Conference 7.286::digital

    I'll admit that copying all the maps every hour might be overdoing
    it a bit, but this is the first informative network service I've
    ever put up on my workstation (besides STOCK.EXE :-))
    
    While most people stab a picture of Bart Simpson or a sunset on their
    X-window background, I show the latest weather radar summary.  I can
    see showers heading my way (and, more importantly, severe weather)
    in such a way that no other Digital-supplied service can duplicate.
    
    Of course, we need to make sure that this is all legal (if it is
    public weather information from a public source then maybe there
    is no copyright issue).
    
    The relatively few blocks of GIFs that comprise this informative
    service is dwarfed by the incessant news feeds from CBUs I don't even
    belong to, copies of those feeds from people I don't even know
    but who somehow have me on their mailing list, and a third copy
    from my manager(s) dutifully passing along information.  And, we
    are poised to start throwing document and full-motion-video images
    that, even compressed, can approach megabytes.
    
    To address the network pounding, let's implement DECnet (or IP)
    area-based distribution points.  Don't we do client-server and
    distributed computing?
    
    This is a very valuable and informative network-based service.  Let's
    do what we have to do to keep it going.
    
    Dan

    >I have seen a memo that Corporate is monitoring the coping of
    >the Weather maps for system/network abuse. ...
    
    How do you cope with a weather map.
    

    No, you've got your lexical precedences wrong.  It's
    a coping-with-the-weather map, not coping with the weather-map.  
    
    It's a nice contour map, with the contours showing the local 
    coping coefficient.  I'm not sure what units it uses, though.
    

	Next thing you'll know, they'll be asking us to park in
	a non-Digital parking lot to save costs on repainting the lines.

	Earth to cost cutters, it's time to come out of your box and
	have a beer.

						mike

    with a coping saw

    DIGITAL's push towards open systems.  The maps, you see, are labeled
    with the locations of all watering holes subscribing to the regulations
    of the International Standards Organization.  DIGITAL personnel can
    track these changing contour lines (Open Systems alliances change on an
    hourly basis, it would seem) and can then obtain liquid refreshment in
    the most cost-efficient way possible.  One of the major features of the
    weather maps, you see, is that they plot:
    
    
    Isobars.
    
    (-: sorry -- it _was_ a stretch, I know... :-)
    

FYI: Weather maps are now in biz.pageset.weather on a USENET news near you...

No more need to copy of the Internet ...

    how do I get a weather map on my station??

    I read the memos regarding the weather maps.  I don't know who the
    authors are, but according to ELF they are both in the "Computing and
    Network Services" organization, one in MSO (Maynard, MA) and the other
    in DLO (Dallas, TX).

    The original memo sounds very harsh.  It offers no alternatives but to
    shut down this service and punish its users.  I wonder if the author has
    the authority to do this?  Like .1, I would rather find a solution to
    distribute these weather maps effectively.  Digital has the technology
    and know-how to do this.
    
    Alfred

Re:    <<< Note 2622.9 by HANNAH::ALFRED "I'd rather be flying N4381Q" >>>

>				Like .1, I would rather find a solution to
>    distribute these weather maps effectively.  Digital has the technology
>    and know-how to do this.
    
Perhaps an employee interest notes conference?  :-)  :-)

-  David

	Can someone mail me a copy of the memo? Also where do I find out
	about these maps and how to use them?

			Alfred

    
    It's very important for middle mgt to focus on these issues as they
    seem easy to solve, and appear have some payback.  The revenue growth
    problem is much more difficult to solve.
    
    An innovative solution to this whole problem with non-work notes files
    and the like would be easy if we had more innovative products.  An
    example would be priority classes of network traffic.
    
    Example:
    
    Class 1 - Small 'paying' messages
    Class 2 - Larger 'paying' messages
    Class 3 - Small 'non-paying' messages
    Class 4 - Larger 'non-paying' messages
    
    Any work related stuff would be in priority classes 1&2.  Peak
    network capacity would be planned using theses statistics.  The
    non paying stuff would only use excess capacity and not block
    real messages.  In a well running network there would usually be
    a reasonable amount of excess capacity to allow the class 1&2 stuff
    to run well.
    
    Jon

    speaking of weather, it's raining heavy today in lovely Nashua where
    ZKO is located. lots of rain anticipated all day here and in
    masshssusttuhuutestess too.
    
    DECeees, please drive carfully.
    
    \nasser

    Thanks to the people who sent me the memo and a pointer to the source
    of the maps.
    
    From the memos it seems like yet an other case of "ready, fire, aim."
    
    		Alfred

    
    I don't have a weather map on my VAXStation, but I once
    saw an engineer with one.  I don't think we should stop
    them, because they are *way* cool. :-)
    
    Glenn

 And we'll have
 fun fun fun
 'til our daddy
 takes our weather map away...

    so whats the weather gonna be like tomorrow in Mass ?
    
    or should I ask how do I get this weather map ? it would save me time
    at home watchin the weather channel for 10 minutes to see whats it like
    outside my kitchen door ! 
    
    naa I like the surprize myself :')
    
    C

    Why don't you just post where to get the maps 'cause I want to know
    also.
    
    Larry
    

    To save some extra mail, the pointer to the weather map information I
    have is in MR4SRV::METEOROLOGY topic 203. 203.1 states that the feed is
    currently unavailable. I assume because of the memo discussed in this
    topic.
    
    			Alfred

    Take a look at page 52 of the Spring/Summer 1993 Digital PC Catalog. 
    There's a picture of a PC monitor with guess what...
    
    			a weather map!

    
    I had the weather map displayed on a large monitor in our customer
    demo center here in Piscataway, NJ. It rapidly became the "conversation
    piece" of customer visit to our facility. I can't tell you how many
    times I was called downstairs to talk to customers about how this
    simple little map was created and displayed. It never failed to amaze
    and intrigue our visitors. 
    
    If a useful information service is using too many resources (which
    I truly doubt, since most people I know just copied the 90 block
    WX_LATEST.GIF file) - then find a way to do it more efficiently.
    
    I hope the CNS folks who are killing this service know that REAL,
    LIVE, customers, the folks with the money who are reason we have
    jobs - were impressed by the imagination of the people who brought
    this service to us! 
    
    
    /ljj

    Re: .22-
    
    	EXCELLENT Note. Real food for real people.
    
    	Between this and the EINF elimination Note, seems the objective is
    to make 1200 BPS Async. DECnet the Easynet backbone standard while
    selling Gigaswitch solutions to our customers.
    
    	It took years to build our bandwidth infrastucture to levels that
    make us efficient, competitive, and responsive to the varied demands of 
    the interconnect needs of the corporation. Squelching this asset would
    be a severe setback IMO.
    
    Phil

    
    RE: .22
    
    Sounds like a classic case of "putting imagination to work".  
    

    
    i think we have too much emphasis on weather now days, all with
    the floods and the hurricanes and all, can't go any where without
    hearing about the weather, TV news is all but weather it looks
    like nowadays and radio is too, there are even whole stations
    on TV that does nothing but weather, and now even DECeees we are setting 
    talking about yet another weather related issues, i think this is all 
    sort of weird my self, i think we should just lay back and not like worry
    too much about it, what will happen will happen i say, no point in keep
    looking up the weather and looking at weather maps and all, because
    if it will rain or snow or whatever, it will do it any way, and you 
    looking up the map will not change any thing about it.

    hope this helps.

    \nasser

 Are we going to continue playing nickel and dime cost cutting games, 
or are we going to figure out how to grow our revenue? We clearly don't
have the ability to do both, and I find myself doubting that our management
has the aptitude to do the latter. I wonder what the hell they're going to
do when all of these nickel and dime opportunities have been taken, and they
have to actually earn their pay by using their gray matter in a CONSTRUCTIVE
way.

 I suppose management figures that we the worker bees are responsible for
Digital missing the PC market by a decade and other acts of management
brilliance...

 The Doctah

    Some people who want to treat this a bit more seriously and are
    conference moderators may want to look into the MODERATORS conference
    at a reply I entered there.

    The policy that applies to proper use of Digital computers and networks
    mentions as having responsibility under the policy: employees,
    managers, system managers, and conference moderators.

    Undisclosed people unrelated to the node which the source of X (where X
    is a conference, a map, or a news feed) or the destination node of X
    are making judgments with disciplinary implications over what is and
    isn't "proper use".

    It's time to look over your shoulder and ask "who's watching" and "what
    is their criteria" for what constitutes proper use.  You, Your manager,
    your system manager, your conference moderator may believe that X is a
    "proper use", but someone else thinks otherwise, and they've made it
    _their_ job to monitor your usage and go after _your_ job.

    Minor cost datapoint.
    
    While the actual cost of network data transfer is remarkably hard to
    quantify, the worldwide average cost of Easynet file transfer is
    somewhere on the order of $5/megabyte.  Within the US (non-local), it's
    (my estimate) more like $1/megabyte; international links are "wicked
    expensive".
    
    How often do you copy the files?  From where?  How big are they?  A GIF
    can get pretty big.  If it were 90 VMS blocks, then 45 kbps would
    average about a nickel a copy.  Not outrageous for a daily feed, but
    an hourly or even more frequent one could add up.
    
    I don't agree with CNS in general, but users really should think about
    cost... networks aren't free!

    
    
    >Users should really think about cost...
    
      Back a decade ago when I came to DEC,  I asked if it cost money
    to send mail etc.  The response I got was that we paid for the lines
    whether we used them or not...
    
      I realize this is overly simplistic,  and perhapse completely
    wrong,  but nowhere since then have I ever come across any mention of 
    cost in relation to use of the network.   If it really is an
    issue,  perhapse making people aware of the overall situation would
    work better than simply attacking "datapoints"  as they are
    discovered.
    
      Around my site,  the weather maps are popular.  People don't
    understand why the weather map is any different from Usenet 
    feeds,  VNS,  the automatic stock quote facility,  or the 
    AP Newswire that was available a few years ago.  If the 
    (never stated) rules for network use are changing,  they should
    be stated in a clear concise and pro-active manner.
    
      Until then,  people will continue to wonder why they recieve
    unsolicited 500 line "supply chain updates",  and other wide-field
    broadcast style mail messages,  while other possibly useful avenues 
    of information (of which the weathermap is only a tiny part)  
    are threatened...  
    
    
    
    						-al

    The focus, in policy, is not on "cost", "volume", "utilization", or
    even on something more fuzzy like productivity but on "proper use".
    
    It is a "proper use" to move around the save sets that comprise VMS
    at around 100 MB.
    
    It may not be a proper use to move a file with one byte.
    
    The definition of "proper use" and the recourse to disciplinary steps
    for finding an employee to have violated the policy have been left to the
    employee's manager and perhaps the system manager for that node. 

    
    The following topic has been contributed by a member of our community
    who wishes to remain anonymous.  If you wish to contact the author by
    mail, please send your message to HUMANE::MODERATOR, specifying the
    conference name and note number. Your message will be forwarded with
    your name attached  unless you request otherwise.
    
    

Someone has alerted me to the fact that the weather maps are being
discussed in the HUMANE::DIGITAL notes conference. As one of the people
that was involved in making the weather maps available, I want to add a
few facts to the discussion.

I received an anonymous phone call a few days ago from someone that had a
copy of a memo detailing an investigation of network abuse. I was shocked
to learn that the subject of the investigation was weather maps!

The caller gave a brief summary of the memo:

  - Digital employees were regularly copying weather maps from the
    Internet

  - These weather maps are being 'proliferated' throughout DEC
    resulting in lots of bandwidth to be consumed at Digital's expense
 
  - A plan to monitor for nodes within DEC that were regularly copying
    the maps from the Internet

  - A plan to figure out who was copying the maps once they were copied
    into DEC

  - Alert managers that owned these systems of the misuse of network and
    compute resources

  - Inform senior management of the size and scale of the abuse so that
    they could get word to all employees just what this type of misuse is
    costing the company so that the correct change of mind set will take
    place and the abuse will stop


After hearing the above I asked the caller if there was any mention of
disciplinary action to be taken and they said it was not mentioned.
They then excused themself before I could ask any more questions.

At that point I deleted all weather maps and any other stuff that had
anything to do with them.

As a sidelight, I also received, via mail, various weather-related
bulletins (hurricane info, weather outlooks, etc.) from the Internet
and had an automatic mechanism that placed them into their proper topic
in a notesfile. This was so only a single copy had to be delivered to DEC
rather than many users subscribing via mail. I deleted that as well.

At no time have I been contacted by anyone: The system manager, network
support, corporate manager, etc. to inform me that making weather maps
available for copying within DEC was an abuse of DEC network or systems
and that I should cease doing so. My node::username was freely visible in
a 'README' type file within the directory on the system which held the
weather maps, so it is not as if I was attempting to do anything
clandestine.

A few people mailed me to say how effective of a network demonstration
the weather maps were; all I can say is they appear to have cost our
company some significant amount of money and I hope that while they were
available that they leveraged some kind of sale for us. If you have some
old copies of the maps laying around you may be able to doctor them up to
look current for the next customer that may come around.

FWIW, the weather maps are available for copy for those on the Internet
from a large university. I guess they are somehow able to bear the cost
of people copying the maps from them.

Personally, I feel no desire to pursue finding out exactly what amount of
network/system usage is or is not network abuse. I decided that just
removing all of the files would save me and anyone else that may be
considered to be 'abusers' a lot of hassle. I've just given up on it,
frankly. If weather maps ever do return it will be someone elses doing.

I would welcome someone from corporate to post here just how much these
extra bytes of non-work-related network traffic and disk storage is
costing Digital... if employees are made aware of the actual $ cost perhaps
a savings will result as employees limit non-work traffic (mail, notes,
copying files, etc.), resulting in an improved profit picture and a
subsequent gain in the price of Digital stock.

I once considered the weather maps and associated stuff to be my small
contribution of making Digital a unique and special place to work. I did
not realise that it was costing the corporation so much in terms of real
cash. Now I guess now my contribution to DEC is a measureable, tangable one
in the form of lowered disk usage and network traffic. Perhaps each of
us can personally consider how to be less of a burden to DEC- I know I
am.

Regards,

Anonymous.

    

    As the base noter of this note I can not agree or dissagree with
    this action. I am a systems manager. The company has a right to
    decide what is, and is not proper use of IT'S equipment. The
    workstations displaying these maps are not the users but DIGITALS.
    I remember not to long ago I was asked to find game programs and
    remove them from the system, and then report them to my boss. I think
    with all the new PC's entering the company will will see this action
    again and again. As far as the cost of bandwidth we pay a set price
    for the lines we are using no matter what does or does not go across
    them. The price quoted was a price fixed on a average use (Whatever
    that is:-)) There is a price to look at, and that is the system
    resources needed to send and receive this info. 
      What bothers me is the cost of the memo in morale. You should
    have seen the tone. The author used degading terms to describe the
    use and users of the weather map display's. It is to bad people
    did the same to me about my spelling of the word "copying". To 
    those of you that poked at me I am missing a finger on one hand
    and thought I did type the "y". By the way I am also a poor speller.
    
       My point is you should look before you jump.
    
    	By the way, in the memo they were going to spend I figure about
    400 hours, to figure out who got the maps. The people needed would
    be of high pay because they would be telling cost center managers
    what the people using the maps were doing wrong. Network trouble 
    shooters are also not cheap. What would the payback be? 10-20 years? 

       I don't think this type of action is going to pull Digital out of
    it's problem. I feel that this will just make morale worse making
    Digitals problems worse. As far as costs they have already spent to 
    much in the meetings on this matter. A memo sent to the general
    public informing the end users of the proper use of the display function
    on the workstations would have worked much better. The managers
    at that point should verify that company tools are used correctly.

       But who am I to tell management how to run the company?

    As a side note I did not copy the maps. I did do it once or twice
    to show someone what a workstation could do in a demo.

    
    I've never seen these weather maps (and guess I never will now) but
    there is one aspect of this that does make me wonder.  Who, when and
    where decides what is "proper use" of resources or technology?  How
    many midnight hacks turned into real products that generated real
    profits?  NOTES comes to mind.  Who will be the person that makes the
    decision that this something has no potential business value?  Surely
    there will be abuses and they should be addressed.  But we should also
    be careful not to foster an atmosphere that stifles creativity or
    risk-taking.  I don't think we can afford that kind of atmosphere.
    

    I suppose I won't get to see weather maps either.   However,
    like .33, I'm saddened that this network, which grew by the initiative
    of persons deciding to provide useful services to others, is now
    apparently a place where you're supposed to do your job and otherwise
    leave the net alone.
    
    I'm also a little worried that Mr. Map Provider was shut down as
    a result of a single anonymous phone call, if I have understood the
    situation.  I can't say that I'd put up more resistance myself,
    having not been involved in such a situation, but it seems to
    speak volumes about the current state of paranoia around here.
    

    It seems to me we're not hearing the whole story.  I remember the days
    when BULOVA was swamped with network traffic.  Could the same thing be
    going on with the Internet gateways?  I don't know.  I know that I
    don't want the company spending money on equipment and/or network
    bandwidth on this.  Nor do I want it completely cut off.  There has to
    be a solution that lies in-between.  Who knows the facts?
    
    Mark

    I think it's saddest that the author of .31 felt that s/he had to enter
    his/her note anonymously.
    
    Laurie.

I was an occasional consumer of the infamous weather maps.
The maps are bitmap images and copying them over the network does use some
bandwidth. However, the weather maps are no larger than many other types
of work-related data that I wouldn't hesitate to copy over the net.

I'm a sailor, and I need to find out on Friday afternoons what the weather
will be like on the weekend, to finalize plans for the weekend. The weather maps
were a convenient way to do that. The alternative for me is to call the
Providence weather forecast number. Since there is no practical way for me to do
this at my own expense, I will occasionally make a phone call on the company
dime to the weather line. I don't know what that 3 minute call costs, but it's
probably around $.50.

I'd guess that the cost to DEC to copy two or three weather maps is less than
$.50, for amortization of the disk space and network capacity required to
support this.

I can live without the weather maps, but I'm real sick and tired of having every
minor benefit and perq eliminated, without regard to the impact on employee
morale.

--RS

    We have customers that use weather info to plan plant shutdowns,
    evacuations, etc... Since we're on the Gulf Coast, an automated method
    of getting weather data would be of GREAT assistance in planning calls
    to remote customers etc.. ESPECIALLY in thunderstorm/hurricane season.
    
    I've never used these 'weather maps' as the powers that be have
    determined that we're 'bald headed stepchildren' and not deserving
    of an easynet node (just a MUXserver connection to Atlanta).  So, to
    get access to weather info online, I dial into one of our customers 
    system and use their weather info system (BTW which I wrote while on 
    residency at the customer's plant).  What I'm getting at is that
    whoever is running around with the cost-cutting axe really needs to
    take a look at the benefits associated with a cost before just chopping
    merrily away.  

Hey Dave,

RE:

>>  Since we're on the Gulf Coast....
>>  I've never used these 'weather maps' as the powers that be have
>>  determined that we're 'bald headed stepchildren' and not deserving
>>  of an easynet node (just a MUXserver connection to Atlanta).
    

Wanna trade locations?  I'd swap you Pensacola for Atlanta anyday!!!!

Keith R>

    Thankyou to those that apologized for the replies about the spelling
    error. I was more making a point that we all should look before
    we criticize things in today's environment.
    -Bruce-

    
    Can't someone set up a copy tree.  Eg; Every time you get a new copy 
    push it out to a single node in each area.   Then, all the local 
    copies will only use LAN bandwidth which is not a telecom charge.
    The files are small, about 64Kbytes.
    
    It should be easy to identify a node in each area that will let you
    write the files.  You could even come up with a little command file
    scheme that will run on these nodes and push the files from
    there.  That way only 60 copies of the file (maximum) go across
    any wide area links.   VNS does some similar trick when they mail the
    news out in the morning.
    
    If all DEC products like copy and mail had the concept of a
    distribution list they could move the same message/file through the 
    net at the lowest BANDWIDTH cost.  Can you imagine how much bandwidth 
    that would save when the send out those TRAINING notes about the latest
    YOGA classes.
    
    Jon
    
    

All this about files that are ~128 disk blocks?????????

Single distribution points won't work because our network is a microcosm of
the entire company...everyone does what they want, even if ten other people
on the same floor are doing exactly the same thing. Any cooperation between
individuals or organizations seems to be entirely coincidental.

BTW, the satellite images, mentioned few replies back, available from
Usenet (biz.pagesat.weather) are of much lower quality than those located
at vmd.cso.uiuc.edu.

Regards,

Perry

 >VNS does some similar trick when they mail the
 >   news out in the morning.


  No real trick.   Assume you want to send a message to NODE1::USER,
  NODE2::USER, NODE3::USER, NODE4::USER.    Rather than just putting
  those names in the .DIS list, which would result in four copies
  leaving your node, you instead use

	NM%NODE1::USER
	NM%NODE1::NM%NODE2::USER
	NM%NODE3::USER
	NM%NODE3::NM%NODE4::USER

  which is two copies.  For this to make sense you have to manually
  determine that it's a good idea to use NODE1 to route traffic
  to NODE2, etc.. that is, the topology considerations aren't automatic.

  (Also, although nothing enforces this, it's polite to check
   with the management of node NODE1 that this is ok to do).

  Note the use of NM% to give a level of buffering at the intermediate
  nodes.

    For the record, the "real" cost of a 3-minute call to Providence, from
    most US DTN sites, is on the order of 27 cents.
    
    Area hoppers and area file servers are a useful way to reduce the cost
    of a bulk network service.  A generalized rule around Digital is that
    our cost allocation schemes tend cause wasteful behavior.  We don't
    charge explicitly for Easynet usage, but usually do charge back
    computer hardware.  So a small regional file server/mail hopper
    machine may save serious network bucks, but it's hard to find somebody
    willing to pony up.
    
    The Usenet feed got hit by a whopping heavy load when weather maps
    showed up one day.  Megabytes and megabytes.  Individual files may not
    be small but there seem to be an awful lot of them.  I don't have a
    solution in mind but I recognize the problem.

    I agree with an earlier reply that "the company" has the responsibility
    to see that its employees make "proper use" of its computer systems and
    networks.
    
    The policy (6.54) assigns this responsibility to managers, employees,
    system managers, and conference moderators.
    
    The policy doesn't mention, much less, empower other anonymous (and
    still unidentified) people to secretly gather personal usage data of
    employees using the computer systems and networks of Digital and then
    apply their own secret definition of "proper use", which one could
    conclude from the leaks we've read here, excludes weather maps.
    
    This is another one of those incidents which when it is ultimately
    reported upon in the trade press makes Digital appear to be very petty
    and very foolish and focused on trivialities, or in this case hostile
    to employee privacy, as opposed to focused on the customer.

    this whole episode is so absurdly ridiculous as to be laughable. if it
    were not so serious. it begs the question of whether or not digital
    will ever grow up.

    
    The following topic has been contributed by a member of our community
    who wishes to remain anonymous.  If you wish to contact the author by
    mail, please send your message to HUMANE::MODERATOR, specifying the
    conference name and note number. Your message will be forwarded with
    your name attached  unless you request otherwise.
    

        
    re the earlier comment about trickle down, a lot of us in CXO did this,
    somebody pulled the files from the internet, somebody pulled these
    files to a machine 100 yards from me, and most people looked at the
    local copy.
    
    All this hubbab around weather maps does is confirm two things to me,
    
    1) some people still have more time than work, if they can conduct
       witchhunts and write memos,
    2) our networking products date back to the 1970s
    
    
    

    
    Are these weather maps better than the ones I can get from 
    Compuserve?  If so, perhaps I'll switch to Portal or Delphi,
    then I could get them on my own dime.
    

Our network infrastructure dates from the 1970s.

The network manager for LKG was telling the cost of various circuits from
LKG to various sites (with differing speeds).  If there was a logic to the
prices charged, it was beyond us.

A couple of years back I proposed setting a FDDI-based MAN for the sites
in the greater Littleton area (about 8 or 9).  For the rates we got back
from DLN, we could have paid laying our own fiber in under a year.

As much as I hate to disagree with Fred, whatever CT bases its rates on,
it surely ain't reality.

re: .50

MAN ?
DLN?
CT?

How about a translation for the acronym-impaired?

	MAN - Maynard Area Network?? :-) (ok, how about Medium?)
	DLN - Digital Lightwave Network
	CT - Corp. Telecom

							mike

    RE: .50 At least 10 years ago I heard a plan presented to connect
    much of the 3M area with fiber optic cable. Supposedly there was
    a pilot connecting PKO and the Mill all set to go. Funding was in
    the approval stage. I never heard anything about it again.

    		Alfred

    I don't have the details but PKO, MLO, OGO and MSO are all tied
    together with fiber. I believe it is called a Metropolitan Area
    Network. There are 4 decnet areas and a few more hidden areas
    within this MAN. Not sure how many IP subnets there are. Marlboro
    will be tied in with this MAN in the near future. Fiber might be
    being installed at this time.
    
    Jim C.
    

    >	MAN - Maynard Area Network?? :-) (ok, how about Medium?)
    
    Metropolitan Area Network (although, "Medium" is actually
    a reasonable interpretation - less local than LAN, less wide
    than WAN).
    
    

RE: 2622.0 by PUDGE::HEMEON "The boat is looking better every day!"

> I have seen a memo that Corporate is monitoring the coping of the Weather 
> maps for system/network abuse. They plan to work this down to a costcenter 
> manager level. 

Does this mean that my cost center manager can ask me to get a current weather
map (for business purposes,  of course)?  (Yes?)

Does this request need to be in writing?  (I assume so?)

Who needs to sign this request?  CC manager,  VP?  Anyone else?

What sort of justification document needs to be presented?  Do I need to fill
out any other paperwork?

I'd like to know all this before the next big snow storm.  Or maybe it would be
easier to just say "It's not in my job description,  you figure out if you are
going to send people home early,  see note 2622 in the Digital note file as to
why I'm saying this."  Assuming the Digital note file is still open,  of 
course.

    
Phil

Re .41:

>Can you imagine how much bandwidth 
>    that would save when the send out those TRAINING notes about the latest
>    YOGA classes.

Rumor has it that most Yoga announcements in fact contain clandestine broadcasts
of encrypted messages piggybacked via the addressee list.  If you're a member of
a select group, you can obtain software which looks up the badge numbers of the
2nd, 4th, etc. employees in the list, computes the remainder mod 26, and prints
the resulting letter sequence.

The software knows which Yoga announcements contain encrypted messages by
looking for a key phrase in the body of the message.

Because badge numbers go past 300000, there's a lot of wasted bandwidth.  Rumor
has it they're going to encode weather maps in the quotients you get when
dividing by 26.
				/AHM

    I'm sure that she wouldn't like illicit weather-maps being encoded on
    her hubby's big project, the Information Highway...
    
    But seriously Alan, yours was by far the funniest note I've seen in
    ::DIGITAL for a long, long while...  THANKS for the laff!!! :-) :-) :-) :-)
    

    Okay, what does the network cost?
    
    For the benefit of Matt and others, here's a little more on what the
    network costs.  First off, I don't deny there's a slight mismatch
    between "cost" and "chargeback" -- I did a project last fall for CT
    (Corporate Telecommunications) Finance to come up with a "true cost"
    model for allocations.  I don't know if it has been implemented yet and
    I doubt it, because some field folks who know how to take advantage of
    the sytsem made a stink.  I hope to see this straightened out soon....
    
    We spent over $25M on the Digital Lightwave Network, and it is still
    growing.  The Mill closing and the MCI deal both require a little more
    outside construction.  This isn't cheap!  Then the electronics aren't
    cheap -- figure $50k for a T3 (44 Mbps, 28 * T1 which is 1.544 Mbps)
    optoelectric terminal, ballpark figure.  We have a lot of these, and
    sometimes upgrade them to faster, costlier ones when we run out of
    bandwidth.  We have some strands running over 400 Mbps now, while the
    fastest on the market is around 2.5 billion bits per second.  That's a
    lot of bandwidth, but the electronics costs serious bucks.  All of this
    capital gets depreciated onto the expense rolls which we have to charge
    back.
    
    On top of all this capital, we have a lot of operating expenses.  This
    includes equipment maintenance, engineering, operational support, pole
    rental (you think they don't charge serious bucks?), facilities, etc. 
    So the DLN costs a few megabucks a year to run.
    
    The chargeback for DLN is based on true-cost 100% allocation, to the
    best of my ability (and what I worked on was implemented).  Basically
    it's $550/month for a T1 within any of the four facility clusters
    (Marlboro, Maynard, Littleton-Acton, SNH) plus a per-mile rate for
    inter-cluster mileage.  This turns out to be very close to what New
    Engalnd Telephone now charges, which is based on true cost, but much
    much cheaper when you cross the LATA (in this case state) boundary and
    would need a long distance company.  BTW when we first built the
    network it was much much much cheaper than NET, but they eventually
    lowered their prices. 
    
    The cost of non-DLN channels is based on what AT&T (soon to be MCI)
    charges us.  This is indeed sort of complicated, because public network
    circuits are routed via "points of presence" and rates are sort of
    weird.  In any case they're expensive, and that's netting to 0.  There
    is a project afoot to reclaim bandwidth from under-utilized data
    circuits, to save money -- the bean counters in MSO have ordered the
    network spend to go down by 20% this FY, and that's basically
    impossible, so they want to see real pain.  We telecom folks don't
    agree but the battle is way above our heads.  
    
    CNS, who issued the original memo, owns LANs and some intra-region data
    circuits.  They are under serious pressure to reduce cost, and that
    means reduce demand, so they get a little paranoid about these things.
    It is unfortunate that we do not have a true-cost allocation scheme for
    Easynet; that would encourage making local copies of maps and
    discourage repetitive wide-area copies.  They may well have
    overreacted, but that doesn't mean that there was no cost involved. 
    Again I'll repeat my estimate:  A domestic wide area file copy costs
    about a buck a megabyte.

A megabyte is about the amount of data in a 3 minute phone call  (at
the standard digitized rate of 64kb/s uncompressed).   A buck for a
3 minute phone call sounds about right.

    re:.60
    Interestingly, the phone call vs. network analogy came up recently too.
    
    The cost of transferring a byte across a phone line is a small fraction
    of the cost of transferring a byte across a router network.  With our
    MCI deal, a Switched 56 kbps call between any two of their points of
    presence in the US will cost four pennies a minute.  Same as voice. 
    That's actually higher than the cost of using T1 circuits, but T1 is a
    big chunk and only pays off when you can get a decent occupancy level,
    so a real network is a mix of the two.
    
    There's a feeling amongst the computer researcher community, mostly the
    ones within walking distance of major universities :-), that one should
    packetize voice and video and hurl them across the Internet.  This is
    perceived as a way of Saving Money.  Thus there is a push for major
    DECspin deployment, which eats something like half a megabit per second
    for a desktop conference.  Dial-up (PictureTel or H.261) conference
    video usually runs in 112 kbps or so, which is eight cents per minute
    over MCI, all the way from Stanford to MIT.  (When you amortize in the
    cost of local access lines, the total is of course a bit higher.)  Half
    a megabit per second is a few dollars a minute over Easynet.  But it
    _seems_ cheaper, because we bill out Easynet usage at exactly
    $0.000000/megabyte, while telephone usage is easy to bill by the call.
    
    As a result of these misperceptions, people misuse resources.  They
    don't _want_ to do the wrong thing, but don't know what's right and
    what's wrong.  This applies to managers and contributors alike.  NOT
    knowing the cost of transferring data is a key piece of Internet
    culture, too.  It helped build demand.  Now we've got "critical mass",
    and somebody has to pay for it.

Re .58:

Thankew.  At least one member of this conference was an invaluable inspiration.
				/AHM

    >Thankew.  At least one member of this conference was an invaluable
    >inspiration
    
    thanks Andrew !
    
    \nasser

I'm very sympathetic to the issues of costs, both hidden and explicit.
The thing that bothers me about this issue, which was only briefly and
indirectly mentioned in an earlier reply, is the treatment of employee as
enemy. 

I consider my self a pretty good corporate citizen.  I try hard not to
misuse my disk space, network bandwidth, CPU cycles, telephone, or (much
more costly, regardless of how little I'm paid) my time.  I put in lots of
overtime, for which I'm not paid overtime wages, doing company business.
This trend has drastically increased in the last year, with fewer people
to do at least as much work.

If I had received a message from "the corporation" explaining that the way
people were getting the weather map onto their screens was eating up
valuable network bandwidth, disk space, and so on, and would all employees
please consider the cost to the company to upgrade networks and install
more disk storage because of things like this, then I would have instantly
responded with something like "hey, maybe I don't need a weather map so I
can contribute to the company by stopping the process".

Instead, I get a copy of a rather nasty, paranoia-inducing memo from which
I learn that almost anonymous people somewhere in the company are sneaking
around trying to find out who the "bad people" are who are "misuing"
resources and planning to have them disciplined appropriately.

THis is "employee as enemy".  Instead of asking members of the team to
pull together, the attitude is "let's find out who we can get in trouble". 

As long as this attitude is not *actively* discouraged by corporate
management, Digital is in a world of hurt.  Morale will go the way it has
gone in the steel, automotive, and other industries.  Labor/management
divisions will widen, and productivity will be measure by unions fighting
with managers.  And Microsoft will prosper, IBM will figure out how to fix
their problems, and we'll go down the tubes.

I want to be a trusted, active participant in the team of Digital
Equipment Corporation, not a target in somebody's vendetta.

Sigh...
   Jim

    Hear, hear!
    
    Although being clear on standards is a oft-cited hallmark of effective
    leadership, it is still possible to be clean and clear without being
    divisive or blameful.
    
    "Please" and "your good judgement is called for" can surround
    statements of principle.  Such wording might be fairly called
    "empowerment"!
    
    /rich
    

FWIW:  I don't know much about USENET but the "biz.pagesat.weather" newsgroup 
is being censored from access within Digital.  I am told it is not political
but I find this hard to believe in light of this topic.

I also tried accessing the educational facility that these maps reside to do
an anonymous ftp of the latest map (I'm interested in hurricane Emily) but
found that it is rejecting remote connects.

I watched as hurricane Andrew approached and hit Florida and Louisiana last
year -- I wanted to watch the same with Emily.  

Amazing that such (presumably) innoculous an act as displaying a weather map
on a workstation screen could have such widespread effect.  :-(

-Andy

>FWIW:  I don't know much about USENET but the "biz.pagesat.weather" newsgroup 
>is being censored from access within Digital.  I am told it is not political
>but I find this hard to believe in light of this topic.

I have heard that that one news group accounts for something like 60% of the
total USENET traffic. Seems reasonable to assume that's the reason it's blocked.

>I also tried accessing the educational facility that these maps reside to do
>an anonymous ftp of the latest map (I'm interested in hurricane Emily) but
>found that it is rejecting remote connects.

Maybe it's busy? Likely that a whole lot of people have all of a sudden decided
they need updated maps.

			Alfred

>Maybe it's busy? Likely that a whole lot of people have all of a sudden decided
>they need updated maps.

Seems that way.  I just tried again and was able to get thru for only the 
briefest of moments.  

-Andy

I wouldn't be surprised if the biz.pagesat material were removed from the
biz heirarchy. I saw many complaining messages about the maps especially,
since they take up a huge amount of bandwidth in what has traditionally
been a low-volume feed.

Univ of Ill does seem to be just really busy right now.

Perry

>Univ of Ill does seem to be just really busy right now.

I was able to ftp to the site but couldn't access the directory.  I sent
mail to the maintainer and he replied that about 900 others had done the
same.  He was unable to even access the disk to write new stuff to it, so 
he's taken it offline for a day or two to "let people calm down".

So if you're trying to get at 'em, give it up.

-Andy

RE .49
 >   Are these weather maps better than the ones I can get from 
 >   Compuserve?  If so, perhaps I'll switch to Portal or Delphi,
 >   then I could get them on my own dime.
    
	They are infinitely better than the maps available from CompuServe.

                  I N T E R O F F I C E   M E M O R A N D U M

                                        Date:     31-Aug-1993 07:19am CDT
                                        From:     Peter Brown
                                                  BROWN.PETER AT A1_CTHQ3@LKGMTS@TAY
                                        Dept:     Corporate Telecommunications
                                        Tel No:   DTN: 226-7350

TO: See Below

Subject: (A) Appropriate Use of Digital's Network Assets             

           *****************************************************
           PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY THROUGHOUT YOUR ORGANIZATION
           *****************************************************


Currently, Telecommunications is mounting an aggressive campaign called 
"NetWise" to help ensure that our employees understand what constitutes 
appropriate use of our Networks.

Equally important to understanding appropriate use, is a clear articulation 
of what constitutes misuse of these resources.  

Below are examples of abuses of our Data Networks (EASYnet):

    o  Copying non-business related files such as weather maps off
       the Internet for personal use.

    o  Copying of software for personal use.

    o  Sending a scanned document for personal use.

Similarly, the following are examples of abuses of the Digital Voice 
Network (DTN):

    o  Making excessive long-distance personal calls.

    o  Allowing family members or friends charge calls on Digital credit 
       cards.

All of these examples are in violation of Digital's Policy 6.54 entitled 
"Proper Use of Digital Computers, Systems and Networks."

As we strive to lower network usage and thus network costs, increased 
diligence will be required to ensure appropriate network usage.  If it is 
determined that people are violating the policy (6.54), appropriate 
disciplinary action will be taken.

PEB/clw



Distribution: (* removed for brevity *)

    .72
    
    What you can read into this is:
    
    	no more PC or MAC archives
    	no more non-work-related Notesfiles
    	et cetera
    
    What I read into this is that this is another demonstration of DEC's
    (yea, its DEC not Digital)-: commitment to NOT support their employee's
    in anyway.  
    
    If weather maps were a problem, all we would have to do is solve it
    with client server aspects.  Further, we could reduce the frequency of
    the uploads.  But, thinking about solutions is harder than "saying no".
    
    Sad.  But this is a classic state of DEC management.
    
    -Dana

    Tangentially related...
    
    I recently received a short (2-page) memo, with an 18,000 (that's
    EIGHTEEN THOUSAND) line distribution list attached.  I saved this
    gem to a file and checked its size... it's about as big as two
    weathermaps.
    
    Times 18,000 recipients, of course.
    
    I'll keep sucking weathermaps off the net, thank you very much!
    
    --jim
    

    ... and I always thought that memos with such huge distro lists were
    "DECurbanLegends"...  Thanks for the sighting verification.  Now of
    course (said he hopefully) such a distro list may be an artifact of an
    ALL-IN-1(tm) message that crossed the boundary into VMSmail, disclosing
    its list...  One hopes (said he in the same vein) that at least the
    ALL-IN-1 inbytenations of this message were smaller as they passed
    through the Corporate Digestive Tract.
    
    PS -- Well they weren't made of flesh, but of bits/bytes, hence use of
    "incarnation" would have been improper use of metaphor.
    
    PPS -- Enjoy those maps!  :-)
    

    I only use All-in-one for incoming mail, so I don't know too much about
    how it works, but... A couple of years ago, someone in Colorado decided
    to send a message to _all_ field personell in a huge area. The message
    did make it to everyone, but it couldn't be read. Something about the
    distribution list being so large that your screen would hang and bring
    the system to its knees when you did a 'read'.
    
    The system managers here put a message up on the login screen telling
    us how to delete it. Colorado re-sent it properly a day or two later.
    Personally, I prefer Vax mail, with NMail turned on.  :-)
    
    Harry
    

>  Personally, I prefer Vax mail, with NMail turned on.  :-)
  
Unfortunately,  I developed Nmail for personal use -- mine.
Therefore, it's illegal under the Misuse Of The Network rules,
1993, so I'm afraid you'll all have to delete your copies.





OK, so I'm being stupid in this note, but there's a serious 
point lurking here.  What exactly is "personal use", anyway?

    So you're the culprit, eh? To this day, I still don't understand why
    Digital doesn't *SELL* NMail. When I've told customers about it (as
    they sit impatiently waiting for Vax Mail to find _everyone_ on their
    distrbution list) they've said they would love to have it!
    
    I didn't even realize that we didn't sell it until I tried to show a
    customer how to do a "set transport NMail"... :-(
    
    Thanks for a great hack! Over the years, it has saved me from countless
    hours of staring at a blank screen with a blinking cursor while waiting
    for Vax Mail to do its thing!
    
    Harry
    

    Maybe "personal use" could be thought of as anything that does not
    contribute to the business.  Why is copying LOTUS123 a bad thing? 
    Probably because of the copyright laws and lawsuits that could be
    brought against Digital.  Why shouldn't you use the phone to call your
    Mom?  Because Digital is paying MCI for the long-distance call.
    
    If you could put a "business related" spin on these activities, then
    maybe they would not be considered a mis-use.  I'll just bet that if
    you are hosting a customer meeting at your site, a "weather map" demo
    would be more than justified.  How about a putting the demo machine in
    your site lobby?
    
    Mark

    Harry,
    
    You should have seen the "mail wars" that Digital went thru...
    
    Mark

Re: .78

$ VTX ASSETS_US



+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+  
|d|i|g|i|t|a|l|      U.S. Digital Solutions Library
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+      LIBRARY NEWS - October 27, 1993
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The U.S. Digital Solutions Library is pleased to annouce the availability of: 

        o ZAP 5.2 (LMF compliant)
        o DEC Disk Management Tool (DECdmt)
        o UTOX
        o PATHWORKS for DEC OSF/1 AXP
        o Polycenter Common Agent
        o ALL-IN-1 File Cabinet Report
        o ALL-IN-1 Resource Scheduling
>>>>>>>>o DECnmail (Nmail)<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
        o ALL-IN-1 SYSTIDY
        

Thanks!  I obviously knew that Nmail was in the pipeline for
ASSETS, but I was holding off saying so because I hadn't heard
anything to say it was now available.

(Shame about the name, no?)

Dave,

It's a shame about the name DECnmail?  Sounds like TOYSrus or BEAVISnbutthead.

Paul

P.S.  We once had a Digital person tell us not to mention the existance of Nmail
      to a customer.  (We were using it on a Digital-owned machine at a customer
      site.)  He said they'd never buy Message Router if they saw Nmail.        
      Correctly, this person no longer works for Digital.

    I was once told by someone who could well have known, that the reason
    Nmail wasn't sold externally, was that a) it would impact sales of the
    message router, and b) it would impact sales of ALL-IN-1. Apparently
    some people only bought ALL-IN-1 for the Nmail-like message routing.
    
    Good news, and Dave, congratulations, it's a great product.
    
    Laurie.

    re:.84 etc.
    
    We have NO cogent strategy for attacking the bulk of the electronic
    mail needs of a) our customers and b) ourselves internally.  We've
    always crippled products in order to promote other turkeys.  At least
    we've let Nmail out of the bag, which patches one gaping hole in
    VAXmail.
    
    I'd like to find a place to discuss this, but I'm not sure that mail
    strategy belongs in the Digital conference.  There are various mail
    product notesfiles but none about the topic per se.