[c-nsp] MTBF for Cisco products

[Jay Hennigan]

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> A warranty is what the manufacturer is telling you is how long we
> are going to GAMBLE that the thing will last.  This is a huge difference
> because the manufacturer knows that if they use crap parts, they
> are going to get all of the failures back, and they will pay for
> this, whereas they won't get any offsetting benefit for the devices
> that greatly exceed the warranty period.  (assuming a standard bell
> curve applies to device failures, which it generally does) 

Actually, hardware failures generally follow a "bathtub curve", almost 
an inverse bell curve.  There is a certain amount of infant mortality 
where substandard parts will fail immediately or shortly after 
installation, bad connections and other mechanical and assembly issues 
are discovered or fail in transit, etc.  Then relatively few failures 
for a long time, and then a gradual ramping up of failures as things 
wear out, capacitors dry up, etc.

--
Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay at impulse.net
Impulse Internet Service  -  http://www.impulse.net/
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