Operations training materials

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>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.

Ah, so you want someone else to do your homework for you?

Not for me, I've done my homework. Unfortunately, I no longer have
many of the "texbooks" nor a coherent record of all my sources of info
so if I wanted to train another person it would be like reinventing the
wheel. :frowning:

I believe that the general feeling in the Internet community that it's
essential not only to have such information, but also to be able to
understand the sources from which the information is derived; following
the IETF mailing lists and understanding relevant RFCs is part of what
makes a "good" operator.

Agreed. This is the beauty of publishing tutorial materials on the Web;
you can have direct links to the RELEVANT source materials including the
important IETF lists and list archives.

The Internet is constantly changing, and in order to keep up, an operator
*must* understand new RFCs and mailing list discussion *as they occur*.

There's no time to wait for some to write a book simplifying things for you...

Not a book, more like a table of contents with introductory summaries.
Consider that most new ISP's don't even know what IETF is, don't know
what NANOG is, have never heard of BGP, etc.... They may have experience
with UNIX and TCP/IP Lan's or with BBSes and I have come across more than
a few who have little more than DOS experience. These people are LOOKING
for a book to help them but there are no such books. They are looking for
a newsgroup to help them but there are no such newsgroups. They are even
looking for a mailing list, but there is no single mailing list that
covers what you need to know.

Given that a WWW site as I have envisioned did exist, those who know
would have a quick and easy answer to all operational questions. "Go and
read the stuff at http://… and then if you need to know more, ask me."

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

2

Not for me, I've done my homework. Unfortunately, I no longer have
many of the "texbooks" nor a coherent record of all my sources of info
so if I wanted to train another person it would be like reinventing the
wheel. :frowning:

Well then. Money meet mouth, mouth money. Jeez!

3

Look Randy, this thread started out with people from Sprint and ANS?
talking about the efforts involved in getting new operations people on
stream and pointing out that they simply couldn't provide any training
for their new ISP customers.

What I'm trying to point out is that there is more than one way to skin a
cat, i.e. writing a tutorial for the WWW is a far more cost effective
training tool than trying to do one-on-one with each new ISP that signs
on. My perspective is that of someone who has just climbed most of the
steepest part of the learning curve and who has noticed that many of my
peers (new ISP's) haven't got a clue and don't know where to find the info.

I point them at http://www.isoc.org, http://www.merit.edu,
http://www.ripe.net and http://www.internic.net but they still have to go
rooting around in there looking for the key items in a mass of
information that is of lesser utility. There is no map! The source
documents are nice to have, but without a map you don't even know if you
are looking at the right ones!

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