20110505 Networking: What QOS is, and what QOS isn't.

This is a fairly old topic for me personally, but we have to start somewhere, so here it is.

Whenever I start to hear people talk about Network QOS, and they start using terms used to detail technology, I start to get heartburn.  Someone will say something about MPLS and WFQ, or PQ and different policies, Rate vs Priority, Token Bucket, Heuristics, FIFO vs anything else, and then they will imply that these things are QOS.  They all make me want to take the cluebat to the noob and send them back to common sense school.

QOS is not a technology.  Technology can not give you QOS to start with.

Here's reality.

QOS is a contract that a lawyer would be willing to back up.

*ahem*

/raise_eyebrow

You heard me.  QOS is a company with a network that you can trust.  It is NOT a technology or a queuing theory.  Network calculus can not make your voice traffic work if the base network you are going over stinks.

Let me put it to you this way.

Let's say, you find a company that is willing to sign a contract with you that they will provide a 1,000 mbit/sec FDX connection to your companies location, with less than 10 ms jitter at 90% load, less than 0.001% drop anywhere within network, and that the network that they will provide will be sub 100ms on continent, and sub 300ms in network anywhere on the planet.

Let's say they are willing to back up this network with a refund and penalty clause that makes it worth your while, and that they will accept the results of your monitoring of their service as well as provide proof of their own monitoring as well.  The price of the circuit is the best of any of the providers you have been able to find.

And, they sign a contract enforcing the above.

Well, the QOS you have is what is in that contract.

Notice I didn't say anything about MPLS, Internet, Frame Relay, ATM, Sonet, X.25, Wireless, Token Ring, Ethernet, Arcnet, Twinax, Baseband, Fiber, Copper...  Those are topologies, not QOS.

Not once did I talk about what type of prioritization or queuing scheme they would use.  Those are details of a QOS, not the QOS itself.

If the company then shows up at your premise pulling barbed wire over fence posts, and hooks it up to your router and says "Thare's yer network...".  The question should be, does the barbed wire meet the contract?

If you start bandwidth testing, and that barbed wire runs the most blazing 1 gbps network you've ever seen, you have QOS.

If they show up with a OC-192 Sonet connection to the latest generation MPLS cloud, put in by manly men in lab coats and sterile booties running the trenchers, planting daisies to cover up the cut in your premise lawn...  but the connection absolutely stinks, and the network that it connects to is a disaster.  You don't have QOS.  You're a noob who needs to be beat with a 7513 mounted on a cluebat.

Let's say it out loud one time.

QOS.   Quality of Service.

A network running the latest of technology with all the cool TLAs and buzzwords, but doesn't provide you a Quality Service, isn't a good network.  You don't have QOS.

A network that is running over the Internet through nothing but radio towers, but provides you a Quality Service, is a good network.  You have QOS.

So, don't talk to me about QOS and then imply that a technology/topology is QOS.  You'll immediately mark yourself as a noob to me.  Not only should you never run a network for a company, but I'd have to question your experience and common sense at the same time.

20110505 General: Intro

Honestly, I hadn't considered really getting involved with "social media" until lately.  For some reason, I've generally considered there to be more important pursuits in my life.  But, something lately has pushed me to seriously take a look at exercising my ability to speak out on different issues.  I had someone tell me that if I wrote a blog, they'd read it.  Someone else told me that instead of continually repeating myself, that I should write it down and save it.

So... here I am.  Generally, when I start things like this, I end up letting them drop after awhile.  My life is very interrupt driven, and changes in direction are required on a month to month basis.  I'll try this for a little while and see how it works.

I'm known, within my small circle of acquaintances, for fairly strong opinions on a variety of subjects.  Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong, but usually, I speak my peace.  I'm very truth driven, and if I come to believe in the "right" way of something, I tend to defend it when I'm able.  If I end up coming to the understanding that I'm wrong in my "right", I usually change course very quickly, sometimes upsetting people that I know.

I'm likely going to write about the things I know or I'm interested in.  Computers in general, data networking specifically, general statistics (where it relates to networking usually), airplanes and home builts, my health and medical issues, and the occasional discussion on politics, particular around things Ron Paul.  Maybe I'll jump in and talk about other things as well, don't know.  I tend to wander on subjects in real life, I don't see why it would be any different here.

I'll see if I can't put general categories in the title, as to make it easier to skip any subject you might not be interested in.

We'll see how this goes.

Rob