RE: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until the night of the cut?

[c b]

Oh, we don't. Typically when we turn up a new circuit, the old is left in place 
for 2 weeks in case we need to roll back. This is simply a matter of them 
giving us their peering info ahead of time so that we can prestage the configs. 
Someone else responded that there are probably two teams involved on the 
carrier's side (and I'm guessing some automated systems?) which may explain 
some of this, but I can't understand why they couldn't just punch in the info 
earlier than the night of the change. These guys are not a small carrier.
Anyways, it's just an inconvenience and it struck me as odd, so I thought I'd 
ask if this is normal or not. Thanks for the feedback everyone.

> Subject: Re: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info 
> until the night of the cut?
> From: dco...@hammerfiber.com
> Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2016 18:35:05 -0500
> CC: bz_siege...@hotmail.com; nanog@nanog.org
> To: i...@fairwaymc.com
> 
> > We have 4 full-peering providers between two data centers. Our accounting 
> > people did some shopping and found that there was a competitor who came in 
> > substantially lower this year and leadership decided to swap our most 
> > expensive circuit to the new carrier. 
> > (I don't know what etiquette is, so I won't name the carrier... but it's a 
> > well-known name) Anyways, we were preparing for the circuit cutover and 
> > asked for the BGP peering info up front like we normally do. This carrier 
> > said that they don't provide this until the night of the cut. Now, we've 
> > done this 5 or 6 times over the years with all of our other carriers and 
> > this is the first one to ever do this. We even escalated to our account 
> > manager and they still won't provide it.
> > I know it's not a huge deal, but life is so much easier when you can 
> > prestage your cut and rollback commands. In fact, our internal Change 
> > Management process mandates peer review all proposed config changes and now 
> > we have to explain why some lines say TBD!
> > Is this a common SOP nowadays? Anyone care to explain why they wouldn't 
> > just provide it ahead of time?
> > Thanks in advance.
> > CWB   
> > 
> 
> My question to the OP would be why didn’t you schedule the turndown of the 
> old circuit to overlap with the turnup of the new circuit?  That way you 
> could perform your cut independently of turn-up testing with your new 
> provider.  Why is it that you MUST perform both activities on the same night? 
>  You can always turn up a circuit, make sure it works and then turn it back 
> down on your end until you’re actually ready to use it.  
> 
> 
  

Re: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until the night of the cut?

[Owen DeLong]

> On Jan 21, 2016, at 1:26 PM, c b  wrote:
> 
> We have 4 full-peering providers between two data centers. Our accounting 
> people did some shopping and found that there was a competitor who came in 
> substantially lower this year and leadership decided to swap our most 
> expensive circuit to the new carrier. 
> (I don't know what etiquette is, so I won't name the carrier... but it's a 
> well-known name)
> Anyways, we were preparing for the circuit cutover and asked for the BGP 
> peering info up front like we normally do. This carrier said that they don't 
> provide this until the night of the cut. Now, we've done this 5 or 6 times 
> over the years with all of our other carriers and this is the first one to 
> ever do this. We even escalated to our account manager and they still won't 
> provide it.
> I know it's not a huge deal, but life is so much easier when you can prestage 
> your cut and rollback commands. In fact, our internal Change Management 
> process mandates peer review all proposed config changes and now we have to 
> explain why some lines say TBD!
> Is this a common SOP nowadays? Anyone care to explain why they wouldn't just 
> provide it ahead of time?
> Thanks in advance.
> CWB 

They probably make it up as they go along during the turn-up.

Owen

RE: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until the night of the cut?

[Ian Mock]

Sounds like you need a little posturing with your sales team and account 
manager on the phone. Threaten to cancel the contract and site their lack of 
support and willingness to help you be successful. Say they're interfering with 
your company's ability to do business. If their sales team is worth anything 
they'll jump all over trying to fix the problem. If not, cancel the contract 
and move on. Do you and your company's mgmt want to deal with someone that 
unhelpful? Imagine what happens when you have a problem..

Ian Mock

-Original Message-
From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org] On Behalf Of c b
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2016 3:27 PM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until the 
night of the cut?

We have 4 full-peering providers between two data centers. Our accounting 
people did some shopping and found that there was a competitor who came in 
substantially lower this year and leadership decided to swap our most expensive 
circuit to the new carrier. 
(I don't know what etiquette is, so I won't name the carrier... but it's a 
well-known name) Anyways, we were preparing for the circuit cutover and asked 
for the BGP peering info up front like we normally do. This carrier said that 
they don't provide this until the night of the cut. Now, we've done this 5 or 6 
times over the years with all of our other carriers and this is the first one 
to ever do this. We even escalated to our account manager and they still won't 
provide it.
I know it's not a huge deal, but life is so much easier when you can prestage 
your cut and rollback commands. In fact, our internal Change Management process 
mandates peer review all proposed config changes and now we have to explain why 
some lines say TBD!
Is this a common SOP nowadays? Anyone care to explain why they wouldn't just 
provide it ahead of time?
Thanks in advance.
CWB   

Re: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until the night of the cut?

[Bob Evans]

I agree with Sean. Poor planning always leads to poor service.
It sure makes for a fast clumsy cut over.  But, you now know that you the
customer are not a priority or better planning steps would have been taken
for your consideration in advance.

Thank You
Bob Evans
CTO




> On Thu, 21 Jan 2016, c b wrote:
>> Is this a common SOP nowadays? Anyone care to explain why they wouldn't
>> just provide it ahead of time?
>
> Carrier saves costs by not having a clue, and has no idea which router
> will have an open port until they try to plug you in.
>
> Hope its not a long contract, because customer service never gets better
> ... only worse.
>
>
>

Re: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until the night of the cut?

[Florian Weimer]

* William Herrin:

> On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 4:26 PM, c b  wrote:
>> We have 4 full-peering providers between two data centers. Our
>> accounting people did some shopping and found that there was
>> a competitor who came in substantially lower this year and
>> leadership decided to swap our most expensive circuit to the new carrier.
>
> That's the first mistake. Internet w/ BGP is not a mass-market
> service. Accounting people have no business searching out highly
> technical custom products and services.

I guess that's why so many customers keep paying for circuits that
have long been shut down. :)

Re: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until the night of the cut?

[Dovid Bender]

I was wondering the same. Most likely because it's accounting that's making the 
decision and they don't want to spend a penny more than they have to$

Regards,

Dovid

-Original Message-
From: Daniel Corbe 
Sender: "NANOG" Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2016 18:35:05 
To: Ian Mock
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until
 the night of the cut?

> We have 4 full-peering providers between two data centers. Our accounting 
> people did some shopping and found that there was a competitor who came in 
> substantially lower this year and leadership decided to swap our most 
> expensive circuit to the new carrier. 
> (I don't know what etiquette is, so I won't name the carrier... but it's a 
> well-known name) Anyways, we were preparing for the circuit cutover and asked 
> for the BGP peering info up front like we normally do. This carrier said that 
> they don't provide this until the night of the cut. Now, we've done this 5 or 
> 6 times over the years with all of our other carriers and this is the first 
> one to ever do this. We even escalated to our account manager and they still 
> won't provide it.
> I know it's not a huge deal, but life is so much easier when you can prestage 
> your cut and rollback commands. In fact, our internal Change Management 
> process mandates peer review all proposed config changes and now we have to 
> explain why some lines say TBD!
> Is this a common SOP nowadays? Anyone care to explain why they wouldn't just 
> provide it ahead of time?
> Thanks in advance.
> CWB 
> 

My question to the OP would be why didn’t you schedule the turndown of the old 
circuit to overlap with the turnup of the new circuit?  That way you could 
perform your cut independently of turn-up testing with your new provider.  Why 
is it that you MUST perform both activities on the same night?  You can always 
turn up a circuit, make sure it works and then turn it back down on your end 
until you’re actually ready to use it.  

Re: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until the night of the cut?

[William Herrin]

On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 4:26 PM, c b  wrote:
> We have 4 full-peering providers between two data centers. Our
> accounting people did some shopping and found that there was
> a competitor who came in substantially lower this year and
> leadership decided to swap our most expensive circuit to the new carrier.

That's the first mistake. Internet w/ BGP is not a mass-market
service. Accounting people have no business searching out highly
technical custom products and services. Custom services are highly
variable in terms of what the service actually delivers. Accounting
people are not at all equipped to evaluate them.


> Anyways, we were preparing for the circuit cutover and asked
> for the BGP peering info up front like we normally do. This carrier
> said that they don't provide this until the night of the cut.

It's not unusual for smaller providers who do less BGP to have the
engineer work with the customer on the phone to turn up the session
without collecting or preparing a bunch of documentation ahead of
time. This can be a good thing or a bad thing. They'll have more
outages but if they're willing to reprogram routers on the fly they
may also be more responsive when you have a problem. And they mayy be
more willing to customize your configuration.

Regards,
Bill Herrin



-- 
William Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
Owner, Dirtside Systems . Web: 

Re: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until the night of the cut?

[Bryan Socha via NANOG]

I know of 2 larger providers that have strange provisioning processes.
Both of them do layer 0/line testing and then their bgp group gets the
order to finish the routing.It's not that they are withholding the
info, they haven't done the bgp policy yet and it happens during turnup
testing.

But the data is fairly standard, what were you missing that wasn't on the
tech/bgp form you fill out at the start of setup?



Bryan Socha
Network Engineer
DigitalOcean


On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 4:26 PM, c b  wrote:

> We have 4 full-peering providers between two data centers. Our accounting
> people did some shopping and found that there was a competitor who came in
> substantially lower this year and leadership decided to swap our most
> expensive circuit to the new carrier.
> (I don't know what etiquette is, so I won't name the carrier... but it's a
> well-known name)
> Anyways, we were preparing for the circuit cutover and asked for the BGP
> peering info up front like we normally do. This carrier said that they
> don't provide this until the night of the cut. Now, we've done this 5 or 6
> times over the years with all of our other carriers and this is the first
> one to ever do this. We even escalated to our account manager and they
> still won't provide it.
> I know it's not a huge deal, but life is so much easier when you can
> prestage your cut and rollback commands. In fact, our internal Change
> Management process mandates peer review all proposed config changes and now
> we have to explain why some lines say TBD!
> Is this a common SOP nowadays? Anyone care to explain why they wouldn't
> just provide it ahead of time?
> Thanks in advance.
> CWB

Re: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until the night of the cut?

[Daniel Corbe]

> We have 4 full-peering providers between two data centers. Our accounting 
> people did some shopping and found that there was a competitor who came in 
> substantially lower this year and leadership decided to swap our most 
> expensive circuit to the new carrier. 
> (I don't know what etiquette is, so I won't name the carrier... but it's a 
> well-known name) Anyways, we were preparing for the circuit cutover and asked 
> for the BGP peering info up front like we normally do. This carrier said that 
> they don't provide this until the night of the cut. Now, we've done this 5 or 
> 6 times over the years with all of our other carriers and this is the first 
> one to ever do this. We even escalated to our account manager and they still 
> won't provide it.
> I know it's not a huge deal, but life is so much easier when you can prestage 
> your cut and rollback commands. In fact, our internal Change Management 
> process mandates peer review all proposed config changes and now we have to 
> explain why some lines say TBD!
> Is this a common SOP nowadays? Anyone care to explain why they wouldn't just 
> provide it ahead of time?
> Thanks in advance.
> CWB 
> 

My question to the OP would be why didn’t you schedule the turndown of the old 
circuit to overlap with the turnup of the new circuit?  That way you could 
perform your cut independently of turn-up testing with your new provider.  Why 
is it that you MUST perform both activities on the same night?  You can always 
turn up a circuit, make sure it works and then turn it back down on your end 
until you’re actually ready to use it.  

Re: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until the night of the cut?

[Sean]

I’d be concerned. IMHO, it’s not normal to withhold such information. Doing so 
suggests that they are disorganized at best.

When we sign a BGP customer, we collect their ASN and the networks they want to 
advertise up front. With that information, we complete a network setup document 
that is forwarded to the customer. The document contains all of the information 
they provided, the transit network(s) we’ve assigned, and port info. This is 
done weeks/months before turn-up.


On 1/21/16, 2:26 PM, "NANOG on behalf of c b"  wrote:

>We have 4 full-peering providers between two data centers. Our accounting 
>people did some shopping and found that there was a competitor who came in 
>substantially lower this year and leadership decided to swap our most 
>expensive circuit to the new carrier. 
>(I don't know what etiquette is, so I won't name the carrier... but it's a 
>well-known name)
>Anyways, we were preparing for the circuit cutover and asked for the BGP 
>peering info up front like we normally do. This carrier said that they don't 
>provide this until the night of the cut. Now, we've done this 5 or 6 times 
>over the years with all of our other carriers and this is the first one to 
>ever do this. We even escalated to our account manager and they still won't 
>provide it.
>I know it's not a huge deal, but life is so much easier when you can prestage 
>your cut and rollback commands. In fact, our internal Change Management 
>process mandates peer review all proposed config changes and now we have to 
>explain why some lines say TBD!
>Is this a common SOP nowadays? Anyone care to explain why they wouldn't just 
>provide it ahead of time?
>Thanks in advance.
>CWB

Re: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until the night of the cut?

[Larry Sheldon]

On 1/21/2016 15:33, Kraig Beahn wrote:

"This carrier said that they don't provide this until the night of the
cut." / "Is this a common SOP nowadays?" - Not in our experience.

On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 4:26 PM, c b  wrote:


We have 4 full-peering providers between two data centers. Our accounting
people did some shopping and found that there was a competitor who came in
substantially lower this year and leadership decided to swap our most
expensive circuit to the new carrier.
(I don't know what etiquette is, so I won't name the carrier... but it's a
well-known name)
Anyways, we were preparing for the circuit cutover and asked for the BGP
peering info up front like we normally do. This carrier said that they
don't provide this until the night of the cut. Now, we've done this 5 or 6
times over the years with all of our other carriers and this is the first
one to ever do this. We even escalated to our account manager and they
still won't provide it.
I know it's not a huge deal, but life is so much easier when you can
prestage your cut and rollback commands. In fact, our internal Change
Management process mandates peer review all proposed config changes and now
we have to explain why some lines say TBD!
Is this a common SOP nowadays? Anyone care to explain why they wouldn't
just provide it ahead of time?
Thanks in advance.
CWB




I have not been following this thread closely, but I'll bet I klnow why 
the new vendor is cheaper.


I have this theory that says accounting may not be the best place for 
technical OR engineering decision making (it destroyed the company I 
worked for for many years).


My theory (see the scientific usage of the word) is that "cheapest" is 
rarely "best" in any dimension INCLUDING "total cost".



--
sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Juvenal)

Re: Is it normal for your provider to withhold BGP peering info until the night of the cut?

[Kraig Beahn]

"This carrier said that they don't provide this until the night of the
cut." / "Is this a common SOP nowadays?" - Not in our experience.

On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 4:26 PM, c b  wrote:

> We have 4 full-peering providers between two data centers. Our accounting
> people did some shopping and found that there was a competitor who came in
> substantially lower this year and leadership decided to swap our most
> expensive circuit to the new carrier.
> (I don't know what etiquette is, so I won't name the carrier... but it's a
> well-known name)
> Anyways, we were preparing for the circuit cutover and asked for the BGP
> peering info up front like we normally do. This carrier said that they
> don't provide this until the night of the cut. Now, we've done this 5 or 6
> times over the years with all of our other carriers and this is the first
> one to ever do this. We even escalated to our account manager and they
> still won't provide it.
> I know it's not a huge deal, but life is so much easier when you can
> prestage your cut and rollback commands. In fact, our internal Change
> Management process mandates peer review all proposed config changes and now
> we have to explain why some lines say TBD!
> Is this a common SOP nowadays? Anyone care to explain why they wouldn't
> just provide it ahead of time?
> Thanks in advance.
> CWB