Veritas-bu

[Veritas-bu] Symantec ?!Support?!

2007-01-04 12:03:18
Subject: [Veritas-bu] Symantec ?!Support?!
From: Patrick.Whelan at colt.net (Whelan, Patrick)
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 17:03:18 -0000
Just my ?.02 worth. Unless it is absolutely critical, in which case I will ask 
to be transferred immediately, I send an email from their web site. This does 
many things:

1)       They get my email address right (unless I type it wrong) :-(

2)       They send an automated response that they received your email.

3)       When the engineer responds, you will have his email address.

4)       With an email you can explain technical aspects that the first line 
support wouldn't understand.

5)       You have a "written" record of when you first contacted them and all 
the subsequent contacts.

 

There are probably more good reasons, but that's just off the top of my head. 
:-)

 

Regards,

 

Patrick Whelan 
NetBackup Specialist 
Architect & Engineering 
+44 20 7863 5243 

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most! - Unknown 

There are only 10 kinds of people on earth - those who understand binary 
and those who don't. 

... Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte 
-- Martin Niem?ller 

-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-bounces at mailman.eng.auburn.edu [mailto:veritas-bu-bounces 
at mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of Sixbury, Dan
Sent: 04 January 2007 16:44
To: Martin, Jonathan (Contractor); NetBackup List
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Symantec ?!Support?!

 

I have dealt with numerous vendors and support.  Like all vendors, who you get 
on the other line makes a huge difference as to the type of support you 
receive.  i.e. I actually have received better Red Hat Linux support from HP 
versus directly from Red Hat.  But in that same example I have had both good 
and bad experiences.  Different people have different levels of experience and 
therefore you will receive different support depening on the level of expertise 
you have helping you.

 

So far as support from Symantec / NetBackup, I have had some average support 
and I have had top of the line, really good support. 

 

In regards to having to wait for a call back, it really depends on the 
criticality of your case and the work load of the support engineers.  I have to 
admit that I prefer support setup such that if you have an issue that you can 
get transferred to someone immediately, and that is an option (I believe?) with 
NetBackup if you have severity level 1 issue.  Most of the issues that I have 
that require calling support have a call back within 2 hours and that has been 
acceptable.

 

So far as value for using Symantec (Veritas) for support, it also depends on 
your environment.  I just checked my configuration and we have over 853 clients 
of which 762 are Unique clients that are getting backed up on a regular basis.  
I would never want to support this environment if I didn't have someone like 
Symantec to back me up when I ran into issues.  

 

So far as the email and phone numbers, I have typically gotten verification 
from the support person on the number and email address that is on file to 
verify that it is correct.  Not sure if they don't always verify this, but I 
have typically received verification.

 

Dan

 

 

________________________________

From: veritas-bu-bounces at mailman.eng.auburn.edu [mailto:veritas-bu-bounces 
at mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of Martin, Jonathan (Contractor)
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 10:12 AM
To: NetBackup List
Subject: [Veritas-bu] Symantec ?!Support?!

 

A while back there was a thread going about how good/bad Symantec support is.  
I recently submitted and closed my first case (after solving the issue myself) 
and replied the following to their "Technical Support Feedback" survey.  We 
didn't have Netbackup support here for many years, and only bought it to 
upgrade to 6.0.  Considering my initial experience I can only hope it gets 
better (although that so far looks unlikely) or I've got a feeling we won't be 
bothering with support in the future.

 

4. You have indicated dissatisfaction with one or more of the case handling 
aspects. Please use the comment field below to provide specific examples. 

 

Where do I start?


1 - When I call I want to talk to a competent technician right away.  Not wait 
8 hours for someone to get back to me.  What's the point of paying for 24x7 
support if I'm not going to talk to someone right away?  Does my "8 hour" wait 
continue for 8 hours - 24 hours a day versus a 5x9 contract where I only "burn" 
9 waiting hours a day?

2 - When I ask to be called back after hours at a specific number I want to be 
called on that number, not my desk because I don't work at 10:00PM.

3 - How many times do I have to tell the phone screener that my company's email 
address standard is not first initial, last name?!  It took me 2 days and 
several calls to get it strait that my email address was jmarti05 at 
intersil.com <mailto:jmarti05 at intersil.com>  NOT jmartin05 at intersil.com 
<mailto:jmartin05 at intersil.com> .  I just put in another case and the same 
mistake was made!

4 - We spent 2 days going back and forth via email to work on COMMON ISSUES 
that had NOTHING TO DO with my problem.  Even after I had solved my own 
problem, I continued sending the support guy log files and command line outputs 
just to see where it would go and HE NEVER RESOLVED IT.

Overall my first Symantec Support went poorly, and my second isn't going much 
better.

 

Jonathan Martin

Systems & Security Operations

Intersil Corporation

Office (321) 724-7314

Cell: (305) 989-0510

 

 



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