Time to gut the network - thoughts?
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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.
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@Dashrender 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?:
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?
GOod business practices.
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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?:
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).
This is SO easy. Go ask your mother if she has heard of Cisco or of Ubiquiti Networks.
If she's heard of Cisco, you know that you should watch out for people suggesting it. It's basically that easy. I'm not kidding. Once you advertise to the public for IT needs, you are going after this exactly problem.
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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?:
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).
This is SO easy. Go ask your mother if she has heard of Cisco or of Ubiquiti Networks.
If she's heard of Cisco, you know that you should watch out for people suggesting it. It's basically that easy. I'm not kidding. Once you advertise to the public for IT needs, you are going after this exactly problem.
So you shouldn't buy Chevy vehicles because people have heard of it?
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@Dashrender said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
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).
Here is the easy thing there... a good business person will definitely know Cisco, IBM, VMware, etc. A bad business person needs to be replaced.
Find the root problem, fix it. Good business.
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@stacksofplates 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?:
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).
This is SO easy. Go ask your mother if she has heard of Cisco or of Ubiquiti Networks.
If she's heard of Cisco, you know that you should watch out for people suggesting it. It's basically that easy. I'm not kidding. Once you advertise to the public for IT needs, you are going after this exactly problem.
So you shouldn't buy Chevy vehicles because people have heard of it?
See that's exactly the wrong interpretation of "question" that I warned about.
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@Dashrender said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
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.
Right, typical businesses will do things poorly. So assume that typical businesses will always be bad. So don't be typical if you are trying to do well.
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@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
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.
See where I warned about misusing the term "question" above ^^^^
Just because you question something doesn't even slightly imply that you don't then do it once you've checked to see if it is legit.
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@scottalanmiller said in Time to gut the network - thoughts?:
@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.
So you're saying that if a completely non technical person was presented with any non advertised (aka known) solution/company name, that the customer would question that it's the right thing, but just because it's using a name they heard on TV but literally know nothing about, so they'll just assume it must be good/right? Yeah sadly I'm sure you're right. But if that's the case, then you're pretty much screwed.
