Ascend Archive
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(ASCEND) Pool Leak Rant

Side comment to ascend about their new quality control procedures for
the 
"recent" customer outbursts and complaints about the quality of their
code :

  "If Ascend hasn't got past the 'a new software patch every day!' state
of 
   software quality control, you should get there fast or risk an angry 
   customer base."  - Bruce M. Hahne, Feb, 20 1997 (one of Dr. Farber's
many
                     "Interesting Poeple")

So, in my neck of the woods, Ascend has had plenty of warning time
(almost a 
year).  I'm beginning to see a lot of mixed equipment installations,
including 
mixed cisco 5{2,3}00, Portmaster {2,3,4} and even cabletron installs. 
Judging 
from some of the e-mail floating across the cisco mailing list (not the 
newsgroup mailing list), cisco's v.90 code will come out of beta RSN.

Another thing, Ascend Japan's had better wake up and smell the coffee. 
Almost 
everyone is wise to the fact that you can buy a Max that will work with
the 
NTT ISDN switch type without paying Ascend Japan the $40,000 that they
want 
for a 56K Max400x.  I know we've got to support the sacho's saki and
golf 
habit, but I'm not going the single handly bail out the banking
industry.  
Besides, the price on used cisco 5x00 gear is beginning to approach used 
Ascend gear.

Given the economey and various other factors, I would expect Ascend
Japan's 
sales to go flat or in serious decline over the next 3-4 months.  

Along similar lines, I ran into a company selling high density PCI ISDN
PRI 
and v.90 capable communication card (www.phylon.com).  Apparently
FreeBSD and 
Linux Drivers are being developed for it.  So, in addition to customer 
pressure, Ascend may face a new more troubling question in the future:
"will 
Open Source drivers and firmware alter the remote access server market
in the
near to medium term?".  The cisco newsgroup has several annoying threads 
going about Linux as a router.  If cisco has a linux fly in the
ointment, 
Ascned will not be overlooked.  Someone has also mentioned the
possibility
that Spellcaster will add analogue functionality the their ISDN PRI
boards 
as well.

A Linux box with all the functionality of a Max remote access server, a
cisco 
router and {DNS,radius,mail,web,squid,ftp, etc} server is a very scary
thought.
The ability to add in Frame Relay, ATM, FDDI and high density ASDL ports
could
make a linux based solution a real threat.  Throw in stunnel/ssh or CIPE
with 
a PAMified Radius to duplicate Realms and you're cooking with gas. 
Personally,
I'd rather beta test Open Source drivers than Ascned's closed code.

To assure Ascend that I'm not whining and that I'm not on cheap drugs,
I'll 
close with this little though for day :

   Max1#show pool

   Pool#                   Base                  Count        InUse
      1               192.168.192.128             110           38

I have 11 users logged in on this particular max.  It's 4am.  I'm about
to 
kick them ALL off so that we can use the boxes to their full potential
during
tomorrow's peak (now, what was that reset OID?).  To answer damage
control 
questions: 6.1.3, ftk.m40, MPP, LQM off, Pools No, static routes.  Nice
to 
see the pool leaks were addressed in the TNT boxes first and that 6.0.10 
release for the Max line seems to address TTs submitted by
reional/national
carriers.  Screw Mom and Pop = screw bread and butter.  Someone at HQ
needs
to get that message (we ALMOST brought TNTs, but then we realized that
even if we did buy a TNTs, it still wouldn't garner proper attention and
support because we weren't planning on buying 100s of them).



Have a day...
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