RE: NOC communications

["Derek Elder" <delder () graypeak com>]

> Uhm, the usual problem is the contact person leaves the company.  The
> exit interview rarely includes updating the contact information.  Everyone
> else will know the information is out-dated, assuming you ban people from
> setting up procmail to auto-ack the message.  But how do you get the
> rplacement's contact information if the replacement doesn't know about
> the list, database, server, etc and you don't know who the replacement
> is?

This describes another major problem in our industry.  Policy and Procedure.
Can you think of any other industry where the =primary= contact to the World
could leave the company and no one from an operational perspective would
think to let the world know they had left? :)


> If you would like a sample message, how about something similar to
> what a previous government contractor used to send every six months or
> so when they managed the NIC database.  Perhaps change the "do not
> respond," to "respond with 'ok 123456'" to make the procmail folks work
> a little harder writing their auto-ack scripts.

Precisely what I had in mind.

And as usual, I agree with the rest of your message as well.  However, the
solution that I proposed was an attempt to develop an idea that was
reasonable non-intrusive, didn't rely on adding new gear and monthly
recurring cost, and had the potential of working.

It could be -way- more sophisticated than this.  I can think of neat things
involving push (We all have a computer in the NOC don't we?), and probably
some other things if I spent some time on it.

But what it has to boil down to is that inter-NOC communications has to
become something so much a part of the day-to-day life that it can't be
neglected.  If that can be done in the wild, wild west of our industry
as it stands now, I don't know.

OK -- off to the waterslide :)

Derek