Heya,
We've got a business unit hosted in Allegiance Telecom's boston colo
that's been down for a bit and all they can get out of Allegiance is
"um... we're not sure what's going on". I'm guessing that boston.com,
which is also down, is affected by this...
If you go to the Allegiance Telecom looking glass
(http://nitrous.digex.net/mae/mae-lg.html) and enter an IP from their
colo you get a "network not in table" so my guess is that the colo
is FUBAR...
Anyone know whats up?
Eric 
I do. But I won't discuss it in this forum.
My best advice in general, is when you have a backbone problem with
Allegiance, call the NOCC (866 696 2794, options 3,1,4). They've got
the most data on that, and if you're a customer of Allegiance, they'll
gladly share.
-Dave
And if you're not a customer...
...then if you have a good reason to ask, they'll help you, and if
not, they won't. This should not surprise anybody; that's how NOCCs
are.
I guess we'll have to wait for Allegiance customers "leak" the
information. The leaks may not be as accurate as if the information
came directly from Allegiance. Other providers such as AT&T, Earthlink,
MFN, RCN have a different philosophy about providing information
concerning their network status. Not all NOC's are the same.
> ...then if you have a good reason to ask, they'll help you, and if
> not, they won't. This should not surprise anybody; that's how NOCCs
> are.I guess we'll have to wait for Allegiance customers "leak" the
information. The leaks may not be as accurate as if the information
came directly from Allegiance. Other providers such as AT&T, Earthlink,
MFN, RCN have a different philosophy about providing information
concerning their network status. Not all NOC's are the same.
Yeah, and you'll have to wait for a while since our business unit -
who is a customer and has called repeatedly both the NOC and their
sales team - has received nothing beyond "we don't know what's wrong".
Eric
"good reason to ask" varies wildly with different nocs.
-Dan
At the risk of starting a debate that will go nowhere and annoy
the readership...
I guess we'll have to wait for Allegiance customers "leak" the
information. The leaks may not be as accurate as if the information
came directly from Allegiance. Other providers such as AT&T, Earthlink,
MFN, RCN have a different philosophy about providing information
concerning their network status. Not all NOC's are the same.
I seriously doubt that, if a 12-year-old from Nebraska called the NOC
at AT&T and asked for a list of all their network failures in the past
two years, the NOC person would feel obliged to spend their time on
it. Furthermore, if that NOC tech could be helping to fix the
problem, and I were a customer, I'd be upset that he is wasting time
chatting on the phone with a non-customer. NOCs have limited
resources. More importantly, they often don't know what's wrong until
after it was fixed, and sharing what may be a wrong assessment with
people who have no vested interest in the problem is asking for a lot
more trouble, especially since they probably will never know or care
what the real solution was.
-Dave
I try to point out when providers are doing a good job.
AT&T has set up their system so their NOC people don't have to get bogged
down answering phones. AT&T has a very nice news system where you can
read about network issues. AT&T's customer care people post regular
updates about POP problems, circuits down, etc. I suppose if the 12-year
old from Nebraska archived the news system for two years, he could read
about all their network issues.
Earthlink has
http://support.earthlink.net/harvest_inc/SYSSTATUS/sysstatus_pop.html
RCN has
http://status.erols.com
MFN has
http://status.psinet.com
etc, etc, etc
While there is always room for improvement, and some providers have
goofed up, there are providers who attempt to keep their network users
(even if they aren't direct customers) informed.
> I seriously doubt that, if a 12-year-old from Nebraska called the NOC
> at AT&T and asked for a list of all their network failures in the past
> two years, the NOC person would feel obliged to spend their time onI try to point out when providers are doing a good job.
AT&T has set up their system so their NOC people don't have to get bogged
down answering phones. AT&T has a very nice news system where you can
read about network issues. AT&T's customer care people post regular
updates about POP problems, circuits down, etc. I suppose if the 12-year
old from Nebraska archived the news system for two years, he could read
about all their network issues.
That may be true. However, we weren't talking about network outage
notifications in general, we were talking specifically about calling
our NOCC to ask about an outage. No, it isn't apples to oranges, but
it is Red Deliciouses to Granny Smiths. 
While there is always room for improvement, and some providers have
goofed up, there are providers who attempt to keep their network users
(even if they aren't direct customers) informed.
And if you're a network operator who is flinging packets across our
network and they aren't arriving, and you want to know why, that
generally fits the descripton of "good reason," in my book.
I'll admit, it isn't perfect. As somebody else pointed out, "good
reason" is not an easy metric; it depends on who you are, who you have
reached, the nature of the outage, how busy the NOCC is, the phase of
the moon, etc, etc.
-Dave
Should we assume your "book" is the algx policy guide?
Or that you are just as idealistic as the rest of us are pessimistic?
It's one thing to say "Oh, you should have called our NOC, they'll help
you out, regardless if you're a customer or not" as a face-saving measure
on NANOG. It's another when one of your _customers_ follows that up with
"Tried that, they had no idea what was wrong".
Cheers to a good weekend,
Andy
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