Geodes, Monkeys, etc.

I wish I could feel sorry for them, but these people who (combine concepts as necessary):

1) Don't know how to drive defensively

2) Don't know where they are

3) Don't know where they're trying to be

4) Don't understand the recommended methodology for merging onto an Interstate

When I'm not already pissed off and one of these people cuts me off in their desperation to use an exit or on ramp and then proceeds to use it incorrectly, further fucking me over in the process...I try to remember when I didn't know my way around and find some sympathy.[1]  And then I remember how I got over it.  I bought a map and took a lot of wrong turns and wrong exits.

Suck it up, people, and get the fuck out of the way.  You are not the center of the universe, despite your mother's opinion to the contrary.

Work has again come to the point it always comes to for me:  They want Netflow data for free.  Netflow is the Lamborghini level of network statistics.  It is expensive, to say the least.  It requires a fancy software and hardware and taxes the hardware you already have (the router).  The trick here is that the routers can produce the data with no additional monetary cost, and this leads management to incorrect conclusions.

OK, you have no idea what I'm talking about.  If you glaze over at technical explanations of the internet, skip the next paragraph or two.[2]

Netflow is actually a Cisco product, but other routers of a certain quality and price have some product that does the same thing or a similar thing; it tells you the source and destination of every packets coming in to or leaving a network.  This is an incredible amount of information, to say the least, but it's also incredibly useful (maybe I'll explain why later...maybe not).  To add insult to injury, the information isn't sent from the router using TCP, it's sent with UDP and in staggering quantity.[3]  Once you miss it, it's gone.  This means that you need a machine waiting there, with open arms, to receive the datagram.  To have a machine pay this much constant attention to a UDP stream requires some serious hardware.

Oh, and your bandwidth?  Forget it. You can't collect from your whole network across your network with one powerful machine or you will be using up a lot of bandwidth on something that is basically a management function.  The aforementioned staggering amount of information tends to bog down the router.  Engineers hate both of those things, and tend to become less cooperative when they are mentioned.

I've never seen a good implementation of Netflow (or similar).  I've seen companies say they want to run it, and then I've seen them choose a collection scheme no where near robust enough...and wonder what they did wrong.  They've always been warned, but they just can't think that far ahead.  You must overbuild, people.  Engineers love that, but management hates this.  And everyone knows that engineers and management are natural enemies in the corporate wilderness.

What does it all add up to?  "Can't you write us some magic thing to solve all our problems?  Can't you do some voodoo that will make engineering, management and development all agree to fund and create this thing?  Can't you please care and feed this monkey who is getting cranky and unmanageable?"

Argh.