[AusNOG] Speaking of DNS...

[Jake Anderson]

I would say that frontline staff should at least have an avenue to 
report something to their noc.
some basic training IE "does the person sound like they have a clue"?

Then allow the CSR to send an email to the NOC, with the fault report 
and a contact number

How well this is going to work with offshore helpdesks is debatable.

On 14/02/14 15:56, Mark Foster wrote:
> Responses to at least 3 folks from this thread below...
>
>>> To be fair - I wouldn't expect a 3rd party 'user' to be calling and 
>>> informing of problems within my network. I'd expect perhaps another 
>>> network operator to contact, possibly asking the helpdesk to speak 
>>> with NOC regarding the issue, which would be handled differently.
>> ROFL
>> helpdesk doing something other than reading the script.
>> That's a great one.
>> I may need to lay down for a while.
>
> Yeah, tell me about it.
>
> I did my time in technical support roles and the trick was to ensure 
> that there is infact, scope to escalate a call that goes 'off 
> script'.  Rather than calltakers who simply say 'sorry, we can't help 
> you'.
>
> As an engineer, If someone's ringing me to advise me of a problem - or 
> potential problem - in my network, I wan't to know about it - but 
> let's also qualify this; I am expecting the caller to know what 
> they're talking about (so they're not joe-user, they're another 
> network operator or someone with appropriate cloo-level) and I expect 
> my support staff to be able to determine this before they attempt to 
> refer the call to my NOC. If the front-line can't do it, the senior / 
> escalation tier should be able to manage it, so by the time it reaches 
> me, it is infact something i'm likely to care about.
>
> Some years ago I did a presentation at an NZNOG conference called 
> 'bridging the gap between support and the NOC' - a big part of this is 
> ensuring that there's a good link between them, a career progression 
> and an open ability to ensure that the right information flows in both 
> directions.
>>
>>
>>
>> I wound up sending an email to ausnog and it was sorted in half an hour.
>
> Having to resort to broadcasting on a public mailing list is sad, 
> though I myself have also done it.
>
> In New Zealand we operate a 'NOC List' on the NZNOG website which 
> provides useful names and contact information for network operators to 
> use.  For the most part it's successful in providing an 'out of band' 
> way to get hold of a local operator. I've used it several times.
> Where i've struggled is mainly in dealing with offshore operators, 
> usually to report a compromised server, a DDoS or a broken bogon 
> filter, but sometimes weird MSS problems, broken SPF or ICMP filters 
> gone wrong.
>
>> It was only a year or two ago the person who answered the helpdesk 
>> phone had cli access to all the managed routers and could trouble 
>> shoot and fix on the spot. 
>
> This is the reason many players prefer to deal with smaller 
> organisations; you're closer to all-tiers in the one call. I'm a firm 
> believer in companies losing their ability to provide decent technical 
> support when they reach a certain size.
> Some do better than others in mitigating this.
>
> In response to Noel's numbered points:
>
>> 1/ public facing phone numbers of most ISP's are for existing or 
>> potential customers, so ringing ISP-A customer support to report a 
>> perceived problem on ISP-A's network will likely go right over the 
>> head of the call taker
>>
> Public facing phone numbers should simply be ways to contact the 
> organisation, for _whatever purpose_.  IMHO.  Yes the majority will be 
> sales/marketing/support type calls, but engineering's also important. 
> Even if you have tech support staff 'fronting' it, you should have 
> someone accessible who can understand enough to not have everything 
> simply go over their head, who can determine if it's appropriate to 
> refer the call upwards (or not).
>
>> 2/ existing customers, or external persons, with most problems think 
>> it is the ISP's fault, not their own, in all but a few rare events it 
>> is the customers own fault, or unrelated to ISP-A's network.
>>
>
> Customers, i'd agree with you. External persons bothering to take the 
> time, should be able to be split into those who're meddling in 
> something not their affair, and those who're describing an actual, 
> serious issue.
>
>> 3/ I dont know of any ISP (except small owner/oper vISP's maybe) that 
>> will permit front line call takers to transfer a call to NOC, in fact 
>> it is likely specifically forbidden to do so, also it is likely taboo 
>> in most places to give out the NOC email address (even though in most 
>> cases the whois is the right address, or at least will get there) for 
>> much same reasons as above, else you;d soon see custoemr support with 
>> 5 calls a day and NOC with 15K a day.
>>
>
> I don't expect to ring a third party organisation and simply say 
> 'transfer me to your NOC'.  But I would like to be able to say 'I have 
> detected a serious problem with a server/service on your network, 
> which poses a substantial risk to your business (or mine), and I would 
> like to speak with someone technical that I can explain the situation 
> to' and get a solid answer.  This isn't necessarily your NOC, it 
> depends on your size and structure internally.
>
>> 4/ As above, network staff from ISP-B who have a clue on how to 
>> contact ISP-A, there is not only whois, but other methods known to 
>> most here, which I wont link to because although its publicly 
>> accessible, it has direct numbers and addresses :)
>>
>
> Works great domestically with players that I know, or who are perhaps 
> 2-degrees separated. Doesn't work well when fishing around with 
> offshore parties or those with whom we don't have standing peering or 
> business relationships.
> By the time you're resorting to broadcast on NZNOG/AusNOG/NANOG/etc 
> you've already demonstrated a problem.
>
> All IMHO.
>
> Mark.
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