A SOFTWARE CONSULTING SERVICE FOR NETWORK USERS

As actual or attempted Network use has grown, it has become

increasingly apparent that users with real problems to solve are not

afforded the kinds of software assistance and consulting services

normally provided by computer service facilities. Two mechanisms which

were designed to help fill the void in the past are the Resources

Notebook and the designation of Techincal Liaisons. Unfortunately, the

Resources Notebook tends to have a long undate cycle, and Technical

Liaisons are frequently systems programmers who may work at odd hours

and are sometimes impatient with the questions of naive users.

In an attempt to deal with this problem in a more satisfactory way,

BBN recently aided a "software consultant", Nancy Neigus, to the

Networtk Control Center staff. Nancy has extensive software experience

on a number of systems, and has spent the last few months familiarizing

with server systems and subsystems via the network.

This consulting service is experimental in nature, and as such its

limits, even its continued existance, will be influenced by the

expressed needs of the user community. Altough the primary goal is for

Nancy to provide assistan ce in using existing resources, we do not

(currently) exclude the possibility of her participation in such

projects as the checkout of protocol implementations and resolution of

any discovered conflicts. In some cases, it may turn out that successful

network operation of a subsystem requires changes to Host software; we

will attempt to act as a repository and dispatch point of reported

difficulties of its kind.

Nancy can be contacted via the Network Control Center

telephone:

(617) 611-0100

Collect calls will be accepted. She will normally be available between

9am and 5pm (Eastern Time) weekdays, but the NCC has round-the-clock

operator coverage and the operators will take messages for her at

other times. Online messages may also be left at the NIC for "NJN",

or, for TIP users, vis the "Gripe" service (see TIP news).

Please inform users at your site of the this software

consulting service, and encourage them to try it.

[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ] [ into the online RFC archives by Chakravarthy Paila 4/97]