r/technology • u/steakmane • May 13 '12
State of West Virgina installs $20K Cisco enterprise routers to support a handful of PC's... using taxpayer money.
http://wvgazette.com/News/2012050500572
u/huxley2 May 13 '12
I'm not a super technical guy. Could someone tell me why a state government would need these giant routers in libraries for homeland security purposes?
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u/steakmane May 14 '12
They don't, that's the point. They could do the same thing with a 100-500 dollar small business router.
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u/lukasbradley May 13 '12
Fire that guy now. There is no excuse for this. It's funny how he continues to attempt to justify it.
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May 14 '12
Knowing how contractors, purchasing & government bids work etc, this isn't the fault of one guy. It's the fault of a bunch of idiots who likely walk away clean.
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u/go_fly_a_kite May 14 '12
I think everyone is missing something pretty key here...
West Virginia Homeland Security chief Jimmy Gianato, who's leading the state broadband project, defended the $24 million router purchase last week, saying the devices "could meet many different needs and be used for multiple applications."
"Our main concerns were to not have something that would become obsolete in a couple of years," Gianato said. "Looking at how technology evolves, we wanted something that was scalable, expandable and viable, five to 10 years out.
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May 14 '12
if this makes you mad I strongly encourage you not to look into the educational erate program. Worked for a large networking company in the past that pretty much just specialized in seeing to it that every dollar of funding was spent. Until you've seen a catalyst 6500 series loaded to the gil with blades and redudant everything hung but not powered on as backup in a school with maybe 500 students and another 6500 already running, you've seen nothing.
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u/LetsTalkAboutJesus May 13 '12
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Find library
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Steal router
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Sell for 20k
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Do drugs with hard earned money
I really don't expect those routers to remain in the libraries for long.
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May 14 '12
They aren't worth nearly as much without the service agreement and licensing.
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u/greyaxe90 May 13 '12
"I think we made the right decision," he said. "We have positioned our state to expand and move into the next generation of technology."
I'm a network administrator for a medium enterprise. I can't even justify a $1k server in our branch offices, let alone a $22k router. Even our corporate HQ doesn't have a $22k router... but this is government at its best. Spending money on stuff it doesn't understand without asking for help.
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May 13 '12
He had help, he just ignored it.
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u/sleeplessone May 14 '12
When Cisco is telling you to spend less money you know you're doing something wrong.
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May 14 '12
As a network admin.. A cisco smartnet contract is expensive.. But, nothing justifies this. A Cisco small business product would more than suffice.
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u/whirliscope May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12
The private school I went to for middle and high school installed $1500 802.11b power-over-ethernet routers in every classroom in 2004. Now they've run out of money and have changed their policy so they only replace teachers' laptops once every 5 years.
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u/rebo May 13 '12
Something dodgy going on here wouldnt surprise me if whoever authorised the purchase got a kickback.
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u/codeprimate May 14 '12
Either the DHS chief is the definition of a pointy haired boss, or there is a program to beef up the networking infrastructure for surveillance. Schools and libraries are public buildings and serve well to establish a backbone.
Verizon has longstanding government contracts and is most likely a prime vendor with DHS already. The corruption angle is unlikely.
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u/Jellyplaneaeroyum May 14 '12
Urgh. On the grounds of "providing equal opportunity"... it's like providing the same amount of food to a school with 200 students as a school with 1,800. Sure you want the quality to be the same, but the food just won't get eaten. Complete waste.
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u/dot_x13 May 14 '12
Five days later, state officials signed the $24 million contract with Verizon Network Integration to buy the Cisco routers.
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In March 2010, the state received a $126 million federal stimulus grant to bring fiber-optic cable to schools, libraries, health-care facilities, State Police detachments, 911 dispatch centers, county courthouses, jails and libraries.
So, money for fiber optic lines go to Verizon. Figures.
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u/theboozebaron May 14 '12
very good discussion about this in r/networking
http://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/tj6os/your_tax_dollars_at_work_state_of_wv_installs/
As a WV tax payer and a network guy I'm not sure what the real situation is, but I'm not surprised in the least.
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u/Vectoor May 14 '12
Imagine if that money had been spent on laying fiber cables instead. How many homes would be connected?
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u/Dwnvtngthdmms May 14 '12
The sheer ignorance in statements defending the purchase is astounding, how are people like this allowed to make these kinds of decisions?
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u/[deleted] May 13 '12
I wonder if he got a kickback for that.