Perhaps your most important point is at the end, but I'd like to amplify on it. The idea of a converged public Internet is probably not achievable. I prefer to call service providers that move packets "IP Service Providers," as opposed to "Internet Service Providers." It's more accurate, and reflects the very different availability and QoS requirements of applications, balanced against costs.
Right now, a lot of world-class router designers are unemployed or underemployed, because there is so much optical overcapacity that sophistication isn't needed, especially with private networks. Much of this, of course, is the current economy, which I do expect to turn around. From my IETF/IRTF work, I do know that the current global routing system isn't going to grow forever with the BGP paradigm, and the best replacement is still a research problem. Luckily, I'm able to keep a hand in that. We are a long way from having every application run on a commoditized transport. I'll freely say that more of my income, these days, comes from both network and application architecture for bleeding-edge (a phrase the surgeons HATE) medical systems. Now, some people here say you need host as well as network experience. While I'm reasonable at UNIX, there's also the aspect of being able to communicate with the users of particularly challenging applications. I speak fluent Doctor, which helps greatly, and can actually contribute to the clinical application designs. Don't assume that you necessarily have to have extra computer skills (e.g., server administration). Understanding an application area from its user perspective can generate lots of work, be that application telephony, medicine, law, etc. I have a friend who has developed a specialty in automating car dealerships, and he has more work than he can handle. At 12:41 AM +0000 12/16/02, nrf wrote: >""Henry D."" wrote in message >[EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... >> Since we're just throwing out our thoughts here... >> >> I tend to disagree, following your logic, if the IP network >> becomes such a commodity, I think this would just create more >> jobs for people like us, I mean R/S guys. > >Hardly. The total jobs in a commoditized world would be much less. That's >not to say there will be zero jobs, just less. Again, consider the case of >electric power. Or water. How many companies, unless they're huge, have an >electrician or a plumber on staff? OK, every once in awhile the company's >toilet will back up and you gotta bring somebody in. But for the most part, >electricity and water just work. You plug something in a wall socket and it >works. You flush the toilet and it works. You certainly don't need to keep >somebody on staff to take care of electricity and water, unless maybe you're >really really big and you can amortize the guy's salary over lots and lots >of facilities. Net effect - less demand for R/S skills. > >Consider the new initiatives that Cisco is trying to retrench themselves >into the service-provider environment (again). Things like NSF, GRIP, and >things like that to increase reliability of gear. Even though we have some of these mechanisms, we lack good management tools and they are still expert-intensive to set up. Cisco could do a much better job describing NSF, which is only a subset of some of the routing protocol high-availability techniques in early deployment. Yes, it's an adequate explanation for how to set it up for failure, but its effect (basically good) on provider routing can get quite subtle. MPLS introduces some interesting failover methods that complement it. > >>You seem to think that once the IP >> network >> is used for the services such as Voice, the Voice people >> will have taken the jobs. > >Either the existing voice people or other people who add VoX to their >skillset. From direct experience, it's much easier to train a data person in voice than vice versa. Learning to speak "telco," however, is as important as knowing what G.703 or SIP does. > >>This may be so to some degree. But from the >> last few years of my experience, I doubt there will be a data network >> acting as reliably as PSTN any time soon - as you mention about >> broadband. > >Naturally not anytime soon. But the long-term trend is clear. IP networks >will become more and more reliable, which ultimately means that they will >fade more and more into the background. > >>For this reason, I think R/S folks with few extra skills >> will still be in demand for the telcos, someone has to keep on making >> this thing work, fixing, upgrading, estimating, reporting, understanding >> data networks, etc. > >Again, I never said there will be zero demand. But there will be less. >Right now, R/S skill demand is unusually heightened because the fact is that >IP networks are still pretty flaky, and so you need a bunch of guys around >just to keep the darn thing up. The less flaky it is, the less people you >need to babysit it. > >> >> I agree that VOIP on the Net will not change how the telcos work. >> It's one thing to have a customer use the Internet for placing calls, >> the customer's expectations are already set low, knowing the Quality will >> not be as great. But when you pick up the receiver at home, you expect >> current quality, no delays, no noise, no whatever. Internet is simply too >> unpredictable for Carrier class Voice. > >Yes, and so I expect private IP networks to take over. Convergence upon the >Internet is most likely a red herring Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=59344&t=59344 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
