Looking For Better Linux Customer Support? 218
Deven Phillips, CISSP asks: "Recently, the company that I work for bought some VA Linux servers for our network and Web site. I was the one who recommended VA, due to the idea that they would give good technical support. When we purchased the servers, we were a bit dismayed by the fact that VA would not install Mandrake on our servers. Never to be daunted, we ordered the servers, and installed Mandrake ourselves. One of the servers (our file server to be) wouldn't load, wouldn't boot, and wouldn't even give us a good error indication. This is exactly why we chose VA, customer support. We returned the server and requested an immediate replacement. We were told 'No problem'. After the 7th day, still not being built. At two and a half weeks we got our server. The server came back to us missing parts, and still suffering from the same problem we were having before!"
"What ever happened to tech support? It used to be that companies would trip over themselves to make customers happy. Today it seems that unless you are spending 1 million plus dollars, they could give a crap less. When spending $12K plus on a single server, you would expect that the thing would work, huh? Are there any vendors who do provide good all around customer support these days?"
Re:Just goes to show.... (Score:1)
It appears that this type of approach by several GNU/Linux users is what creates a market where another OS *cough*cough*windows2k*cough* can thrive.
For an OS to be popular in the quantity many GNU/Linux users are looking for, the OS and USERS must be supportive and understanding to those who's abilities are not above average.
Re:How support is *supposed to be*.. (Score:1)
I bought an IBM Thinkpad 390X and an IBM Etherjet 10/100. I also ordered a 32meg ram upgraded for the Thinkpad 390X in addition to the base install of 64meg ram.
The delivery was 1 week late. The RAM upgrade did not come with the first shipment and eventually turned up a full month after the already late delivery. The Etherjet card did not work on delivery. The card was shipped back but the replacement didn't work either. At this point I've spent nearly $40 on long distance phone calls (no call centres in my city, and I'm only in the capital city of the whole damn country). They said it was my fault and that I was too incompetent to use the software (a preinstall of 98SE and the card won't work when I push it into the cardbus slot, how this is my fault I still can't fathom). They wanted me to pay shipping and the repair costs. I ranted and raved at this point. I got free shipping to an IBM service centre in a larger city who determined that the cards were OK so the laptop was broken. But they didn't have the authority to fix the laptop. They wanted somebody (either me or IBM) to agree to pay for the repair. Keep in mind this is a brand new laptop that hasn't worked since receiving it, but I'm getting messages that I'll have to pay for any repairs. Warranty? What's that?
At this point we're into the second month after delivery. I eventually get the hardware returned (after further ranting and raving). It takes 3 weeks for another service centre (yes, a different service centre, this one has the authority to fix IBM hardware under warranty) to agree that the laptop itself is broken. They shipped it to the USA where it floated about for a few weeks. I got the laptop back, with the card working, a full 3 months and 1 week after originally receiving it.
I got one emailed apology out of the whole ugly incident. Never any offers of free upgrades, or free support, or even some retribution for long distance phone calls and the 13 weeks of wasted time and unusable hardware. And to be honest and fair there were some delays that were entirely caused by me, but overall I was an extremely unimpressed person by the end of it.
VA Horror Story (Score:3)
Not wanting to wait any longer, I offered to drive to their office to pick it up once it was ready, as I lived nearby. When I arrived, it was sitting in a box at the receptionist's desk. No one even bothered to wait with it or to meet me and at least thank me for shelling out $4k for their hardware.
VA doesn't need to hire any more linux gurus, they need to hire some customer satisfaction experts. They'll never see another dime from me.
Why we had to dump VA Linux (Score:1)
I chose VA Linux as our vendor of choice because I felt they would be the best at providing both the hardware and the software support we needed. We're not exactly a tiny account, although we're not that large either. Maybe 100 to 150 boxes a year within my department and the potential for another 500 to 700 in other departments if the proper inroads could be made.
Well, the whole process of dealing with VA was one nightmare after another. We had missing orders. We had stuff showing up with incorrect parts installed or missing parts. We had a LOUSY salesman and when we asked for a different one, we were politely but firmly told to deal with him.
One thing that REALLY stuck in my craw was that we needed to put all of our equipment on to a 24/7 4hr support contract for all our deployed equipment. We wanted ONE contract that would include all of our servers and then we'd be able to add/remove as needed depending on their use. Cisco does this. Sun does this. Dell does this. Compaq does this. We asked for this last October. In April I even flew to California (from St. Louis) to sit with a VP of customer service and explain in detail exactly what I needed VA to provide. Well, we still don't have it and our machines will be leaving warranty in a couple months.
In June, I was again in California to meet with vendors regarding deployment of massively huge managed co-location facilities. I wanted to meet with VA for 2 hours to talk with them about what they could provide. Nobody could be made available. I can understand that since our trip was rather last minute, but even our sales guy never followed up after or offered to set up another meeting. Guess they didn't want the business.
In addition, the quality control has some issues. The FullON systems seem to be prone to PCI cards popping out during shipping, for example. This is, IMHO, an engineering defect. We've had several boxes we shipped out with ATM cards that we installed end up with the card loose at the destination. Trying to get a person with no computer knowledge to diagnose a loose card remotely is not pretty!
Finally, we just got tired of EVERY SINGLE ORDER getting screwed up in some way. Missing orders, wrong orders, delays, etc. We finally had to throw up our hands and go with another vendor (Compaq DL360s). We can't run a business otherwise.
I really like VA Linux. I think if they could get their act together they could take the Linux server market. But right now, they gotta get their shit in order. The days of apologizing and saying "Well...we're a growing company" are over. It's time to play with the big boys and offer service like the big boys.
VA did well by me (Score:1)
While everybody's beating up on VA (Score:1)
Re:Leaving out too much detail... (Score:1)
First of all win98 doesn't run on all hardware, There are many raid controllers that won't work at all with win98. Why are you expecting someone to shell out extra money to buy win98.
you are horribly uninformed and should check your facts before posting.
Re:Conspiracy and counter-conspiracy (Score:1)
I'll not even start in on your pathetic ploy at reverse-reverse-reverse-psychology that is a sad cry for a +1 funny moderation.
IBM's New Netfinities (Score:2)
IBM has transfered a lot of their mainframe tech over to the mid-range line, and these things are looking solid. The failover stuff is nice, and a lot of the little things they include for troubleshooting make support a lot easier.
I can't speak for the Linux boxes, but they did manage to make some WinNT boxes solid, so I'm sure the penquins will be alright as well.
Re:Read the post (Score:1)
People who can't articulate their problems basically put themselves last in line for tech support, that's just reality; so either way you read it, it's hard to have any sympathy for this momo.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Re:Good experiences with HP (Score:1)
HP seems committed to providing the same level of support for Linux on Intel as they have for HPUX on PA-RISC. They are even offering Linux-oriented training courses through their educational programs.
Of course, supply on some parts, like the Xeons, is variable and the delivery time for one of these servers is way slow. And don't even think of running Mandrake (or really any distribution other than Red Hat) on the big boxes. The hardware support just isn't there.
We also have a couple HP LPr's, which have been selling on Onsale for cheap.
For smaller stuff, we have a slew of Penguin Computing 1RU servers. We order whatever Penguin has in stock because the delivery time is everything.
We also are using the Penguin Computing dual-head workstations for development systems. I'm not thrilled with how the Matrox G400 stretches a single desktop across both monitors (my dialogs pop up in the crack in between) but who am I to complain. Penguin also does a very good with their preinstalled distribution on their workstations. Upgraded kernel, Xi Graphics X Server, etc., etc.
Customer Support (Score:1)
The idea is to place our customer service above the rest. Taking that extra step ensures they will come back and buy more.
Not surprised (Score:1)
Re:Penguin Computing (Score:1)
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It used the be the links.. now it's the article. (Score:2)
I've seen a lot of posts here about how he installed Mandrake instead or RedHat. If any of you that were so quick to point that out... Redhat wouldn't install on a machine that failed to POST either. The guy here (at least I thought) made it clear that it was a hardware problem.
No OS runs on a computer that will not power on.
Re:Tech Support is the purgatory of most companies (Score:1)
Unfortunately, this is only too true..
The people who enjoy it usually end up being really good, and still get paid squat. So they use those same skills to get elsewhere. What you have left is the "Hu-yuk! I can make good money here! This is much better than my McDonalds job!" folks, who have even less of a clue than a fair amount of the people who call up.
I enjoyed my tech support job. It was fun, occasionally challenging, and, once they calmed down, most of the customers were pretty cool. They even paid decently. But now I'm getting paid twice as much for being a developer, and I'm given much more respect and recognition.
Re:Sorry about the bold... (Score:1)
You know you da man... And we love our NAS, and yep, the original poster wasn't talking about the NAS, but I recommend it even if it is "BETA" and VA won't give us a CD until it's finished. :)
I love VA, and your tech support was top notch imho.
I mean for chrissakes, you ship with blackbox as the default wm, what more can I say.
Re:This seems a bit contrived... (Score:1)
Why has this been posted? (Score:1)
-8<--
My own VA story (Score:1)
Hard Drives: You must buy the machine with a Quantum Atlas SCA disk.
Now, we buy lots of Seagate SCA disks well in advance, so we wanted to use what we already own, not to mention that we've found Quantum drives to be very unreliable (they died too often). So, we just wanted machines with no disks. Not possible with VA.
Drive sleds: VA was very reluctant to send us empty disk rails for use in futute disks that we may add as needed. They wanted to sell a Quantum drive with it. They ultimately allowed this but they gave us a much bigger hassle over this than they should have. We should be allowed to buy whatever drive we want.
Anyway, we now buy our systems from AS Labs [aslab.com] which sport nicer cases (made by Intel) and none of the hassles (they ship with 4 bare drive chassis by default! What a concept!)
Wrong (Score:1)
Hardly, a distro problem.
troy
Re:VA Horror Story (Score:3)
Chris
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Re:Conspiracy and counter-conspiracy (Score:1)
Just goes to show that sarcasm doesn't always translate well into print.
Two different questions... (Score:1)
Hardware support: send it back, hope they make good on it. Sounds like they messed this one up.
Past that, VA Linux systems seem severely overpriced. I'm sure they use excellent components, put it together for you, and give you a working system. But I'd rather do it myself, and it sounds like you would too... so we're probably not their target audience.
I have a feeling they're marketing to clueless companies who want a "Linux Solution" and don't know the first thing about it. Therefore, they get a nice box, a stock configuration, and tech support, and they pay a healthy premium for it.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
somtimes ya loose, sometime sya win (Score:2)
Every company I've delt with has given me an equal share of great service right along with the crappy. It's just how things work. You can't please everyone all the time. But don't you wish they'd still try?
The real issue... (Score:1)
One question though, did the server boot with Red Hat installed?
Re:Well... (Score:1)
----
Uh huh (Score:1)
And actually, if this is a software problem, using RedHat probably wouldn't fix it. Booting is just lilo and the kernel, neither of which is distro-specific.
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IBM Rules for support (Score:1)
We evaluated 3 other vendors at that point.
Didn't see a single sales rep from any other vendor, even though we buy $150k+ of servers every year, and 300k+ of workstations.
Except IBM.
IBM showed up with a sales rep, and a support engineer to demo the units. Left 3 with us to test for 2 months!!!, and we called support whenever we needed. We didn't however, call any 1-800-go-away numbers...we had/have the phone and cell number of the support engineer for our area.
We decided on IBM.
the first order, they checked, found a couple of errors, and called with 3 questions on it.
They worked with our vendor (state contract) to get us the stuff in short order.
Now that we are buying from them, we have:
The telephone, fax, pager, email, cell phone, etc for both the sales rep, AND THE SUPPORT ENGINEER.
I haven't spoken to some generic so-and-so since we started buying from them.
I haven't ever had them complain about our distributions, or the things we are doing.
In fact, I've been overjoyed by thier support.
And the online pricing and server configuration stuff at thier website makes spec'ing servers for projects a breeze.
I strongly recommend you speak with them.
If anyone is particularly interested in speaking with our specific sales rep, drop me a line, and I'll send you her email and phone, etc.
I actually hit the wrong speed dial on Christmas Eve, and got the sales rep on her cell phone. She answered!!!!
Steven Walker
Network Systems Coordinator
Central Missouri State University
swalker@cmsu1.cmsu.edu
As usual, the opinions expressed are my own, and not necessarily those of my employer.
start with any working distro (Score:1)
Narrower aptitudes (Score:1)
I used to buy hardware and software for a major university's Computer Science Department. I learned eventually that vendors say "no" for a reason: competance. If the vendor isn't willing to sell you something, or if they're hesitant, it's probably a warning sign. Vendors are increasingly limited on what they're able to do well. This applies equally well to big and large vendors, hardware and software.
I tried asking Uncle Ed's garage-built computers to do SCSI systems. They couldn't tell fast wide from narrow from IDE. I tried getting major name-brand manufacturers to sell me a SCSI system that actually had SCSI components other than hard drives (CD-ROM, DVD, etc). Little success.
I learned this way to stick to what the vendors will readily do. As soon as you ask them to step out of their comfort zone, you're going to be on your own. You might as well save yourself the trouble.
Either find a vendor that lists something ready-made that fits your bill, or plan to do it yourself.
Re:Well... (Score:1)
You comment about hardware on the other hand is absolutely rediculous. It presumes that a measurement of the quality of some hardware is whether a bug free driver has been committed to the Linux kernel. By those standards most of the new hardware that is being developed is "shitty".
A lot of VA's hardware is optimized for the server environment. In many cases there is specific hardware out there which provides benefits beyond other alternatives. If such hardware is not well supported by the standard Linux kernel but it's in VA's interest to use it, they will develop the necessary code themselves (this is, btw, how open source works). Many distributions are not focused in this direction (Mandrake has publicly stated they are focused on workstations) and don't want to add changes which haven't been committed into the Linus' kernel, or which they have not had the time to validate themselves (as well they should). Such is life.
I'm not sure why it was deemed necessary to install Mandrake on the server, but I'll assume it was necessary. Part of determining that it's necessary should involve recognizing that the circumstances which did happen COULD happen, and accepting that risk. If you really want to have Mandrake on the system, go to Mandrake's site and they'll point you to hardware vendors which sell systems with Mandrake pre-installed.
If you'd installed NT on the system and it hadn't worked, who would you be blaming? Who should you be blaming?
VA Sux at everything but hardware (Score:1)
I work for a HUGE company that should have mattered to them as a potential future customer, and I ordered a measly quantity of four (4) fully loaded FullOn's (came to somewhere around $100K I think). The sales team SUCKED. The Support Guys SUCKED. We sent hardware back and forth with them for MONTHS until we finally got what we ordered (which was clearly laid out on the original PO, and which they did claim to sell as standard equipment).
I'm not using them again. It would have been less hassle to build the machines myself, drop RedHat in, and start working from there on the cluster s/ware.
Re:Well... (Score:1)
Working at HP as a contractor on the support side, their standard warranty was (is?) "Return to Bench", meaning you send the box back. Onsite support in 4 hrs, 24/365 for mission critical systems was about as much per year as the hardware itself in some instances. HP sells it as insurance, since the company looks at what four biz days of downtime costs (shut down assembly line, customers can't withdraw funds from the bank yadda yadda yadda.) And they make a very pretty penny doing it.
My current shop on the other hand, the VA box I mentioned earlier is not (yet) mission critical. It's a workgroup development web server, not one of our live to the world machines. So, I can understand when we're not sending money VA's way for an onsite tech, the turnaround is a business week.
That said, we let our displeasure be known with the account rep and, whoa, suddenly lots of VA swag shows up on my desk. Apologies around and what not. I do expect, though, if the box failed under production circumstances, that we could get someone out onsite in a matter of hours. At least, I hope.
That said, we're not going to shoot ourselves in the foot by running Mandrake over what VA set us up with. I'd imagine we'd get some puzzled looks and the instruction to restore the system to the original OS config and update as needed from that tree.
IndyBox Systems (Score:1)
Customer service is also a major problem at IndyBox Systems. My company ordered an $11K server from them in order to see whether they were a good supplier. When we placed the order, they gave us an initial ship date about three weeks hence.
When we were about to hit the end of that three week period, I called to see where we were in process. I was quite dismayed to find out that our box was not yet in manufacturing due to an unspecfied "parts shortage". I called about twice a week for the next two weeks and kept getting the sames excuse.
During this period, I never received a call from IndyBox to explain the situation. I always had to call them. Also, their customer service line seemed to be manned by only one person who wasn't there over half the time; I mostly left voice messages which were never returned. I did ask, a couple of times, to speak to the service manager, but I was told that he was in a different building and that he could not transfer my call
Anyway, about six weeks after we had placed the order, I was informed that our box was finally in production and that we could expect it in another 10 days. That deadline passed, and IndyBox never called to explain. When one of my techs called them, they used the parts shortage excuse once again
Finally, in another week, we found out that our box was ready but that the customer service person was delaying our shipment because my tech had been "rude" to him in our last phone call. I sent some FAX'es and emails about the situation, but never got a response.
The box arrived; it work's OK, even though I'm not greatly impressed by the build quality. The rackmount rails are a joke. And to add insult to injury, IndyBox shorted us on parts which they have yet to fulfil four months later
Suffice to say, I will never consider purchasing from them again
Re:Why doesn't anyone make their own? (Score:2)
I too want to see an in-house built server here at work. Unfortunately, I would never get the funding to set it up myself nor do I think that my department will even buy a stand alone server for what is needed (it will be a dual processor FreeBSD box).
However, since I am building a similar machine for a much harsher environment (my Jeep), it may have a prayer of happening.
I guess that was a long way of getting to the point that these guys would never go for a new server because they are just not familiar with how inexpensively they can be put together. Once the concept is proven on my own dime then, maybe, we will get approval for a dedicated, built in house, server for this database.
Anyway, I agree with you, the best way is to build it yourself.
Re:Let alone Tech Support, how about sales support (Score:1)
If you email me offline at landman@sgi.com, I might be able to make things happen.
Response from VA Support Manager (Score:5)
I looked into what happened with this ticket and, after having talked with this customer and gotten his ok to post about it, would like to share with you what happened, where we made mistakes and what we are doing to fix this.
As noted in the post, one of the machines that the customer recieved had some problems coming up. This was a problem with the raid subsystem that prevented boot up.
After a telephone conversation, Mr. Phillips sent the machine back to us to work on it.
We replaced a drive in this machine shipped it back, and the problem was still there. The machine shipped out working, all I can assume is that a shipper dropped the machine (hard) or something.
Once he recieved the machine and it still ahd the problem, we opted to build him a new machine. During burn in there was problem with the memory that necessitated the replacement of memory and retesting. This is park of the 2 week delay we talks of.
So while hardware failures during shipping happen, we made a clear mistake by not keeping the customer informed of the delays in burn in.
Then we shipped the machine back to him.
At this point we discovered that we forgot to add an extra nic that was part of his order.
Again, our bad, we screwed up. He took the nic from the original faulty server (he kept it while we worked up a new one for him) and put it in the machine, which worked fine.
At this point it was 30 days or so from when he received the first bad machine in his order or 4 machines.
We saw the /. post when it went up on slashdot, called the customer and talked with him regarding the screwups on our part and to make sure he that the machines were (now) working fine and that there wasn't anything new that we didn't know about. There wasn't. And he was very surprised it had gone up on slashdot :-)
So there you go, that's the whole story a mixture of human error and lack of notification on our part, burn in delays, and shipping issues combined to make a bad customer experience which we clearly regret.
All I can say is that the human error can be minimized to a great degree, shipper problems can be pretty out of our control (we do use sturdy shipping containers, but you wouldn't believe what we've seen happen in shipping) and communication is now in an improved state and be clear all of our techs know that keeping the customer continually informed is the right way to do things.
So there you go, if anyone has any questions, you can post them here, email me at jritter@valinux.com [mailto] or call at 408-542-5722.
As a side note, a lot of people have posted that the customer doesn't deserve support and got what was coming to him since he removed our software load. That's totally incorrect, VA still has a responsibility to ship good product and support said product. When someone replaces our load, we still try to support it, but it does make it harder and increases troubleshooting time. Note that hardware support doesn't go away becuase of mandrake being installed.
I want to assure people that while this was bad, it is the exception, while it seems weird to say this here and now, VA has a very good record of dealing with support issues. If you have any questions about how we do things here, please post them and I'll answer them here.
Jeff Ritter
Support Manager, VA Linux Systems
Re:VA Horror Story (Score:1)
We ordered 2 boxes, were given an ETA, and we waited and waited and waited. We would call, and they'd say, "Oh, those will ship tomorrow," and then we'd wait some more, and still no boxes. Finally, we called and canceled our order and went with Dell, who was more than happy to comply with our wishes, and has been easy to work with. We've ordered 4 or 5 servers from them.
Funny thing was, about a week after we canceled our VA order, the boxes finally arrived. We stamped return to sender on them, and away they went.
I'm glad to see that VA reps are reading this, and I hope you guys take a good look at customer service. I don't think these are issolated incidences.
Yahoo's Boxes (Score:1)
Would you happen to know who makes Yahoo's Boxes... You don't seem to mention them..
Thx
Re:VA Research err.. Linux (Score:1)
Gawd yes, buy a VA box (Score:1)
No, I don't work for them. Just my recommendation.
Kudos (Score:1)
Kudos to
--
"No se rinde el gallo rojo, sólo cuando ya está muerto."
We use Compaq (Score:1)
Re:VA Horror Story (Score:5)
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
I'm happy with my VA FullOn 2230 so far.. (Score:2)
Since it came configured as a server, I did have one minor software-related glitch. I use gnuplot to produce dynamic output for the webserver, and RH 6.2 configured as a server didn't have that installed. This problem took about 60 seconds to solve, since I had to go get a library from another machine to make it all work.
My employer, a Federal Agency, prefers Dell as a just-in-time supplier. I got a quote for an almost identically equipped Dell server, and it was $2400 more than the VA rack-mount box.
I use Linux-Mandrake 7.1 at home and on several of my workstations at work because I like the ease of setting up ReiserFS, but after hearing this story, I'm glad I left my machine configured as shipped.
Re:Why doesn't anyone make their own? (Score:2)
The reason for doing this -
In this case, tech support and blame shifting are not part of the equation at all. It's just a matter of effectively using finite time and getting the best system I can out in production. I did build my home system from components from a several different on-line vendors, though. :)
Of course, in all cases, I specified the parts to be used, and all of my requirements were met with the exception of ASLab and I disagreeing on which vendor's RAM should be used for the NetBSD box. They were nice enough to ship it with everything but the RAM, though, which I ordered from Mushkin and dropped in without issue.
Presumably because they think they'll get all the advantages I listed. Or the PHB's are calling the shots.Re:How support is *supposed to be*.. (Score:2)
I bought a handspring, and love it. Two months after getting it, I tried to put it into my shirt pocket while walking up some stairs. I missed the pocket, it fell, hit the stairs, bounced over the edge...
my heart stopped...
It fell three floors and landed flat on concrete. If it wasn't in it's padded case it would have flew apart into a thousand pieces. As it was, the screen and case were totally fractured.
Since I bought it on VISA I had a replacement warranty through that. But when I called up Handspring to get the info I needed for VISA, and explained that it was destroyed through my own stupid mistake, they said "Oh, don't bother, we will just send you a free replacement."
Wow.
It arrived three days later by FedEx, and had nice clear instructions and a FedEx shipping label to send the dead one back. All I had to do was HotSync and I was up and running.
Excellent! HandSpring Rules!
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Why doesn't anyone make their own? (Score:2)
I had to make 3 servers, and I just got online and searched around and got the parts. Made sure the SCSI controllers worked with FreeBSD (We are a FreeBSD shop). Looked around a few places, got some killer deals on good hardware and found a couple places that I could recommend to others.
I my whole point is that when you order and build the stuff yourself, you know what is in the server and know where it is in the computer (PCI Slot 1 and all that). You know the memory makers, and the harddrive makers. I have build whole computer labs where I speced out the whole thing and went to a shop and told them this is what I wanted. They put it together, but I opened them all up to verify what they did.
It seems that if my ass was on the line, I would not trust anyone to make an important server for me. I would make it, and if I was the boss, I personally hold the person who bought the machine on the same level as though they built it themselves. None of this, "But it is VA's fault!" crap. I would still demote or fire someone who bought a bad product or built a crappy server.
A Man's work is a reflection of himself.
Maybe its just me.
I had VA problems as well... (Score:2)
When I took the drives back to be repartitioned and reinstalled, they dropped and destroyed one of the drives. When I got the drives back, they had been configured for single-processor workstations with the wrong ethernet card. I had asked them several times not to install lilo to the MBR, but they did anyway.
I spent more time dealing with VA hassles than if I had built and installed the machines myself. I recommended VA because I wanted to support a 'pure' Linux company, but I got burned by it, big time. All the Linux nay-sayers around the division got a big kick watching me deal with all these hassles, and they used it as ammunition to shoot down my attempts to get Linux supported officially by the division.
I really don't understand how VA has become as successful as they are given their mediocre hardware, high prices, and lousy support.
-Mark
-----------------------------------------------
Mark B. Allan NASA Ames Research Center
QSS Group, Inc. Neuro-Engineering Lab
650 - 604 - 0461 (lab) Mail Stop 269-2
650 - 604 - 3594 (fax) Moffett Field, CA 94035
mallan@ptolemy--nospam--.arc.nasa.gov
http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/ic/ne.html
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VA's Service Has Gone WAY Downhill! (Score:3)
Recently, our RAID died after a power outage (overheated, I think). It's a production system, but it took them four days to get a replacement Mylex 1100 to us, only to replace our current card and find that it is actually the disk array. VA refused to send us a new one as a replacement - they told us to send ours back and they would fix it, but wouldn't guarantee data integrity (eg, if they erased it, tough).
I've been terribly disappointed with how much trouble it takes for us to get past level 1 tech support, especially since, up until about a year ago we provided VA with more than half of all their business.
We've tried other vendors (Aspen Systems for one), but they haven't been able to ship something without it getting damaged in transit (three times now!).
Certainly tempts me to open my own hardware business...
geoff@uslinux.net
http://uslinux.net
Not enough info. (Score:2)
The Bottom line is, no matter how good a company is, you'll always find an instance or two where they have a bad experience. I've used Dell for years and 9 out of 10 times I get the parts I want when I need them. But, last time, it wasn't nearly that easy. Maybe you just had one bad experience.
well... (Score:2)
However, to get good support for linux you need to not only run linux, but a _supported_distribution_ of linux. Much as people want all linuxes to be the same, they aren't. As you've discovered.
We looked at VA also, and probably would have gone with them if they hadn't required their own distribution of linux. We require stock redhat, and definitely don't want our vendor differentiating by using weird drivers that may or may not end up integrated into the _baseline_ kernel tree at a later date.
Some of the folks here have been having good luck with PSSC for hardware with linux support. I gather one of our clients just purchased a Coppermine machine from them that requires no funky drivers - which'll help keep our costs down when it's time to upgrade the machine.
Re:Response from VA Support Manager (Score:3)
Although it's great that something like this has garnered this much attention and inspired this much reaction from VA, I am left wondering how bad is the QC over at VA that a box is allowed to leave without parts. Especially more so considering the grief this customer has already been through.
Even though customer service and support have been spoken for, I would have some reservation about a company that does not contact a customer regarding a delay in processing and then does not do a second inspection of all parts before delivery. That's really to say nothing of the fact it took an "Ask Slashdot" story to get something done.
This is the relative equivalent of a call-4-action story on the six o'clock news about an auto mechanic that provides bad service. For Shame.
Experiences with different Linux vendors (Score:5)
This is how I would rate experiences with them:
- Linux Hardware Solutions: totally didn't have their act together, one guy was trying to sell them, build them and do tech support it seems. Good thing they got bought.
- Dell: Dell still has a long way to go learning to do Linux. Other than the Dell desktop background, they do very little to tweek the distro from what I have seen. They are trying to sell to a NT crowd, but mess up. For example, when you order a Dell with a tape drive, they don't have enough sense to include BRU or something, or even make sure there is a device in
/dev for it. New users are stumped by this. Granted, of them all, Dells are built the best. Rare to get a DOA Dell, and when you do, you can ship it back and get a new one fairly easily. Average time for a new system: one month.
- VALinux: Is the biggest of the linux only group. Their manuals are nicer and more refined, as are their servers. You will get DOA equipment from them like 1 times out of 10. They are pretty good at replacing, but this can vary. As can how long it takes to build them. I have gotten a VA in 1 day (they keep some in stock pre-fab) and I have had one take 2 months. Average is 1-2 weeks. Their SECOND tier tech support is pretty good. They also provide nifty things like the vacuum program to remote admin via serial. Better to stick with their distro unless you know what you are doing, and the poster CLEARLY has no clue if they are installing mandrake on a server. I always install Debian on them with no problem, except for RAID cards, which is getting better.
- Penguin is smaller than VA, and their systems/tech support are about the same. The advantage to them is they are 3 floors up from me, and the DOA system I got from them, I just hauled it upstairs, but did take 2 weeks to get a new one (granted, they just changed their tracking system and things were a mess.) Build times are from 1 week to 3 weeks. They have less "gurus" than VA but do good testing. They are cheaper than VA.
- Cheapy guy that makes Yahoo's boxes. These are 1/2 the price of the others. Dont expect ANY tech support if you go this route, you are on your own. Almost 1/2 of these had problems. Yeah they are cheap, but is it worth your time?...
Things to consider with ANY hardware manufacturer: You are dealing with cheap (yes, $12,000 is CHEAP for a server) systems here. Margins are razor thin. No one has the bucks to blow on stupendous tech support, NO ONE. If you want tech support that will WOW! you and systems that are almost NEVER DOA, you get a Sun, period. Quite frankly, if that is the level of support you want, you PAY for it, and pay dearly. Instead of $12,000 for a cheapie Intel box, expect to pay $50,000 for a Sun. Is it worth 5X? Well, the quality is there, and yes they are paying you a premium for a premium product. Just like the profit margin on a top of line BMW is much higher than an escort. If you buy an Intel box as a server, you are getting an Escort, expect the same level of quality.So, when it comes to buying Intel Linux boxes, I guess what I am saying is that they are OK, but don't EVER expect to be WOWed by tech support. If you are serious and have a good admin, you will be OK. Obviously yall DONT have a good admin (eg, the mandrake thing) and are paying the price. It doesn't pay to be cheap. Go get some one that knows what they are doing, you can't expect the tech guys at a manufacturer to be your admin for you and answer all your questions and hold your hand. The $500 they made on that $12,000 system gets eaten REAL quick paying some one $30 an hour to sit on the phone and guide you through the pretty mandrake install.
I'm kinda surprised.. (Score:2)
"Never to be daunted, (Read: we went ahead and did it anyway, without 'em!) we ordered the servers, and installed Mandrake ourselves. One of the servers (our file server to be) wouldn't load, wouldn't boot, and wouldn't even give us a good error indication.
What? You bought their boxen, with what? No OS? Or you wiped what they had put on? And then you tried to install something that they didn't sell and didn't support, and you couldn't even get the box to boot? Or give -- what? -- a meaningful POST beep code?
I'm not buying this.
Do you guys have any idea what you're doing?
"This is exactly why we chose VA, customer support. We returned the server and requested an immediate replacement."
Customer support for what? To train you in building boxes, and to train you to put on a distro they don't even sell?
And all of this is VA's fault?
Last time I heard, VA was a systems shop, not a tech school.
Completly aside from the other posts here about more plausible [bad] experiences with VA and their stuff, it sounds to me like you guys just need to take Computer Building 101.
And I think this article makes you guys (viata.com? [viata.com] - "e-commerce solutions for internet travel transactions! TravelCentric software and portal sites" hmmm..) look kinda dumb...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Re:Penguin Computing (Score:2)
Chris DiBona VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
The rest of the story - Deven Phillips (Score:2)
Deven Phillips, CISSP
Network Architect
Viata Online, Inc.
Re:This seems a bit contrived... (Score:2)
Chris
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
VA Research err.. Linux (Score:2)
I'm kinda conserned about this. A couple business partners and I are considering selling our software system solutions on a VA servers: We provide our custom software systems et al. and VA provides the hardware and support for the Boxes so we don't have to run around fixing broken ethernet cards... just our software
But I am still considering VA for this choice. I've met Jason and Zack from VA Canada and from what I gather Zack's job is to, "Make sure our boxes work for our customers". (sorry If I got that wrong Zack). Now with a job description like that I've got to wonder if this is an exception to what's actually going on over at VA.
Any other VA customers out there like to comment??
Now I havn't done a lot of homework but don't VA boxes come Redhat with VA Enhancements pre-installed on them. Then the obvious question here is why would you yank out something that the VA developers have slaved over to make run very well on very good hardware and put in Mandrake on them... there servers right, why not just "enhance" what's allready on them to suit your purposes???
Re:Why bash VA about this? (Score:2)
Maybe the reason VA Linux has a policy against installing Mandrake is because they know it lacks the support for their hardware...
Seriously, you aren't asking netscape to provide support for windows either.I'm sure people call them all the time, wondering why their modem isn't working ("because I need the modem to use Netscape, it must be Netscape's responsibility") or many other Windows-related problems that the inept may assume are an application's fault. Hey, if you're charging for tech support on a per-incident basis, Windows-related problems must be a gravy train for Netscape's tech support revenues.
<grin>
Why bash VA about this? (Score:2)
Seriously, you aren't asking netscape to provide support for windows either.
Experiences with Penguin, anyone? (Score:2)
How about Penguin Computing? They seem to offer the equivalent in the rackmount dept., and have similar pricing. What experiences have people had with their stuff?
Re:Small Margins Killed Customer Support (Score:2)
Sure, that's absolutely great if you're building a Hewlett-Packard Pavillion that you're going to sell in quantity through all the Fry's and Circuit Citys.
But, let's face it, how many of these servers is VA Linux really going to sell? A couple of hundred before they make a change that makes the video obsolete?
When you then divide the production costs of the video by the total number of machines you expect to sell to which the video will apply, what are the final costs per machine? How practical is this? Not very, is my guess.
How are you going to distribute this? VHS videocassette? That's expensive. A CD is a lot cheaper, especially if your computer is going to have a CD-ROM drive.
But how is the video going to help those really basic users who don't even know how to plug the monitor into the video card, let alone start up the machine, toss in a CD-ROM and let Windows autorun it?
How long will more advanced users stick with the video, if it starts out explaining to beginners that the CD-ROM drive is not a cupholder?
This is a problem that lacks an easy solution.
Re:Small Margins Killed Customer Support (Score:2)
Remember, way back when, the simple complexity (!) of computers was enough to keep the idiots at bay. Hell, most of 'em couldn't even turn the damned things on.
Today, sadly, that has changed. The death of computing as being synonymous with intelligence is upon us.
<BigBlockMopar starts playing an MP3 of Taps.>
Re:Response from VA Support Manager (Score:5)
It sounds to me like you are simultaneously admitting that the problem was not handled to your normal standards, yet also admitting that if this story had not appeared on slashdot, there is no reason to expect that it would have been handled any differently. Care to comment?
You mention that "communication is now in an improved state". Could you elaborate on that? Does that mean you walked down to the lab and yelled "hey guys, you should talk to the customers more!", or does that mean that there has been a documented change in policy including safegaurds to ensure the policies are followed?
On a related note, one of the other posters indicates that in his/her experience, approx 1 in 10 VA boxes arrive DOA. Can you give us a more specific statistic, perhaps along with the average amount of time it takes to resolve these problems.
Re:VA Horror Story? Yet another.. (Score:2)
"Who's bullshitting who" indeed....
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
How support is *supposed to be*.. (Score:2)
On a monday night, I accidentally spilled a glass of ovaltine on the table next to my brand new Thinkpad..unfortunately, I managed to splash some of it up onto the keyboard down by the arrow keys. I did my best to dry it out, to no avail -- within an hour or so, the keyboard had completely died, rendering my poor little Thinkpad dead in the water.
I contacted IBM.
The service rep I talked to at IBM said there would be an Airborne Express shipment box on my doorstep by the time I wake up the following morning. Fantastic, I said, since I didn't have to pay a cent to either ship it, or pay for the repairs, since it was covered under my warranty. Sure enough, the shipment box arrived here in Tucson. Inside were very clear instructions regarding how to pack it up, and how to leave any last-minute notes for the service crew. Within 5 minutes, I was packed up and ready to go, and subsequently dropped off the package on its way back to Milpitas, CA.
About an hour later I realized I accidentally left a James Brown CD in my thinkpad, along with my 10/100 netcard. Oh well, no problem. I'll just wait.
A day goes by. I'm able to track the package via Airborne Express' webpage, which was nice. I managed to survive tuesday without my Thinkpad.
Wednesday night, a get a knock on my door at 5 in the afternoon -- Its Airborne Express with a package from IBM -- Its my Thinkpad, all fixed, complete with my 10/100 NIC and my James Brown CD taped to the hood. Within the course of less 72 hours, IBM got a package to my doorstep, got my Thinkpad to a service center, diagnosed the problem, fixed it, and sent my Thinkpad back to me. For free.
THAT is service.
You basically get what you pay for. If youre going to buy mission-critical servers from an unreputable little chop shop on the virge of bankruptcy like VA, you should expect to get the run-around. All any company like VA does is take off-the-shelf OEM parts, slap a machine together, and glue a little plastic logo on the front of the case. Youre not getting anything you couldn't otherwise assemble on your own, or obtain from a larger LInux systems vendor such as IBM, Dell, and others.
You're right. I dont like VA. I've got plenty of reasons why, too. I'm just glad other people are beginning to wake up and smell the coffee when it comes to this company..I worked with their people on a volunteer basis for nearly two years, I know exactly what sort of work-ethic they have..or lack, more specifically. Hell, go on EFnet and look in #linuxwarez. Most of the damn channel ops are VA employees, busy warezing on VA's own lines. Go look for yourself.
Bowie J. Poag
Different OS (Score:2)
Re:Conspiracy and counter-conspiracy (Score:5)
--
OT, but fun reading for the paranoid! (Score:2)
You know, just after I clicked submit on that last post, I thought of something about Microsoft's tech support.
I've watched users pull out their per-minute M$ tech support 1-900 phone numbers, and be prompted over the phone to make all sorts of system settings changes. Which, as anyone who has ever touched a Windows box knows, will require a reboot.
Perhaps the reason that Windows doesn't let you restart processes without having to reboot the computer is so that M$ can force tech support customers to stay on the phone longer, thus generating more revenues?
Think about it. If the average Windows 9x/ME box takes 3 minutes to reboot and in the course of a tech support call has to be rebooted 3 times (probably not far off), that's nine more billable minutes. How much is a billable minute? How many Windows users call M$'s tech support?
Scary. I'd never thought of that before...
Small Margins Killed Customer Support (Score:5)
Remember that today's computer companies often make tiny margins on their sales.
Remember also that computers are complicated things, regardless of the operating system being used. Users will always call up with stupid, basic questions, wasting the tech support time (and therefore budgets).
In a stint where I did a lot of help desk tech support, I'd often get stupid questions about why is the monitor still black (turn it on), why doesn't the RAM I bought fit into the computer (I later found out the guy was trying to stuff it into the floppy disk drive but that thought *never* crossed my mind when I was on the phone with him, killing an hour of phone time), your computer must be broken because I can't get Yahoo to work (Failed to Connect error - the guy didn't even have a modem, let alone an internet account anywhere). Granted, with a rack-mounted Linux server, the questions will be a lot less basic, but still equally stupid to anyone really familiar with Linux. These will *hog* tech support time and dollars.
Customer service has had to become a thing of the past, unless you're willing to call the helpful 1-900 number or fork out your Visa on a per-incident basis.
That's the way it is and will be for the forseeable future. Unless you're in women's fashions, where the markup is often well over 100% and the number of possible tech support questions related to the newly redesigned belt buckle and zipper are limited.
It's simply not built into the cost of the sale anymore. It's a good thing, too - if it were, an el-cheapo Celeron could run way over $3,000.
Re:Well... (Score:3)
Some other good points of ASLab is that they'll also build systems (including rackmount) with Athlon CPU's, which, along with price, was a critical factor in my choosing them.
Check them out at http://www.aslab.com [aslab.com] if these are the sorts of things you're interested in. :)
Why the name droping? (Score:2)
Mentioning companies is bad form.
By your post, those that have never used company A now will think worse about them. You could of had an isolated incident. A new person working support. Who knows...
With that being said, I have had good experiences with VA. Parts always arrive. We did have problems getting the right rails for one of the boxes but everything else was handeled well.
Our local support has spent many hours helping install and configure software. I now have my VA render farm to where all I do is add a machine, throw in a CD and 20 minutes later, I have a new render node.
They have been more than I could have hoped for.
Duh (Score:2)
Look, there are 2 billion Linux Distributions, they cannot possibly support everything.
/Simon
Re:Well... (Score:3)
Re:Experiences with Penguin, anyone? (Score:2)
The machine has yet to crash and is currently at 91 days uptime. It has even been slashdotted during this time :)
It came with a good amount of documentation, but they actually never sent me the boxed copy of RedHat that I was supposed to get. I never followed up on that.
Conspiracy and counter-conspiracy (Score:4)
Oh, wait a second....revise that conspiracy theory a little bit for extra paranoia...
Malda is only posting this story to lull us into a false sense of saftey with him! He's throwing us this little scrap of a "VA sucks" post on slashdot to make us THINK that he's not owned by VA, but in reality, you know he really is. You can just wait for the other shoe to drop!
Does that about cover the bases here? Or is there some extra piece of paranoia I'm missing out on?
Summary (Score:3)
Moral of the story? None really. Just be glad it's VA and not IBM. IBM would have just told you to stick the server up your butt after hearing you installed Mandrake.
Bad Mojo [rps.net]
Smaller Vendors (Score:2)
I've bought hundreds of computers for a development house that relies almost exclusively on Linux. I order computers with all the best: Asus MBs, Seagate HDs, G400 vid, SBLive audio, etc. AS WELL AS MY CHOICE OF LINUX. The company we use is a smaller local vendor (check out www.buypogo.com) that is willing to build computers to specifications WE dictate, get them to us within a week, usually, and has the best customer service I've ever seen. (They usually come the next day to fix things.) They give a 2 yr. warranty on everything, and replace parts and whole machines without question.
The folks at Buypogo realize that we're competent and they will actually save money by not going the "Are you sure it's broken?" route. We have a few old Dells sitting around; the last time one of them broke (an obvious hard drive failure) I called them for a replacement. The technician requested that I open up the box and look at the hard drive: the only way I got him to agree to send me a new one was by opening up the box and saying "Oh yeah, it looks really broken!"
Go for the little guy, they actually have something to gain by providing you with good support.
It is that way everywhere (Score:2)
This industry is like that everywhere. People screw up. It is a fact of life. Better get used to it.
Where I work, within the past seven working days alone, we have received from our supplier:
- A RAID server with no RAID controller
- A rack-mount KVM with no V (no display)
We also recieved a RAID server that looked like it had been run over by a truck. Crumpled case and shattered parts. Why the shipper even thought they could pass it off as okay is beyond me...
Especially more so considering the grief this customer has already been through.
Your average company uses the same production pipeline for RMA that they do for everything else. I'm sure it was just pure bad luck that this guy got nailed this way, but the law of averages says this will happen on occasion.
What I would expect is some kind of compensation from VA (a partial refund or credit, for example) for all the trouble.
I would have some reservation about a company that does not contact a customer regarding a delay in processing
Again, this is completely normal. Nobody admits to their delays unless you ask them about it. Is it right? No. Does it happen anyway? Yup.
What if the error was made when the order was being keyed into the order system? That's how that RAID server I mentioned slipped through the supplier -- what they built and QC passed matched the order sheet perfectly. It just wasn't the order we faxed to them.
That's really to say nothing of the fact it took an "Ask Slashdot" story to get something done.
Of course, according to the poster claiming to be the VA Manager, the problem has been fixed and did not need an "Ask Slashdot" story to get something done.
I'm not so much defending VA here as pointing out that they seem to be operating in the same form as the rest of the industry.
Re:Well... (Score:2)
One recommendation is to send all the servers back. If you haven't escalated your support issue to a CS Manager, do that first- but vendors listen more closely when you have the salespeople on your side. IE, Bob at VA sells you n 8 servers. One goes bad, and you get poor CS on its repair. Send them all back, and Bob will lose his sale and his commission- Bob gets very interested. Bob calls you to talk you out of returning them, and becomes a facilitator in getting things fixed.
Cool tech companies are one thing, but the internet has yet to be a place where customer service reigns supreme. I followed reviews of many things, from hardware to software to service, and the internet has yet to match up in my satisfation to personal references for CS. Just my two cents.
NP
Re:I bet your talking about the NAS (Score:3)
The thing is this is -very-- good for VA, as we get to learn the problems with the machine before we put it into major production. We take the term BETA seriously here.
That said, I'm glad you like the web based admin and such. The machine that the original post was about wasn't the NAS at all though.
Chris DiBona
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Leaving out too much detail... (Score:3)
Obviously VA won't support your installation of Mandrake. They will likely support the hardware (1 year warranty is normal, with support contracts extending it) and the pre-installed software.
If you want to get some real support from them, put their version of redhat back on and prove that it doesn't work. Telling them "I installed another OS and it doesn't work..." makes you a candidate for the USER=ID10T registry entry. If you must, install win98 on it and tell them exactly which hardware doesn't work. If you discover that win98 runs on the system just fine, and all the parts work, then VA delivered exactly what you paid for, and they are under no obligation to provide support for your non-standard use of their product.
Of course, it could be that you've done enough troubleshooting to indicate exactly what's wrong with the server, and shown VA that it is their problem. If so, then you certianly have a right to get VA to fix it. (but you should have given us a better proof that VA actually did something wrong here...)
-Adam
"I must know what you do to write about women and their feelings so well?"
"It's easy. I think of a man, and take away reason and accountability."
As good as it gets (movie)
Sorry about the bold... (Score:2)
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Other VA issues. (Score:3)
Eventually VA refunded my money (6 weeks later) but not after multiple calls to customer service. The best part was that everyone I spoke with tried to talk me into accepting the charges and letting them ship the computers, even after I told them that I didn't need the PCs since I placed a similar order with another vendor.
Penguin Computing (Score:2)
We had a need for a fairly low-end print server. Something that didn't have to have RAID or even SCSI hard drives on it. Just needs to drive a few department printers. We put together a Penguin box on their web site for about $2400 which will MORE than do the job. In fact, at that price I could have two of them with hot failover software for less money than I was seeing for the low end VA rackmounts. Oh yeah the Penguin is a 1U so I could fit two of the penguins in the space of 1 VA rackmount.
Don't forget, also, that Chris DiBona has been seen in the past on Slashdot slamming Penguin, slinging mud at Sam Ockman (president of Penguin), and in general acting very unprofessionally towards his competition. While Penguin may be in the #2 slot behind VA in terms of funding, they're #1 in terms of ethics and professional conduct in my book. I never once saw Mr. Ockman flaming VA or Mr. DiBona on /. forums.
Tech Support is the purgatory of most companies (Score:2)
You end up talking to irate people all day long, management does everything they can to keep you from leaving for a better position, and any technical smarts gets unrecognized.
Also, there is little technical career track in the tech support field.
The end result, the tech support people who know their stuff and have gumption do their best to get into a development position. The lifers who are hanging on until they can retire and have no idea what fsck does (and I'm talking Solaris support here) stay on the hotline.
I guess until customers demand better tech support, and treat their own tech support people with more respect, it's not going to get better.
George
Why we do not build our own (Score:2)
Well, I don't know about anybody else, but I can talk about the company I work for.
We're a small-time integrator specializing in Linux. Even being small, we ship between two and ten servers a month. It is easier for us to pay someone else to build them for us then it is for us to build them ourselves.
And these aren't pre-built systems. They are what the industry calls "semi-custom configuration" machines. You pick a base line, and the adjust CPU, hard drives, memory and selected peripherals until you like it. We stick with brands and models with a good rep and that are known to work with Linux.
(Granted, after three problem units this week, I was heard to remark aloud, "We should just buy raw silicon and aluminum and build from there", but hey, everyone had their bad days...)
Just FYI.
Re:Well... (Score:3)
Since that initial rough spot, everything has been rock solid. And, given all the extra bits they tend to include with their boxes (Full On 2x2 here), I would seriously leave their custom RedHat in place, since it has the bits for remote status reporting and hardware raid management in place.
Installing new hardware in a production environment is such a pain anyway (as demonstrated above), messing with the system OS, when the supported OS is perfectly fine, is just asking for trouble IMHO.
In future cases, deal with Visa/Mastercard (Score:2)
Technically, what happened to you was credit card fraud. They charged you without sending you a product. Visa or Mastercard wil lsimply remove their vendor privileges and they won't be able to take credit card orders anymore.
No joke - this happened to me with Dell and Mastercard threatened them accordingly and it was fixed in a jiff.
They can ignore you but they won't ignore the card companies.
It's the same everywhere (Score:2)
Guess how good it is? It sucks. It's all crap and it sickens me. The best that Sun does for us is to bring us the parts. I've even tried to convince management that we don't need support, spend the money on spare parts and we'll do it ourself.
A note to anyone reading, stop paying for that support, get a decent admin, and pay a couple of bucks for the spare parts. You'll save tens of thousands of dollars, and a lot of your time. And then there's the infamous "well have you applied all of the latest patches sir?". What a waste of flesh.
Re:Just goes to show.... (Score:2)
Have you looked at PostgreSQL?
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
Support? I couldn't even order! (Score:2)
The second time was for a cluster of systems that cost around $20k. I got a response from Rep #1, and a little later Rep #2 asked if anyone was handling it yet, and I said that Rep #1 was helping me.
So far, so good. Except... I never got the quote! No follow-ups, and no responses when I sent them several inquiries about the status of the quote. VA never sent me anything after the initial "I am working on a quote for you".
On both occassions I ended up going with a local dealer.
If this is how VA reacts when you are trying to GIVE them money, I can imagine what it'd be like trying to get support, which COSTS them money.
More VA War Stories (Score:3)
When we decided we want to purchase some upgrades (new raid chassis and disks), we found the experience even worse, as we encountered delays, misinformation, and the sort of runaround that makes it clear how much VA values their customers.
My recommendation is to go with a major vendor such as Compaq, HP, etc. The equipment you get may cost a bit more, but it will also be of far higher quality. And it will still run Linux.
--
Re:VA Research err.. Linux (Score:3)
Counterpoint (Score:2)
All any company like VA does is take off-the-shelf OEM parts, slap a machine together, and glue a little plastic logo on the front of the case.
While there are many companies like that, VA is not one of them.
They know Linux, what it needs, and what it does. They specialize in Linux and Linux compatibility. This is more then I can say for Dell, Compaq, or HP at this point.
VA does a good deal of research and testing to make sure their stuff is Linux compatible.
VA provides Linux-specific documentation.
They do a fair amount of custom engineering when needed, especially in their low-profile rack-mount servers.
They give back to the Linux community quite a bit.
Now, none of this excuses poor customer service or quality, but your claim that VA is just another Intel PC VAR isn't true.
Youre not getting anything you couldn't otherwise assemble on your own, or obtain from a larger LInux systems vendor such as IBM, Dell, and others.
I think not.
HP: Other then in press releases, their hardware literature doesn't mention Linux, and you can't configure a system with Linux pre-installed on it. Doesn't look too promising to me.
Compaq: LOL. Their "Linux" page wants to sell you machines with Windows pre-installed. Give me a break.
IBM: I haven't dealt with IBM on Linux, but I have gotten the impression that, while serious about Linux, they are still ramping up to really support it well on their Intel lines. But at least they'll sell you a system with Linux on it.
Dell: Will sell you a system with Linux, and at least seems to be committed to it. But, they really have a ways to go. They will happilly bundle NT software with your Linux system, and wonder why you say you cannot use it. And their Linux driver support is iffy.
Would I buy a VA Linux system? Unlikely. Are they doing as good a job as they should? Maybe not. Are they as bad as you make them out to be? No.
Too Specialized (Score:3)
The trick is that each job calls for it's own special configuration. What we really need is a company that hires a group of geeks with diverse experience, and who are willing to learn new stuff at customer request. Have the customer pay by the man hour above a certain yearly amount pre-included in their plan, and have all your geeks watch some central job dispach system and take jobs that they are interrested in, or that land in their area of knowledge. I think that this will take more effort than the average scheme, but i think in the end it's worth it because you don't have the problem of stubborn monolithic support companies who work down their problem tree and can't help you if your desired configuration isn't EXACTLY listed in their little book.
Re:Just goes to show.... (Score:2)
I work in a place that pays Oracle hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for a support contract. I asked a PHB once what all that money was going for. He said technical support, with the added protection that should anything go wrong that Oracle can't fix within 24 hours, they can sue.
Kinda funny, since the last thing the company wants is to sue anybody. It's long, slow, expensive, and it's much easier from the start to just have it done right. Oh, by, let's see...by RTFM and doing it yourself.
But keep in mind that support contracts are mostly for PHBs who want to have that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Contracts should come with a free blanket and teddy bear or pacifier if you ask me.
They can be useful, but most of the time they're just a crutch.
Re:Experiences with Penguin, anyone? (Score:2)
I purchased three servers from them. All of them were faulty, and one of them was put together by an idiot (missing parts, missing screws, wrong stuff installed).
Eventually, they made good on everything, but it took me an amazing amount of work to get them to cough up replacements. They gave the impression of being nice but only semi-competent.
Luckily, all experienced sysadmins know how to use the Jedi Mind Trick on lame-o tech support: