinated, then the
minimum number of variants possible considering the circumstances where
variation is is desirable. It minimizes the effort and training required
to deploy and operate the system.

If I were to take CDN pops as an example.

Inter-generational variation is necessary as are accommodations for
varying scale. the system is centrally coordinated and common operating
methods are necessary if these systems are to behave a cohesive whole.

Systems where deployment is less centralized, and local autonomy is
therefore necessary as for example occurs when local contractors use
their own equipment may come to different conclusions. e.g. that the
specification of  the minimum necessary common elements becomes the only
feasible approach. For example if you are an Uber driver your minim  IT
requirements are something like

Uber cell phone requirements
iPhone requirements to run the Uber driver app

Must be iPhone 4S, 5, 5C, 5S, 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, SE, 7, or 7 Plus
running iOS 8 or later versions
For best results: Use iPhone 5 or newer

Android requirements to run the Uber driver app

Any smart phone from 2013 or newer, running Android version 4.0 or newer
For best results: The phone should run Android 5.0 or newer

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 203 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/attachments/20161229/e1c9ba02/attachment.sig>