I worked for a VAR that provided vendor support.  I can agree that you
can pull a tech that does have issues and not knowing what they are
doing on occasion.  The good thing about vendor techs, at least the
good ones, they learn from other clients problems, so you get their
experience of working on many strange things, so your problem is not
as 'strange' as it might be otherwise.

Roll you own hardware?  Yep, that is great too.  You can have a deep
understanding of it and what is going on.  Sometimes the learning curve
can be steep there too (but at least you have a step up on being able to
understand it and how to fix it).

When I worked for an ISP, we purchased nice equipment under service, and
leased that to the customers.  We also built our own infrastructure
equipment
from white boxes (generic components), and saved a bundle, where it made
sense.  We did have the expertise to re-build it at a moments notice out of
whatever we could find at the local computer store or PriceWatch.com (or
other places).  So we saved lots of bucks, but we put in the effort to build
it
well the first time so we didn't have to do it again.

Some places (like where I am now), keep just about everything under vendor
maintenance, and rolling our own hardware would be considered a sin.
Why?  There is not a deep enough technical expertise on staff to support
something if someone who knows it quits, or gets hit by the proverbial
truck.

Which makes sense?  Like always, it depends on your and your companies
particular circumstance.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Patrick Boutilier [SMTP:boutilpj AT STAFF.EDNET.NS DOT CA]
> Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 5:17 AM
> To:   ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject:      Re: AW: Will Hard Drives Edge Out Tape Drives?
>
> Salak Juraj wrote:
>
> ...snip...
>
> > - support: while an in-house solution can work for years, it can fail as
> > well - can you cope with it?
> >
>
> I am more comfortable supporting something I built myself than relying
> on technical support form a vendor. For example, 4 or 5 years ago a
> technician came in to add a board (processor or RAM I think) to our J40.
> After that the machine's NIC no longer worked. After numerous phones
> calls to support and almost 36 hours later the problem was finally
> resolved. Turns out the NIC defaulted back to the BNC connector instead
> of the 10-BaseT connector.
>
> Vendor support isn't all it is cracked up to be. I have other examples
> as well.
>
> >
> > Just my thoughts
> >
> > Juraj