It’s Most Complicated than You Think
It’s not unusual in the life of a network engineer to go entire weeks, perhaps even months, without “getting anything done.” This might seem odd for those who do not work in and around the odd combination of layer 1, layer 3, layer 7, and layer 9 problems network engineers must span and understand, but it’s normal for those in the field. For instance, a simple request to support a new application might require the implementation of some feature, which in turn requires upgrading several thousand devices, leading to the discovery that some number of these devices simply do not support the new software version, requiring a purchase order and change management plan to be put in place to replace those devices, which results in … The chain of dominoes, once it begins, never seems to end.
Or, as those who have dealt with these problems many times might say, it is more complicated than you think. This is such a useful phrase, in fact, it has been codified as a standard rule of networking in RFC1925 (rule 8, to be precise).
Take, for instance, the problem of sending documents through electronic mail—in the real world, there are various Continue reading
