Talk nerdy to me

26Jun06

A friend and former coworker forwarded me this note, which an IT employee sent to staff at my previous employer regarding a technical issue — “technical” being a technical term. The humor in this lies in the VERY detailed information, which was sent to–for all intents and purposes–the PR, marketing, sales, and creative services departments. It brings to mind Phil Hartman as Cirroc, the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer:

“Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I’m just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: ‘Did little demons get inside and type it?’ I don’t know! My primitive mind can’t grasp these concepts.”

Upon reading this e-mail, I wondered if any of my friends there read this and thought: “Mister network administrator, we’re just marketing people. We don’t understand your range of IP addresses, ipconfig /renew, or your 10.15.x.x address space…”

Read on to view the note (bold), with my commentary interspersed (italics).

250-3rd floor employees, we have used up the entire range of IP addresses in several of our quadrants.

READER’S NOTE: Erm, you lost me after “250-3^rd floor employees.”

In order to fix this issue, we need to configure each quadrant’s network switch to a new address space and adjust the DHCP scope accordingly. We have already switched over one quadrant in 250-1st floor and the entire 4th floor without any problems. This conversion will require about 20 minutes of downtime for all network devices (all PCs) within the quadrant. We would like to perform this work this Wednesday morning (6/29/05) at 7AM. Few important things to note: * If you have a hub or switch in your cube, you’ll need to either reboot your devices (or do a “ipconfig /release”, then “ipconfig /renew” from a dos prompt) in order to get the new IP address. If your network cable is plugged directly into the wall jack, you won’t need to worry about doing that, you’ll get the IP automatically. * If you have a static IP, you will need to reply to me ONLY and provide me with your machine name. Static IPs are VERY uncommon within our site. If you’re not sure whether you have a static IP or not, then you don’t have one. * Starting morning we will be changing over all the printers on the 3rd floor to the new IPs. This will only require a few moments of downtime per printer, and any print jobs will queue up and still print within a couple minutes. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

READER’S NOTE: Pleasure.

P.S. You could have saved yourself the key strokes and the 45-minutes that it took to type this by summarizing. I extracted a sentence from the paragraph above. Does this cover it? “This conversion will require about 20 minutes of downtime for all network devices (all PCs) within the quadrant. We would like to perform this work this Wednesday morning (6/29/05) at 7AM.”

P.P.S. No one knows what a static IP is in the first place so this doesn’t help much — “static IPs are very uncommon within our site. If you’re not sure whether you have a static IP or not, then you don’t have one.” Please advise.

P.P.P. S. What is DHCP? Please advise.

Thank you very much for your cooperation. For those that are interested, there are some additional FAQ/tech notes below.

READER’S NOTE: Gladly. I can’t help but ask…are the questions below REALLY frequently asked? No one knows what any of this means. For this reason, I’m unclear as to why WTF isn’t on the list of FAQs.

Why do I have to reboot or release/renew if I have a hub?

In order to force all the machines to renew their IP, we are power cycling the main switch once the change is made. This forces each client network device to lose its network connection. Once the connection comes back up, the device will then try to pull a new IP address. If you have a hub/switch in your cube, your client devices will never lose their link, and therefore never get the new IP automatically.

READER’S NOTE: Still not catching on…..

Why did we run out of IPs? Didn’t we plan for growth?

When this building was constructed, we did indeed plan for growth. At the time, it seemed that 512 addresses per quadrant (2048 per floor) was going to be way more than sufficient. We had less than 100 cubes/conf rooms per Quadrant, so even with 4 devices per cube, we had more than enough. What was not planned for was console dev devices that take 2 IP addresses for each dev kit. This has really thrown us over the top. The new address space, though currently only 1024 addresses per quadrant, will also be expandable quite easily to include additional addresses within the 10.15.x.x range.

READER’S NOTE: ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

I have a static IP, how is this change going to work for me?

For desktop systems, we’re going with a slightly different method for statics. You will get an address through DHCP that will be reserved for your device. This is done through the Mac address of the NIC on your system. We can find your MAC address from your device name. On Friday morning (or Thursday night before you leave), you will need to turn off your static IP and set your client back to DHCP. Once you grab a 10.15.x.x address on Friday morning, that’s your dedicated address for that machine from now on.

READER’S NOTE: Again, I must ask, how did these questions make the FAQ?

What is the new address space?

We are switching to 10.15.x.x address space. The full ranges for each quadrant are below:

1st floor, quadrant A: 10.15.64.0 – 10.15.67.254

1st floor, quadrant B: 10.15.68.0 – 10.15.71.254

1st floor, quadrant C: 10.15.72.0 – 10.15.75.254

1st floor, quadrant D: 10.15.76.0 – 10.15.79.254

2nd floor, quadrant A: 10.15.80.0 – 10.15.83.254

2nd floor, quadrant B: 10.15.84.0 – 10.15.87.254

2nd floor, quadrant C: 10.15.88.0 – 10.15.91.254

2nd floor, quadrant D: 10.15.92.0 – 10.15.95.254

3rd floor, quadrant A: 10.15.96.0 – 10.15.99.254

3rd floor, quadrant B: 10.15.100.0 – 10.15.103.254

3rd floor, quadrant C: 10.15.104.0 – 10.15.107.254

3rd floor, quadrant D: 10.15.108.0 – 10.15.111.254

4th floor, quadrant A: 10.15.112.0 – 10.15.115.254

4th floor, quadrant B: 10.15.116.0 – 10.15.119.254

4th floor, quadrant C: 10.15.120.0 – 10.15.123.254

4th floor, quadrant D: 10.15.124.0 – 10.15.127.254

READER’S NOTE: WAIT A MINUTE, THIS BUILDING HAS QUADRANTS? BRILLIANT!!! Why didn’t someone send an e-mail to tell the staff about THOSE? Even the maps don’t show quadrants. I used a pencil to mark my tracks for years. Can you draw a new map while everyone’s grabbing 10.15.x.x. addresses and e-mail it out once you’re through? Thanks.

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