"Smart" hands around Dulles airport / northern VA.

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1

Hi all,

This is a mail that I have been meaning to send ever since I moved back to the NoVA area, but have only gotten around to now...

Many years ago I used to provide emergency, smart hands type assistance to those in need, but had to give this up when I moved out of the area. Anyway, I'm back and am willing to start doing this again....

This is primarily for those cases where you would normally have to fly someone out to have them replace a line-card or two, hook up a few cables, maybe swap a disk in an array, etc. This is not for those cases where you simple need someone to push the reset button, nor for rebuilding your entire cage from scratch...

Anyway, if you have gear here and think that you might need to take me up on this, drop me a mail and I'll give you my direct contact info...

If you like this idea, and are willing to also provide this sort of thing to the community (either in this, or in another area), please let me know -- I'll look into setting up a website / mailing list / something...

Important disclaimers and limitations:
1: I do not want (nor may I accept) any compensation for this, other than good-will and a hope that you might help out someone else in need (AKA, I miss the days when this industry was more co-operative).
2: $day_job comes first.
3: If you are a competitor of $day_job you are probably out of luck.
4: If you wants me to plug in a new device, its your responsibility to make sure that you have sufficient power.
5: If you are a shady spammer, don't bother...

FAQ:
Q: What! Are you crazy? I'd never let a stranger into my cage!

2

warren, way cool and deeply generous of you. i wish i was clueful enough about where colos are and how things work in otemachi to offer to help folk who have kit here.

fwiw, the seattle/westin community is very helpful in this way, with the seattle internet exchange lists a good place to beg and to offer.

randy

3

What Warren said. I'm in the Chicagoland area.

-brandon

4

"FAQ:
Q: What! Are you crazy? I'd never let a stranger into my cage!
know and trust me."

  I wouldn't allow my wife in my cage let alone a stranger and I hope my
colo would deny you both as well!!! I suppose this may be useful for some as
there have been two responses to your initial posting however, we use locked
cabinets and cages for a reason. I can appreciate wanting to return the
trust and community to the industry even though the outlook looks bleak on
your behalf.

Cheers,
Jim

5

Given the existence of water guns, you shouldn't allow anyone else into the entire CoLo. :slight_smile:

- Laird Popkin, CTO, Pando Networks
  mobile: 646/465-0570

6

"FAQ:
Q: What! Are you crazy? I'd never let a stranger into my cage!
A: Huh, neither would I, but some people are less paranoid than us and / or know and trust me."

  I wouldn't allow my wife in my cage let alone a stranger and I hope my colo would deny you both as well!!!

Yup, I would hope that your colo would deny us (and everyone else as well) -- unless you call in a ticket and say something like "Please give Bob access to my cage / cabinet on Thursday at around noonish..."

As for the stranger bit -- we all have different levels of trust / paranoia. I personally rank towards the top of the paranoia scale, but if I had a widget in Wyoming that needed wiring and one of the people that I know personally from the list happened to be around there, I'd probably trust them more than the colo provided folks. This all depends upon what the widget it, what needs doing and who the person is -- there are some people that I wouldn't let near my gear with a 50ft pole and some people that I trust to some (small) extent.

There are some folks that are much more trusting (or possibly more desperate) than us though. Last time I made this offer I got (amongst other requests) a call in the middle of the night some someone I'd never met (nor heard of) asking me to please go over and console into a router as they had managed to push an ACL and lock themselves out -- he cheerfully volunteered his locally configured account info and seemed surprised when I suggested that that, now that it was exposed, he immediately change it everywhere...

The type of gear that I have in the cage also plays into this as well -- if the only gear in the cage is networking gear I'd be more comfortable that if there are servers and such. Yes, it is possible that someone could insert a tap or connect to my management network (or a whole host of other nefarious things), but a: this is something that they could do anyway if they were determined enough (if you trust your colo provider to provide perfect physical security than you are 1: stupid and 2: less paranoid than me) and b: I'd have an easier time auditing network gear than servers.

I suppose this may be useful for some as there have been two responses to your initial posting however, we use locked cabinets and cages for a reason. I can appreciate wanting to return the trust and community to the industry even though the outlook looks bleak on your behalf.

Just for information, I have received 8 off-list responses from people thanking me and volunteering their time, ranging from NoVa to Chicago to TX to the Bay Area -- sometime I'll set up a list or website where people can list where they can help out.

Once again, this is purely an offer that people can take advantage of if they want -- I am not forming some secret cabal of trained ninjas that will break into people cabinets and swap linecards while no one is watching, nor am I trying to coerce anyone into doing something that they are not comfortable with.

It's your network, if you need an XFP swapped and would like me to do so, great. If you don't, great.

W

7

This would be an excellent use of the NANOG wiki: http://nanog.cluepon.net/

I've created a page linked off of the "Tools and Resources" section
and added myself as the first volun^H^Hvictim, setting up a foundation
on which others can expand and improve:
http://nanog.cluepon.net/index.php/Hands

Those who wish to make their time available to others may wish to add
themselves and expand upon the details given on that page to increase
the value of the resource.

For what it's worth, I've leaned on NANOG and I-A participants in the
past for remote hands and have returned the favor; it's refreshing to
see the spirit continue.

Thanks!

- Tim