Engineers are often unstuck by poor planning and get hit with large financial penalties as a result. Projects can become mired in delays and complications due to unforeseen costs and expenses. There are some unavoidable bumps in the road, but most could be foreseen and eliminated in advance. I want to share a few tips based on some experiences I’ve had over the years.
Today we’re going to take a look at a very specific aspect the network project delivery workflow; seeking a quote from a value added reseller or VAR. A VAR re-sells equipment and services on behalf of network equipment vendors. In this post we’ll look at what a VAR is and how to reduce the time lost on equipment ordering. Like RMAs, RFQs are not sexy, but mishandled RFQs can burn a lot of time that you could otherwise spend…
Rapid growth I read an article by Greg Ferro about twenty-percent-growth recently. Greg makes the point that most network growth forecasts are grossly overoptimistic. However, my experience in the service provider world is that ‘the business’ underestimates growth in most cases. Network engineers have a fiscal responsibility not to gold-plate their network designs; network gear is just too damn expensive. But you can over-optimise for cost. It is incredibly frustrating to overhaul and scale-up a network within a year of the initial…