Vendors have resources. These resources should be available to customers. It's up to the customers to creatively get their vendors to make those resources available. Wrangling up some of these resources should be foremost in the minds of every one of us at UEN.

A week or so ago I got serious about what can be done. So, after bouncing around some ideas in my mind I approached Mark Hancock, my Cisco Account Executive. I've taken time with Mark and Jason in the past to get some one-on-one training. Jason is very knowledgeable about Cisco equipment and about routing protocols in general. My idea is to have Jason spend time in the NOC on a regular basis. Mark was positive about my suggestion.

We took the idea to Jason and he agreed to work in the UEN NOC for half a day every 3 or so weeks. The first opportunity will be this Thursday, April 17th. Jason will show up at 8:00 AM and I'll take some time to go over some of my concerns. Then we will attend the Technical Services Stand-up Meeting at 8:45.

After Stand-up Jason will sit in the NOC, answer specific questions, take phone calls and work with us to make our network better. I anticipate that this will enable Jason (and his Cisco buddies) to better understand what is going on in the UEN network. I also expect that Jason's knowledge will be beneficial to my staff and to the stakeholders who call with questions. At Noon I'll take Jason to lunch as a thank you. It should be a fun day.

I've also had Dan talk to Qwest about doing the same thing with one of their engineers. I'd like for several of my vendors to take the opportunity to work with us in the NOC. It would be good to have these resources available for at least half a day every week.

I'll let you know how it turns out on Thursday. If you want to call in feel free. The NOC number is 801.585.7440.

Tomorrow: More thoughts about interactions with Vendors and other ways of making the NOC better..........
9:42:28 PM    comment []