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(ASCEND) Re: What is carrier-class?

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Wade,

On Mon, 10 Nov 1997, Wade Williams wrote:

>  While Cisco does try to have 100% working units, we do have some that are
> DOA.  The same is true of your carrier-class vendor, even if you haven't
> experienced it yet.

Nope. :) That's why we *test it* before installing it.

> 3)  A large number of employees is needed to manage the burn-in process.
> They have to plug-in, track, unplug and box up every unit.

False economy. What about the legions of people you have in skyscrapers
answering phones on your helpdesk? It doesn't scale.

> If Cisco or Ascend came back to you and said - "we've created a special
> class of customer, and you're part of it.  You'll now be assured of burn-in
> and additional testing on all your products, but your lead time has moved
> from 3 to 5 weeks," would that be acceptable?

Yep. Telecom is perfectly used to waiting for 9 months for something out
of NEC, because when the 9 months is up, NEC give us something that works.
If they don't, they pay us a lot of money.

If you're going to play in the carrier class market, you should play like
everyone else does.

> If you spend 10 million a year with Cisco or Ascend like you do with your
> switch vendor, there may be some special consideration given.  However,
> would you expect Cisco or Ascend to give you equipment for a model
> environment if you spend $100,000?  How about $10,000?  Where do you draw
> that line?  $10,000 is peanuts to you, but to that non-profit organization,
> it's a huge expenditure.

I wasn't asking for the vendor to pay for it - we pay for our own model
and have always done. 

> You tell a guy that, and it'll get his attention.

Actually, I tried that. The engineer mucked around with buffer sizes and
assorted chicken sacrifice regardless before I pointed out my customers
were complaining and I'd like to try something else because what he was
doing was not having any effect. 

Our Gold partner escalated this and had the case taken away from that
engineer.

> Agreed here too.  However, I ask again, even though that TAC engineer knows
> there are other customers running it in the same config you are, how's he
> supposed to show you that without wasting time or violating another
> customer's privacy (or wasting their time)?  I've been thinking about this
> one and the only solution I can come up with is that you should ask your
> local SE.  

Rot. How can you possibly know how your product performs unless you get
field-feedback from your customers? You can't.

Have you ever considering asking them? I used to ask my customers for the
occasional bit of assistance - they thanked me for it usually. It shows
you have a fair bit of respect for their needs, for a start.

> always successful?  Absolutely not.  But we're always trying to improve.

Uh huh. :(

- --
Josh Bailey (mailto:joshb@xtra.co.nz - GroupWise mailto:j6bw@telecom.co.nz)

Internet Network Specialist                     Voice (DDI): +64-9-355-5923
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