This story was revitalized by my friend Jeff Wells, I thought it was a kick and like he says it is still true today.
The original story is from “HP Professional” magazine, sometime in the early ‘90s, the “And Another Thing” last page column by Gordon McLachlan. I retyped it in its entirety, since it doesn’t at this point appear to be stored anywhere on the ‘Net in text form. Old timers will recognize that the problems we faced then aren’t much improved today. . J. Wells, 07/2008
If I Ran the LAN
Editor’s Note: This month Gordon McLachlan gives us chapter and verse on the difficulties of managing corporate LANs. Our apologies to the late Dr. Seuss.
My name is McHooter, and I had a plan,
To buy some cheap clones and a peer-to-peer LAN.
We’d share all the printers and make files fly
All over the place, with the LAN I would buy!
But the Tech Weenies said, “Where’s your plan for this LAN?
You can’t get a network without a real plan!
What you call a plan is a Beancounter’s dream;
For a LAN plan you need a crack technical team!”
What plan could I need for my peer-to-peer LAN?
It’s small and it’s cheap, so we don’t need a plan!
We’ll plug in computers and hook up some wire.
All we’d get from a plan are costs that are higher!
Boondoggle – he is the Tech Weenie King,
Said, “It’s clear as can be that you don’t know a thing!
When I looked at your plan it was easy to see:
You didn’t dot all the ‘I’s, and cross all the ‘T’s!”
“But my plan is so easy,” said I with chagrin.
“There’s no need to put any more of your garbage in.
It’s simple, it’s clean, and it’s cheap and it’s small.
And it’s cost justified for just this much, and that’s all!”
Boondoggle said “No! We must go by the book!
And we’ll make sure you do it, by hook or by crook!
If you want to get funding and network support,
You’ll do what we say, or your plan will abort!”
“But I am McHooter! I’m running this show!
And I’ll show you all just how far I can go!
All I need is some hardware, some software and cable
And I’ll stack it all up on this old beat-up table!”
“Things change,” said Boondoggle, a smile on his face.
“And you don’t understand. You’re no technical ace.
There’s more to this LAN than McHooter’s computers!
There’s TCP/IP and E-mail and routers!
“There’s Network File System, and UNIX and DOS.
There’s error detection for stuff that gets lost.
We know all these things, and you’re stuck in a loop,
If you want our approval, you’ll jump through our hoop.”
“McHooter, old man,” said the Tech Weenie King,
“Our servers are UNIX on big Token Rings.
To talk to the mainframes we need to buy gateways
And routers with paths that go two, four or eight ways!”
“The problem,” said I, “is the standards you’ve set.
They’ll stop me from getting what I want to get!
If I buy what you want, then I’ll run out of money,
And I’ll have to get more, and that just isn’t funny.”
Said Boondoggle dryly, “We just make the rules up.
It’s your job to ante the corporate jewels up!
If you can’t afford it, you ought to make plans,
To lay off some people to buy your big LAN!”
I could see I’d get nowhere with this Tech Weenie dandy,
I had to go upstairs – up to El Queso Grande.
If anyone here could still get me my LAN,
The CEO, yes, he was clearly the man.
El Queso knows nothing of PCs and LANs,
But money will make him stand up on one hand.
To waste it is sinful and I’d make him think
That the Tech Weenie’s schemes would result in red ink!
So I said to El Queso, “A peer-to-peer LAN
Will get me as much as the Tech Weenies can,
With their TCP/IP and E-mail and gateways,
And routers with paths that go two, four or eight ways!”
“McHooter, am I, and if I ran this show,
I’d tell those Tech Weenies just where they could go.
If the Beancounter King ruled the Tech Weenies, too,
I’d change all their rules and make Boondoggle stew.”
“That’s a splendid idea that you’ve had there, McHooter.
I’ll give you control of the Weenie computers.
Mr. McHooter, you now run the show!
And the weenies report to the new CFO!”
So we bought all those clones and some peer-to-peer LANs
And we muddle along – do the best that we can.
But it’s costing us more of the company jewels
Than we thought that it should. So we need some new rules!
The views expressed in this article are my own and not those of my employeer
Jamey Heary, CCIE No. 7680, is a security consulting systems engineer at Cisco. He leads its Western Security Asset team and is a field advisor for Cisco's global security virtual team. Jamey is the author of the recently published Cisco NAC Appliance: Enforcing Host Security with Clean Access. His areas of expertise include network and host security design and implementation, security regulatory compliance, and routing and switching. His other certifications include CISSP, CCSP, and Microsoft MCSE. He is also a Certified HIPAA Security Professional. Jamey has been working in the IT field for 14 years and in IT security for 9 years.
|
|
And of course, there's this
And of course, there's this oldie (can't remember where I first saw it, but it was more than 10 years ago!):
If a packet hit a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.
If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
Then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash.
If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall.
If your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
'cause sure as I'm the poet, the sucker's gonna hang.
If the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,
And the macrocode instructions cause unnecessary RISC,
Then you have to flash your memory,
And you'll want to RAM your ROM,
Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your MOM
Nice!
I hadn't heard that one, thanks for sharing.
-Jamey