Logging Support Calls with Vendors/Manufacturers

blueboy2001

blueboy2001

blueboy2001

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We have support agreements in place with vendors of our major infrastructure kit.

However, some of my colleagues are extremely reluctant to log support tickets with them, even in the event of a fairly significant problem. I'm not talking about opening a ticket every time you see an error message, but things that are actually not working as they should do and affecting users.

For example, a couple of weeks ago our storage appliance was performing slowly with very high CPU usage after we used the storage manufacturer tool to do a single file restore on a VM. This lead to over 24 hours of "investigation" by 2 colleagues using forums etc and despite me suggesting several times to get a call with the storage manufacturer they wouldn't do so. Excuses included "They'll say it's a VMWare problem", "They'll just ask for loads of reports and logs and won't be much help", and "It's probably a bug, they'll say we need to do a software upgrade".

I really don't get it. We've paid for support, but they see it as some sort of failure on their part to seek assistance from the supplier. I'm not suggesting dump it on the supplier and forget about it, but I don't see any harm in getting a call open and see what happens. If you fix it in the meantime, just close the call.

Is this just a problem in my organisation, or is this attitude common amongst techies?
 
blueboy2001 said:
We have support agreements in place with vendors of our major infrastructure kit.

However, some of my colleagues are extremely reluctant to log support tickets with them, even in the event of a fairly significant problem. I'm not talking about opening a ticket every time you see an error message, but things that are actually not working as they should do and affecting users.

For example, a couple of weeks ago our storage appliance was performing slowly with very high CPU usage after we used the storage manufacturer tool to do a single file restore on a VM. This lead to over 24 hours of "investigation" by 2 colleagues using forums etc and despite me suggesting several times to get a call with the storage manufacturer they wouldn't do so. Excuses included "They'll say it's a VMWare problem", "They'll just ask for loads of reports and logs and won't be much help", and "It's probably a bug, they'll say we need to do a software upgrade".

I really don't get it. We've paid for support, but they see it as some sort of failure on their part to seek assistance from the supplier. I'm not suggesting dump it on the supplier and forget about it, but I don't see any harm in getting a call open and see what happens. If you fix it in the meantime, just close the call.

Is this just a problem in my organisation, or is this attitude common amongst techies?
Click to expand...

It is a little odd but I think it's quite normal and its a challenge I guess. I'd imagine most IT guys will do it at some point. At the end of the day though the priority is to get it back to normal operation as quick as possible. If no support then fair enough but when it's paid for I'd personally use it and hopefully that's one less job that needs dealing with!
 
Depends on the vendor really, logging calls with some is like sticking needles in your eyes, it's so painful and you instantly regret it. Techies will always have a go at investigating/fixing it themselves before escalating it to the vendor.

I guess the trick is finding that balance between knowing how long to spend having a go yourself before you need to admit defeat and get it logged, and how critical to the business the faulting system is

On a side note, VMWare Enterprise support is second to none
 
When I raise a support call for our equipment I normally wish I hadn't. Sometimes I think they are just clutching at straws. Never the less I normally raise a call if need new code or have a hardware failure. I will normally use them in a last resort for an issue I can't solve.
 
I wouldn't spend over half an hour on a critical issue without logging a support call - after all, that's what you pay for. If you don't pay for it then clearly it's not a critical issue or causing an actual problem. If you hold the opinion that opening a support call with a vendor is a waste of time so you do it reluctantly then you need to change vendors.
 
I work more the apps side of things rather than infrastructure, and there are certain software suppliers we use who I will avoid logging a call with because they'll say "We don't support this configuration running on Windows 7 on a Thursday after 3pm, are you happy for us to close the call?" There is one particular support operative for a niche piece of software we use who I told my boss I'd rather resign than have to speak to him ever again! I suspect he may be blind because he always comes straight out with " I've never seen this issue before"

However if the system was down or unusable or I would normally get straight on to the supplier after checking the basics like the appropriate services were running and network was operating normally.

I had a strange exchange with Oracle a few weeks ago when I logged a call asking for advice on how to resize a virtual disk in one of their VM products. They didn't seem to be able to deal with an advice call and kept asking what the problem was. I wanted to know how to do something and all they could come up with was sending me the instructions for the wrong version of Solaris, then said it couldn't be done. I suggested another way of achieving what I wanted to do, and they came back and said "That should be fine". I know it "should" be fine, I wanted some assurance that it "would" be fine!
 
Unfortunately a lot of enterprise support experiences are roughly the same, and go as follows:

- Describe the issue in detail (this could take an hour or two, just getting all the info together so you have your best shot at getting this sorted out).
- Spend hours/days collecting all the information they request, including taking the system offline because it's the only way of collecting the information. If support are adamant that this has to be done, then schedule it for a weekend as that is the only time you can take the system offline. Days are passing, your weekend is taken up, and you are still no closer to getting the issue resolved.
- Provide the information, and then wait for days/weeks, sending the occasional email prodding them for a response (response being one or more of: we are working on it/trying to recreate in our lab/escalating with engineering/etc).
- Eventually (after days or weeks have passed) receive a link to a KB article that you already found yourself in the first 20 minutes you spent researching the problem, which doesn't actually solve the problem.
- ...?
- Repeat/give up in disgust/rant about how useless enterprise support can be/all the above

Sev 1 support is usually pretty good, i.e. your system is down and you need support to help you get it back up and running. For this they engage people who actually know what they're doing, and there are strict SLAs that they can be sued on. But when it isn't a live-service issue, it can be unbelievably frustrating, and that's probably why your mates are discouraged from getting support involved.
 
Oh, and every time you have to do something to a system (as requested by support), you have to go through change control, which can take days/weeks, and again, requires lots of paperwork, convincing people to sign off, etc. All very time-consuming, and not exactly the most rewarding aspect of anyone's job.
 
I love Microsoft support peronally, either

A) The problems is because the software is new
B) Is not 100% in a supported environment
C) Its 6pm and despite being in a 24/7 support contract and the call centre being 24/7, they will have to carry on tomorrow
D) when they carry on, its the guys day off that you have been dealing with so you have to start again!

they took 27, YES 27 days to fix an Exchange 2013 problem. The reason it took this long..... "EX2013 is a new product and us such is not guaranteed to work as expected" WTH really!

VMware and Cisco though are 100% and usually make you feel really silly that the solution was so simple. It just goes to show howmuch training some companies are willing to provide in order to put the punter first. it also explains why there stuff costs so much as well though lol
 
I'd admit that there were times with software support calls where I would dread placing them as I knew that we would have more problems due to placing the call than the original problem itself. Mainly issues with a certain massive three-initial IT company who managed to (a) lose our support contract (we are not exactly small) multiple times, (b) lose servers off the list of supported servers multiple times, (c) give **** poor advice which would (and did) make matters worse to an extent that junior members off staff were not allowed to raise calls as they didn't have the knowledge to override what they were being told if it was wrong. We also had several of their consultants escorted offsite and refunds obtained due to their dangerous lack of knowledge.

Hardware support wise ... well we have all our hardware support through one international company (I can't say who) due to cost basically, this has downsides including having to argue with an engineer that a model of server existed and that we weren't making it up (we had to email him the hardware manuals before he believed us despite the servers being contracted to be supported with them).

And of course the age old ... "You need to patch", "Will that fix the problem?", "Don't know, but until you do so we won't investigate further" ... even if the problem is completely unrelated to the patches available ...
 
yup, the "you muist be running the latest firmware / patch etc" one does my head in.

My fave was during the above mentioned Exchage mess where the Exchange CAS team were insisting we patched to a certain level but the Mailbox team said we must not do it yet.

Trying to get team A to talk to team B directly and not via the customer/supportee was impossible.
 
i have this same issues with dell when it comes to a failed server they just want you to keep trying things. even though the server does not post and ram and cpus had been tried in every slot. next day they did turn up and swap the mobo but was on the phone to them for 4 hours. i felt that was over kill
 
I won’t put up with that from HP. After giving them the initial details I just say "its under onsite warranty so sort it" provided the diagnostics show something they don’t have a leg to stand on.

The engineer turns up and sorts it within a few minutes normally. Their view on the support teams are usually less than complimentary.

We tried once with HP to say there was something wrong with one drive bay on our brand new G8 server but they wouldn’t have it despite 5 failed drives in the same bay in a month! After explaining that if there was a problem with the HDD firmware then why do they keep sending me drives with the incorrect version and how come no other bays fail the engineer finally came out and said and I quote “ah it’s a Jan 13 model – the backplane is faulty on all of them”
Magic isn’t it!
 
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