| > Somewhere, someone didn't slow this project down to do due diligence In it a nutshell. If anything, there should have been multiple flags raised. 1) A ball park figure should have been estimated on what this should cost, broken down by equipment type. 2) That should have made it clear that switches would be fine for multiple use cases, and the overall estimate should have dropped. * 3) Back and forth with provider as haggling over components proceeds. Massive attention to detail would be shown here. 4) First quote received from Cisco. Due diligence proceeds, issues raised. Customers says NO, just to buy negotiation room. (fine they have a grant, maybe not so aggressive) 5) Updated quote, go back to 4 if issues. 6) Quote acceptance. Now monitoriing of execution. There should have been many opportunities for flags to have been raised, even before the quote was received. And most definitely after it would have crossed the ball park figure. * It looks like the clause for redundant power was what tripped it up. Someone said we need X, and then somehow it became the TRUTH for all routers/switches. So its entirely possible (if not likely) that Cisco said "based on your constraints, these are the only components which match your requirements", and the Government bought it. Which is face-palm/head-desk territory. |