My trip to Amazonia
by Caue Wailemann
Couple months ago I was involved in an interesting project, installation of a couple “core” switches (6500), 20 (maybe 30, really don´t remember the exact number right now) “access” switches (2950) and two routers 3845!
Wow! Nice! Just the network I always dreamed about to have in home as a lab! Lol! I wish! Anyway, the project itself was really good, nice hardware, and I was free to work directly with customer in order to develop the solution!
So far so good… the only “catch” I was told couple days after was… The installation would be in the middle of Amazonian forest (in a city called Urucu)! Check this picture:
There´s nothing (and you can see when I tell you that) between the Airport and Customer Site! Cell phone?! It doesn´t work! Internet Access?! Only 30 minutes access in the airport EVERY thursday when customer goes there to get supplies, so, I had everything I needed right?! Lol! By the way, I´ve found a couple pictures in Google Maps, so I think if they´re there already, it´s no problem for me to have those here:
The Airport:
Customer Site:
One other little thing I was told… No internet access for third party employees (like me) and only one phone line to every 30 people! Can you imagine what that means?! NO EMAIL CHECKING, NO ACCESS TO CISCO WEBSITE, NO CALLS TO HOME! Oh my God!
Really, I got very upset that time… but got better few hours later… It was a nice opportunity to prepare every single detail of this “trip”, including configurations, download all IOSs needed, configuration guides, to get ready to every little detail I could face!
Also, before the actual installation, worked with customer to understand his actual network, it´s needs, his expectations, and how he wanted the project to be implemented, and of course, the world famous, maintenance window! I think you can pretty much figure this one out (at night waaaaaay after business hours, like 01:00am local time). :)
I was preparing a “war” plan… I have no best name to call it than that! Really… I tried to anticipate any problems I could face (wrong IOSs, config guides), I´ve downloaded a couple gigabytes from Cisco Website for sure to make it happen without internet access, you know, no matter how much you plan, how careful you are, things CAN (and will) go wrong eventually!
The day has come, to get there you need to go to Manaus, wait for customer airplane, and fly another 400km to the city (by the way, I wasn´t allowed to take pictures, neither to mention the customer name, but it´s an oil company).
Once there, I got a bit happier, everyone was very nice with me, bedrooms were incredible new, big and nice, and food (that I was a bit worried) was good too!
First week, only reviewed all the plans, visited the places that the installation was going to happen, and of course, just that time I was told that we´re supposed to replace some old baystack switch in a critical place, just next to that tower in the picture with the flame in top of it, on the left side! According to them, 05 min without network access for their servers and everything in a 300km distance would just disappear due to some kind of explosion)! Wow! Just the motivation I needed that time! Let´s save those Baystacks switch for last! Maybe he forget about that and I can go back home without even touching it, but… in the end, I´ve replaced those!
Second week we started the physical installations, every equipment inside it´s rack, powered, and available for my last configurations! On Thursday that week I was able to go back to the airport with customer, and had my first internet access! How nice it was, a tear dropped from my eye! Probably a 1000 emails to check, and 30min to do that! Time flies when you´re “playing”, and just like a child in a park, when they´re telling me to go, I cried and asked for a few more minutes! Denied! My theater classes didn´t helped me that time!
At the third to sixth week the implementations took place, using the plan already created, we followed it step-by-step, and had no issues (not a single one, thanks God) specially in that Baystack place!
Every single switch was installed, replacing the old ones (a mix of Nortel Baystacks and 3Com switches), and the old Cisco Routers by the new 3845 with connections to their head offices in two different strategic places, one using OSPF and the second one through our friend BGP, but that part of the configuration was pretty much ready for me, because they didn´t wanted to change what they´ve configured in the old routers, it was working just fine so far, so why touch that… I couldn´t agree more, for sure, I´ve spent a few hours reviewing their routing configuration, but found nothing that could be improved, it looked very nice to me!
After all the implementations, we finally got “alive” (worth to mention) to the last week to pass every single detail of the implementation, and how to operate the equipment to their staff! I had a great moment doing that, very nice guys, and they had a solid knowledge about Cisco networks, that helped me a lot!
Anyway, the day to come back home arrived, I was so happy to meet my wife again, my pets, and internet access! Took my flight leaving everything working at this site!
It took a week more than we expected, but that was due to time restrictions to perform the actual migrations!
That was it! It was very nice, but, next time I would prefer to stick in projects near to my home! Lol!
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