[TriLUG] Linux and Customer Support

M. Mueller mmueller at signalnetware.com
Sat Apr 6 10:01:57 EST 2002


I read with great interest the thread on RR Customer Support and all the 
tricks used to get the job done. This is _exactly_ how it works in the 
service provider world too.  

THroughout the month of March we were working on getting two 56K DDS links 
established to a couple of Linux boxes. There were 6 organizations involved: 
SS7 network service provider, WorldCom, ATT, PacBell, and the SS7 network 
customer using my equipment, and me.  One circuit worked.  One circuit 
didn't.  Who do you think got the blame?  My Linux based equipment.  Not 
because I was using Linux, but because I was the smallest animal in the food 
chain.  I knew that going in.  Where was the problem?  We're not sure, but we 
convinced everyone that we should build the non-working circuit exactly 
identical to the working circuit and that fixed the problem.  At one point I 
thought I might have to send out an Adtran DSU/CSU to prove the circuit's 
viability.  The Adtran equipment is recognized in the US as a de facto 
standard for DDS circuit terminations.  If it works with Adtran, it works - 
period. Throughout the process, the burden of proof of where the problem lay 
was always on my shoulders.

In the world of consumer broadband, windoze is the de facto standard 
termination equipment.  Like Chris Hedemark pointed out, supporting 10 Linux 
varieties is not reasonable, so we gotta live with windoze. So, having a 
windoze box to help manage the customer support service automatons is just 
one of the tools of the trade. The burden of proof always lies with the *nix, 
*BSD, MAC user, and doing that might require a windoze box (either real or 
imaginary).

Feels like I just had my 'tude adjusted.  Someone ought to capture the thread 
details into a mini-HOWTO on managing windoze oriented ISP customer service 
organizations.  It's got to be a topic with wide appeal.

-- 
Michael Mueller
Signalnetware, Inc.
www.signalnetware.com
919.621.6090



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