in line ( like the skates )
""Ken Diliberto"" wrote in message [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... > Our parent "company" had the idea of letting a TelCo do the same for us. > The TelCo was/is contracted to set up a "gateway" between the old > network and the new network. Lucky for us we're smarter than they are > (at least we think we are...) and are having things our way. :-) > > It's difficult to try keeping a "hands-off" approach to letting a > vendor install a major piece of equipment in the core of MY network. > Maybe you know how it is... watching an engineer (CCNP with some > experience) who is supposed to know what he's doing but brings down the > network instead. Add a CCIE with a few years experience to the mix, > three more tries with two of them resulting in network outages. CL: Let he who has never brought a network down by accident ( or otherwise ) cast the first stone. Did I ever tell you the one about the newly minted Novell admin who decided to have some fun one afternoon unloading and loading NLM's? > > The suggested configuration for our first 6500 (a 6513 with dual > Sup2/MSFC2/PFC2) was to run in HSRP between the two MSFCs. (For those > who don't know, an MSFC - Multiservice Switch Feature Card or something > like that, is a routing module on the switch supervisor). We are > running IP, IPX and AppleTalk. What they didn't tell us was we had to > keep the configurations sync'ed between the two MSFCs otherwise there > would be problems. Config Sync doesn't support AppleTalk. Guess > what... we had problems. We're now running SRM. CL: serves you right for running AppleTalk. > > I guess I should get to the point here. My experience says "forklift" > upgrades are bad. Way too much room for things to go bad. Considering > the problems introducing a single new core box, I'd take it slow. make > sure everything runs as planned while you upgrade. Make sure > Spamming-Tree (did I say that??) is working properly, VTP is > communicating and the hardware has burned in. That brings up another > thing: after the first few weeks, one of the lights on the switch fabric > module stopped showing green (looked burned out). While tempted to say > it's just a light, you have no idea what the root problem causing the > light not to function is. We had the vendor replace the card. CL: advice certainly worth considering > > It seems our vendor keeps shooting itself in the foot. Their engineers > keep doing things that prevents them from earning any respect from us. > On a positive note, I know one engineer with that company who I do > respect. Too bad they keep him in design. :-) CL: seriously, having spent wonderful quality ( but far too little ) time with the likes of Marty Adkins and Val Pavlichenko, not to mention a young guy at work I'm beginning to think is in this class, I suspect that there are very few top level network engineers in the world, and a lot of wannabe's. CL: Not everyone can be a brain surgeon. Most of us are just GP's. Of the CCIE's I have met, many are in this latter category as well. Let alone us CCNP / CCDP types. ;-> We all just do the best we can, and live in fear that something we touch is going to break and we won't know how to fix it. > > Ken > > >>> "Chuck's Long Road" 10/07/02 > 09:45PM >>> > interesting. > > The following may or may not be feasible, depending upon space in > closets, > and cost of implementation. It is something my employer is supposed to > be > doing for the various "branch offices" of a major customer we have > during a > major network forklift upgrade. It has tended not to happen this way > for a > lot of reasons, political and practical. > > 1) Place all new switches into the various closets. Connect them up > > 2) set up a gateway ( single link ) between the new core switch(s) and > the > old core switch(s) > > 3) test connectivity by taking a laptop with as many user applications > as > practical, and go from closet to closet testing connectivity to the > various > servers, services, etc. > > 4) assuming point three results in connectivity everywhere, do a closet > by > closet migration of users from the old switches to the new switches. > > 5) migrate all devices ( servers, internet, etc ) onto the new core > switches. > > 6) assuming all remains well, unplug the old stuff and if Cisco is > not > offering you a generous trade in, sell it on one of the auction sites. > > Like I said, sometimes time, space, and cost does not permit this. > > Chuck > > -- > > www.chuckslongroad.info > like my web site? > take the survey! > > > > ""Azhar Teza"" wrote in message > [snip] Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=55162&t=55064 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
