[clue-talk] network issue

[Nate Duehr]

dperkins at techangle.com wrote:

>I was told that they found a cable plugged into two ports on the switch,
>instead of one end of that cable being plugged into a PC or PLC.  Who
>would have done that and why is another matter, and they claim it has
>happened three times.
>  
>
Sounds like they're in knee-jerk "protect the network" mode.  Give 'em 
some time to cool down, and a plan on how it won't happen again and 
maybe limit access to who can plug/unplug things.  Wiring closets should 
always be locked up anyway.  Too many fingers in the pie.  ;-)

>I need to have the PLC's plugged into our network because they are not
>located at my desk.  There are also PC's associated with the PLCs and they
>are on the network too.  After testing is done, we save the customer
>configurations and files to our network.
>  
>
Understand.  Sounds like you need a mini-network just for testing things 
perhaps... possibly with some type of access out to the main company 
network.  Labs are always hard to set up properly that way...

Ultimately -- money wins -- if you can't do your job for the company, 
they should work with you to find a way to meet both the requirement 
that your testing not bring down the whole company and also help you get 
whatever resources you need to get the real money-making jobs done.  
Always an interesting job balancing all that, but that's what IT and 
network people are paid for... sometimes they/we do have to be reminded 
of that fact from time to time... (GRIN).  It's easy for me to sit here 
and say that without any of the stress of your testing crashing the 
network I'm responsible for!!  (BIGGER GRIN)

>Maybe I could get them to subnet this from our network.  That way we only
>kill the subnet, and I would have control over the subnet.
>  
>
I'm not sure a subnet per-se would work, but perhaps a VLAN.  Of course 
if their switches aren't smart enough to do spanning-tree, it's unlikely 
they do VLAN's either.

I think your best bet would be to re-visit the whole thing with a 
network design type person in your organization and see if you can come 
up with one of those "hey we fixed the world" type of solutions. 

It's usually pretty easy, but getting multiple people to come to 
consensus is hard.  If you can get a representative from each party that 
"has a dog in the fight" to meet and propose a solution and then just do 
it, these things usually blow over quietly and quickly.

Welcome to tech support -- three drink minimum!  ;-)

Happy Festivus!  ;-)

Nate