It's One of Those Opinionated Days Again
Just some random topics today….
If you’re actually hiring in this poor economy, remember what makes a good network engineer. (It’s not a CCIE, btw.) A good engineer should be able to articulate a process for developing a solution to a task or problem. An easy question to ask in an interview is, “Let’s say I’ve hired you as a consultant to build a DMZ; take me through the steps to deliver that solution”. His or her answer should include steps for requirements definition, research, design, testing, documentation, and implementation. If they jump right from design to implementation they haven’t done design before.
Why is Cisco’s Unified Call Manger not network aware? Other than CDP, I see no where CUCM communicates directly with the network to signal needs and changes. Even conference calls are based on the originator location, not the preponderance of the participants. That leads to a situation where a bunch of WAN bandwidth could be used if the originator of the conference is at a field site and the rest of the members are at the hub site. I understand Cisco is adhering to standards, but if I have a CUCM environment and an end-to-end Cisco network, I would expect some tighter integration. (NOTE: Diffserv QoS does not constitute “communicating directly” with the network.)
If you have a large, international network that you can’t get control over, or you have a smaller network, but an underperforming network team, take a look at VNOs. They can give you a lot of carrier options under one management umbrella. But, be warned, don’t expect a Cadillac. VNOs provide integrated services via the lowest common denominator. So, it will simplify your network, but not necessarily optimize it. If your network is a cost function to minimized, it might be a good fit. If your network is mission critical, hire some good network engineers (see random thought #1 above).
If someone asks you what business value your network brings to your organization, can you answer that question? If you can’t, you might want to practice a good response. Someday someone (probably with VP after his/her name) will ask.
Think we’ll ever get an “MPLS Internet” where I can buy private bandwidth services in a VRF that spans multiple carriers with the same QoS? That would make life much easier with international networks and drive costs down via competition. But alas, since it would introduce more competition for the carriers, none are ever going to sign up for it. (NOTE: this is essentially what VNOs do now, but it’s not because the carriers are getting along, it’s because the VNOs patch it together via their own systems. It’s not what I am looking for.)
Cisco publishes a lot about network infrastructure security – ACLs, CoPP, disabling services, SSH, AAA, SNMPv3, logging – but how many of you really implement this stuff? Man, I would love to. It’s been on my roadmap for 18 months, but something else always takes precedence.
How many of you have gone and implemented a great new project that is so much better than the old way? Then you show it to the VP and he asks for graphs of before and after. Too bad the “before” graphs have been purged by the network management system. Now you have no way to prove the new network is actually better. Always take current (“before”) shots of the network before starting a new implementation. Then you have the data to prove your new network is really that much better. This is too often forgotten until it’s too late.
NAS is the cloud, huh?. Yeah, sure. NAS protocols stink enough over the WAN and now it has to be encrypted and flow over that overloaded T-1 to the Internet you have. R-i-g-h-t. Save your money and invest in a good, local NAS device.
SaaS worries me since it’s all delivered via the Internet. Right now, medium and large organizations have applications on internal networks where bandwidth and QoS can be properly allocated and controlled. But in the future, that critical business application that used to be in your data center could be SaaS and be delivered over the Internet. Users and application developers (on the other side of the IT department) are not going to understand that the performance of this critical application over the Internet might not be the same as it used to be. It’s just going to be a “network problem”. No amount of explaining that their decision to outsource this critical application without understanding the network impacts was a bad call will not matter. So, pretty much exactly how applications are developed today.
This is one of Jeff’s best blogs….read it….
It’s Game 7 time….
More >From the Field blog entries:
Your Team Organization is Just as Important as Your Standards
CCDE Practical Beta Exam is Tomorrow
Now for Some Thoughts on the Nexus 1000V
Cisco’s First Software Switch – the Nexus 1000V
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