Sure, which is why "Within a few hours, Cisco Systems, the hospital's network provider, was loading thousands of pounds of network equipment onto an airplane in California, bound "
seems somewhat excessive! :) and "The crisis began on a Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 13, and lasted nearly four days" sounds like an opportunity for any consultants on nanog who have half a clue about how to setup a LAN! Steve On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, Joe Abley wrote: > > On Wednesday, Nov 27, 2002, at 10:25 Canada/Eastern, Stephen J. Wilcox > wrote: > > > Hmm, well until the comment about STP it sounded like the guy did > > something > > stupid on a program/database on a mainframe.. > > > > I cant see how STP could do this or require that level of DR. Perhaps > > its just > > the scapegoat for the Doc's mistake which he didnt want to admit! > > If it's anything like any other layer-2 IT network meltdown I've seen, > it'll be some combination of: > > + no documentation on what the network looks like, apart from a large > yellow autocad diagram which was stapled to the wall in the basement > wiring closet in 1988 > > + a scarcity of diagnostic tools, and no knowledge of how to use the > ones that do exist > > + complete ignorance of what traffic flows when the network is not > broken > > + a cable management standard that was first broken in 1988 and has > only been used since to pad out RFPs > > + consideration to network design which does not extend beyond the > reassuring knowledge that the sales guy who sold you the hardware > is a good guy, and will look after you > > + random unauthorised insertion of hubs and switches into the fabric > by users who got fed up of waiting eight months to get another > ethernet port installed in their lab > > + customers who have been trained by its vendors to believe that > certification is more important than experience > > + customers who believe in the cost benefit of a large distributed > layer-2 network over a large distributed (largely self-documenting) > layer-3 network. > > Just another day at the office. > > > Joe > >