Time to gut the network - thoughts?
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@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@Dashrender said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@Dashrender said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
Legacy understanding, and the belief (by the phone installation company) that VLANs would allow QOS for the IP phones.
Should have walked them out the door the moment that you found out that they didn't know even the basic underpinnings of networking or phones. What value did they bring if they aren't aware of how either work? There are only two skills sets for VoIP to have... and thinking that VLANs do QoS indicates basically zero knowledge of either. That's super basic stuff. It doesn't require any special phone knowledge to know why that's impossible. This means that they weren't up to the knowledge level expected before someone starts to learn about VoIP specifically.
Time out - while VLANs themselves don't do QoS, giving a VLAN a higher QoS over all other VLANs (which was their recommendation) does, right?
Sure, QoS works regardless of the VLAN. So putting in a VLAN in order to get QoS is completely false.
So there are two possibilities that I see...
- They aren't qualified to do what they are doing, even at the most basic "has never seen VoIP" level.
- Worse case, they DO know what they are doing and were actively making your environment more expensive and complex in order to charge you for more work (theft.)
I wasn't the expert - I was hiring them then to be the experts. I did do the install of the switches though, based on their direction at the time, I was paying them for the installations directions/suggestions.
So I guess that mostly makes them fall into #1.
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@Dashrender said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
I wasn't the expert - I was hiring them then to be the experts.
That's the problem, they took advantage of that situation. Either by not learning the basics and selling themselves as experts, or by outright trying to screw you.
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@Dashrender said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@Dashrender said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@Dashrender said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
Legacy understanding, and the belief (by the phone installation company) that VLANs would allow QOS for the IP phones.
Should have walked them out the door the moment that you found out that they didn't know even the basic underpinnings of networking or phones. What value did they bring if they aren't aware of how either work? There are only two skills sets for VoIP to have... and thinking that VLANs do QoS indicates basically zero knowledge of either. That's super basic stuff. It doesn't require any special phone knowledge to know why that's impossible. This means that they weren't up to the knowledge level expected before someone starts to learn about VoIP specifically.
Time out - while VLANs themselves don't do QoS, giving a VLAN a higher QoS over all other VLANs (which was their recommendation) does, right?
Sure, QoS works regardless of the VLAN. So putting in a VLAN in order to get QoS is completely false.
So there are two possibilities that I see...
- They aren't qualified to do what they are doing, even at the most basic "has never seen VoIP" level.
- Worse case, they DO know what they are doing and were actively making your environment more expensive and complex in order to charge you for more work (theft.)
I wasn't the expert - I was hiring them then to be the experts. I did do the install of the switches though, based on their direction at the time, I was paying them for the installations directions/suggestions.
So I guess that mostly makes them fall into #1.
No way to know that. I see why you'd think that. But they can NEVER risk changing their "screw the customer to generate more work" recommendations for a one off case where you are doing the work. What if you talked to other customers and they found out that the recommendations changed when you did the hourly work? They can't let that happen.
ANd they can't change it because... what if you changed your mind and had them do the work? And why would they maintain good docs for customers like you and bad ones for other customers? That's effort and cost that they don't need to bother with. If they are unethical, they don't take time to be ethical sometimes. And they still hope that your network breaks and that you will hire them to fix it later.
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Well then I have to assume that the continued chorus line of "we recommend you put the VOIP phones on their own VLAN for QoS" is showing that they are uneducated in modern networking, no?
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@Dashrender said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
Well then I have to assume that the continued chorus line of "we recommend you put the VOIP phones on their own VLAN for QoS" is showing that they are uneducated in modern networking, no?
That's correct. There ARE use cases for that, but QoS is not it. In fact, that very slightly undermines QoS.
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For correct QoS for SIP traffic, for example, you want to prioritize RTP, not SIP. If you do a VLAN for QoS, you fail to do that and all of the non-VoIP traffic on that network gets prioritized, too, along with the important stuff. A big deal, not generally, but it fails to work as well as better QoS methods.
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@Dashrender said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
Well then I have to assume that the continued chorus line of "we recommend you put the VOIP phones on their own VLAN for QoS" is showing that they are uneducated in modern networking, no?
This falls into the same general category of "The average of any market is poor. The average business will fail. The average system deployment is expensive, slow and insecure. The average advice is just a sales pitch, not good advice. And on, and on."
Nothing should ever be considered "good" because it is popular. If anything, the popularity of an idea, product or concept should put it under more scrutiny, not less.
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Which, in turn, is like the No One Ever Got Fired for Buying.... article. It's not that Cisco is always wrong, but if your "consultant" recommends Cisco you should be more wary of him than if he suggested Juniper or Ubiquiti. It doens't mean that Cisco is bad or that the consultant isn't knowledgeable. It simply is because nearly all bad advice looks the same. Good advice can look like almost anything.
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That's a great article idea... Patterns of Bad Advice.
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@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
Which, in turn, is like the No One Ever Got Fired for Buying.... article. It's not that Cisco is always wrong, but if your "consultant" recommends Cisco you should be more wary of him than if he suggested Juniper or Ubiquiti. It doens't mean that Cisco is bad or that the consultant isn't knowledgeable. It simply is because nearly all bad advice looks the same. Good advice can look like almost anything.
There was a gigantic thread about this before. If it's a real consultant, and they recommend Cisco, why would you question it? You're using a consultant because you don't know what you need.
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@stacksofplates said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
There was a gigantic thread about this before. If it's a real consultant, and they recommend Cisco, why would you question it?
You question it because it's a pattern that is extremely likely to be bad advice and extremely unlikely to be good advice but is highly predictable to be the sign of being scammed. The chances that the advice is good is too low to not question it. It's because it is a predictable scam response.
It only seems weird to "question" it because people get confused about what questioning means. They think that it is denying, which is totally different.
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@stacksofplates said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
If it's a real consultant, and they recommend Cisco, why would you question it?
What you are questioning is if they are a true consultant.
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@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@stacksofplates said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
If it's a real consultant, and they recommend Cisco, why would you question it?
What you are questioning is if they are a true consultant.
The people who are hiring the consultants don't know what they need, or they wouldn't have a consultant. How do you question someone on recommending one brand if you don't know anything about it?
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@stacksofplates said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
The people who are hiring the consultants don't know what they need, or they wouldn't have a consultant. How do you question someone on recommending one brand if you don't know anything about it?
Because even to non-technical people it's an obvious case. If you feel comfortable with the recommendation because it is an "expensive, well known, well advertised brand aimed at a non-technical person" you know to question it. Why would they market to those people if not to support this scenario? They would not, obviously. That advertising has only one function.
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@stacksofplates said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@stacksofplates said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
If it's a real consultant, and they recommend Cisco, why would you question it?
What you are questioning is if they are a true consultant.
The people who are hiring the consultants don't know what they need, or they wouldn't have a consultant. How do you question someone on recommending one brand if you don't know anything about it?
YOu are feeling that it requires good IT knowledge to question, but it does not. Good business knowledge is all that is needed. THis isn't an IT thing, it's a pure business one.
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@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@Dashrender said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
Well then I have to assume that the continued chorus line of "we recommend you put the VOIP phones on their own VLAN for QoS" is showing that they are uneducated in modern networking, no?
This falls into the same general category of "The average of any market is poor. The average business will fail. The average system deployment is expensive, slow and insecure. The average advice is just a sales pitch, not good advice. And on, and on."
Nothing should ever be considered "good" because it is popular. If anything, the popularity of an idea, product or concept should put it under more scrutiny, not less.
Well given what I know now, we should dump them as a vendor because, supposedly, they don't know squat about networking. But let's assume a typical business, they need a phone system, they open the phone book and call and get a few quotes. Let's assume the vendors at least go as far as to interview the customer to find the best fit. Now assume both prices come in at roughly the same cost - now what? All you can do as a typical business is TRUST that whomever you pick knows what they are doing and does the right thing.
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@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@Dashrender said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
Well then I have to assume that the continued chorus line of "we recommend you put the VOIP phones on their own VLAN for QoS" is showing that they are uneducated in modern networking, no?
This falls into the same general category of "The average of any market is poor. The average business will fail. The average system deployment is expensive, slow and insecure. The average advice is just a sales pitch, not good advice. And on, and on."
Nothing should ever be considered "good" because it is popular. If anything, the popularity of an idea, product or concept should put it under more scrutiny, not less.
Now I'm just playing devil's advocate - how is a normal business person suppose to know that if their consultant suggest Cisco that they should really be scrutinizing that recommendation even more? They're probably lucky if they know the name Cisco (OK not really, but you get my point - he's a Shoe store owner, he doesn't know squat about computers).
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@stacksofplates said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
Which, in turn, is like the No One Ever Got Fired for Buying.... article. It's not that Cisco is always wrong, but if your "consultant" recommends Cisco you should be more wary of him than if he suggested Juniper or Ubiquiti. It doens't mean that Cisco is bad or that the consultant isn't knowledgeable. It simply is because nearly all bad advice looks the same. Good advice can look like almost anything.
There was a gigantic thread about this before. If it's a real consultant, and they recommend Cisco, why would you question it? You're using a consultant because you don't know what you need.
Exactly - so how are you suppose to be protected?
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@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@stacksofplates said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@stacksofplates said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
If it's a real consultant, and they recommend Cisco, why would you question it?
What you are questioning is if they are a true consultant.
The people who are hiring the consultants don't know what they need, or they wouldn't have a consultant. How do you question someone on recommending one brand if you don't know anything about it?
YOu are feeling that it requires good IT knowledge to question, but it does not. Good business knowledge is all that is needed. THis isn't an IT thing, it's a pure business one.
No not at all. It's definitely also an IT thing. How do you question it when you have no idea what you're looking for? You still haven't answered that. What do you specifically look for?
People also look at it this way, do you buy from Jim's Electric Vehicles Inc, or do you buy from Tesla?
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@Dashrender said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
Well given what I know now, we should dump them as a vendor because, supposedly, they don't know squat about networking.
Well, either they know squat OR they are willing to hurt you to make a quick buck. You choose which is worse. But yes, keeping them seems completely unreasonable.
