Re: Has PSI been assigned network 1?

[Michael Dillon <michael () okjunc junction net>]

On Sun, 23 Apr 1995, Tim Salo wrote:

> > From: Geoff Huston <G.Huston () aarnet edu au>
> >     [...]
> > After some years being associated with the IEPG the observation I have
> > to make is that the operations folk who really do understand how the
> > Internet is glued together are way too busy keeping it strung together
> > to do anything else.
> >     [...]
>
> So, the operational folks are too busy to transfer their knowledge
> to new recruits (who might actually help them keep the Net running),
> and then the experienced operational folks wonder why they are so busy?
>
> Something doesn't seem quite right with this picture...

Namely that it doesn't have to require large amounts of time from senior 
operational people to have a junior person with some research and writing 
skills (as well as networking skills) tag along and document many of the 
procedures carried out and why and how etc... 

The research skills come into play when this junior person hunts up the 
key documents available on the net and uses those documents and their 
notes to build up a somewhat coherent tutorial to network operations and 
places it on a WWW server.

Yes, it will have gaps, yes it may have mistakes caused by the junior 
person's lack of intimate understanding, but at least it's a start. This 
is not unlike the days (a couple of years ago) when there were _no_ 
printed books on how to use the Internet and we all used various 
tutorials that were thrown together by network staff at some of the 
larger sites. They weren't perfect, but they helped a lot of people get 
started on the net.

Right now it is possible for each new operations person at a new ISP to 
hunt through all the RFC's for relevant documents, look through the IETF 
mailing lists for relevant lists and then hunt through those lists for 
relevant messages, etc.... However, it would be far more efficient to 
have one technically skilled researcher do this and distill the important 
info for the rest of us. In fact, given the growth of the Internet (# of 
nodes and networks) I would think that it would even be worth while for 
some of the major NSP's (ANS, Sprint, et al.) to spend a few bucks and 
finance such a project. It would pay off down the road in smoother 
operations *AND* a larger pool of talent for ANS, Sprint et al. to draw 
new people from.

Michael Dillon                                    Voice: +1-604-549-1036
Network Operations                                  Fax: +1-604-542-4130
Okanagan Internet Junction                     Internet: michael () junction net
http://www.junction.net  -  The Okanagan's 1st full-service Internet provider