On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 2:11 PM, Benedikt Stockebrand <bs@stepladder-it.com> wrote:.
However I believe we could expect even first level support engineer to be able to run the well-defined set of commands (such as traceroute, netstat and ifconfig) - they don't need to understand the output, just provide it while escalating.
What do others think here? What is your experience with helpdesks and their ability to perform this stuff?
that really depends. I've seen first level supporters who wouldn't need this at such a level because they'd know how to do that anyway
My understanding they are not a target audience of this document ;)
and I've seen ones who would read whatever a flowchart says without understanding a single word.
That's why I'd like to make sure that the troubleshooting procedure in this document could be presented as a flow chart and all possible scenarios are covered (even as 'then escalate'), so first-level support always know what to do. Re: collecting additional information: my point here is that when X-level support is escalating to X+1 level, it's always a good idea to have a well-defined list of what information should be collected and provided with an escalation request (like attaching 'show tech' to Cisco TAC request :)) It does not mean that escalating engineer has to understand every single word in the data they are collecting and it does not mean that the collected information would necessary contain everything needed to solve the case. The goal is to cover some common cases (and if somebody would complain to me about poor v[46] connectivity from their workstation I personally would ask for ifconfig, netstat and traceroute before doing anything else ;)
But what's worrying me more is if we can actually come up with a one-size-fits-all flowchart that is actually any use to anybody.
I'm sure we can not do 'one-size-fits-all' thing but we could provide a kind of template which could be customized.
It might well be that this turns out a completely futile exercise, but the only way to find that out is to actually give it a try.
I agree. If I remember correctly, Ragnar mentioned during v6 WG session that his helpdesk was pretty happy with this document. So I believe we should get the draft to a slightly better state and let people try it in their networks. -- SY, Jen Linkova aka Furry