Further to the training questions

Neil,

Perhaps I am better placed to answer this one than Stephen is.  He is our
EMEA hostmaster, but I am heavily involved in the setup of new countries for
UUNET, therefore understand the structure and requirements for staff from
day one.

Let me set the scene....

We have a central installs team in Amsterdam.  They are responsible for the
local installs teams in each country we roll out.

It is the install engineers that perform the hostmaster function of working
the 141's and checking and vetting that customer applications are valid,
correctly formatted, logical, and make correct use of technology.

When we set up a new registry, as we start up a new country, the install
team in Amsterdam will perform the hostmaster function for the new country
in the early stages.  They are backed up by Stephen (EMEA Hostmaster) at all
times.

The typical level of qualification of the install engineers in Amsterdam is:

Good technology background.
ICRC/ACRC Cisco trained.
Hands on experience.
Have attended the RIPE LIR course.
Good internet knowledge.
Good technology knowledge to know when customers are using IP space
inefficiently.

As staff are brought on board in each new country/registry, they will go
through all these courses to make sure that they understand what they are
doing.  They will also spend an extended period with the install team in
Amsterdam making sure they have sufficient experience and skills to do their
job well.

Once there are staff on the ground in a country that have been trained, they
are still required to pass all 141's thru the team in Amsterdam and the EMEA
hostmaster, until such time as the team in Amsterdam and the EMEA hostmaster
feel that the country can stand on it's own.

Only then are they allowed to pass requests direct to the RIPE NCC and even
then, all large/unusual requests are handled by the EMEA hostmaster
directly.

Incentives are difficult to quantify, as we do not have "hostmasters" per
say, more skilled engineers that incorporate the hostmaster function as part
of their job description.

All IE's are encouraged to have a keen interest in technology, and are
offered full access to UUNET internal and external training programmes,
covering many technological aspects as well as personal development
concepts.

All courses are 100 percent paid for by UUNET, and I am yet to hear of any
member of staff that has had a training request turned down.  Regular
updates of the courses that are available in the coming months are
circulated to *all* employees by e-mail.

Management encourages the engineers to expand on weaknesses in the skills
set, and promotes timely and fruitful training that helps the engineers keep
on top of the rapidly changing technology used in the ISP industry.

There are the usual incentives of pay etc. etc. plus where required the
option to travel to a country and spend time assisting the install staff in
that country with their peronsal and team development.

Hope that helps answer your request.

If you want to know anything more (within reason) just ask!!

Cheers
Dan.

--
Dan Lyon -- Project Manager EMEA Operations
UUNET,  330 The Science Park,  Milton Road, Cambridge,  CB4 0WQ
Voice : +44(0)1223 581008                 Fax: +44(0)1223 250373
e-mail : daniell at uk.uu.net  --  UUNET  - An MCI Worldcom Company  


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Neil J. McRae [mailto:neil at COLT.NET]
> Sent: 13 April 2000 11:11
> To: Stephen Burley
> Cc: lir-wg at ripe.net; Neil J. McRae
> Subject: Re: Further to the training questions 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 13 Apr 2000 08:55:00 +0000 
>  Stephen Burley <stephenb at uk.uu.net> wrote:
> 
> > 2. To relieve the stress on the wait que i would like to 
> see a standard
> > a min ssignment window applied to all none new LIR's, 
> something not too
> > small but something not too large say a /25 - this means that the 
> > hostmasters would not be boged down with small 
> insignificant requests
> > and would be able to concentrate on answering the larger 
> requests thus
> > getting used to larger business needs.
> 
> I would not like to see this, I think that it is vital that 
> there is no assignment window to new registries. Although I think
> that if new registries are being managed by exeprienced people
> who have demonstrated their understanding of the procedures
> then they should be given an assignment window. So if you left
> UUNET to setup stephenswarez.com and opened up an LIR
> you would not have to go through the zero assignment window
> issues again.
> 
> Stephen - as you have so many interesting ideas and questions 
> perhaps you could post what UUNET offer as incentives to their
> hostmaster people in terms of the questions that you posed in your
> mail, this could help educate the NCC into deploying courses that
> you, and I'm sure others, felt were appropriate. Perhaps you could
> vounteer to setup a training work group?
> 
> Regards,
> Neil.
> --
> Neil J. McRae                               C O L T  I N T E R N E T
> neil at COLT.NET  "In this world there's two kinds of people my friend: 
>                  Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig?"
> 
> 
>