Supporting Role? (ZT)

JuJu

觉得这个说得很有道理,vendor support的质量在过去十年每况愈下大概是公认的了.

http://storagebod.typepad.com/st ... upporting-role.html


Supporting Role?
If you work for a vendor and after reading this you feel that this entry is about your company, then you are right! And if you work for a vendor and after reading this you feel that this entry has nothing to with your company, then you are totally wrong!
I've been working in IT now for more than twenty years; I've done a variety of roles but a big chunk of my career has been running support teams and I've done this both sides of the fence i.e. both at an end-user but also at a reseller. I know a lot of people who have worked in support on both sides of the fence and pretty much all of us have coming to the same conclusion; over the past ten years or so, vendor support has got markedly worse! Of course, it may be that we are looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses but I do not believe so. I would also say that this is pretty much across the board; this is not a storage problem but it impacts hardware and software support across the board.
There are a variety of reasons for this decline in quality and ironically, it is some of the services that we as end-users have demanded that may have driven the decline in service.
The Internet is a big driver in the decline of quality; there are huge amounts of support information and detail on line and we as end-users have demanded that the vendor support databases are put on line; unfortunately, this information is often presented in a manner which it is pretty much impossible to effectively search and you find yourself trawling through screens of unrelated sludge before you find the answer you are looking for. But because all of this information has been provided in a 'self-service' portal, this appears to have been used as an excuse to reduce the number of qualified people that you have in a support centre.
The Internet has also further enabled the stock holding questions from the support centre and having worked both sides, I know that these are holding questions in general.
1) Are you at the latest level?
2) Can you send me the logs?
3) Can you send me the configuration files?
Now all of these are valid questions in many circumstances but too often it feels that you are dealing with a robot who is working off a script! This is a Support Centre not a Call Centre; there is a difference! And my (and many other's) responses to the questions are

1) Why? Will it fix my problem? Where in the release notes does it talk about something even vaguely related to my problem? And if I'm in a really sceptical mood, can you send me the piece of the code which fixes the problem. And you realise that this is a live production system and just applying fixes is unacceptable, I will get asked all the questions I've just asked you by the change board. And if it makes it worse, it's my job on the line.
2) Why? Will that log help you diagnose the problem because I've already looked at the log and I can't see anything. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is when you have got a disk off-line and marked failed to be asked for logs from the array?
3) Which files do you want to see and why?
And often, I've already attached the information to the ticket already; so you asking for them again shows that you have not read the ticket or are just working off the script.
Constantly in conversations with our various hardware engineers from all vendors, we discover reductions in headcount, experience engineers being retired early etc and territory coverage per engineer being increased. We are not buying less hardware, we are buying more and there are more systems out there to go wrong. Now arguably, systems are becoming more reliable but there are more of them. And in the world of storage, we have lots of moving parts; disks spin, tapes spool, robots move and these are all things which wear out and break. Disks get bigger and the potential impact of a disk failure and the resultant rebuild times gets ever larger.
Talking to people who work in the support centres; it appears to be more important to keep the queue within the targets than solving the customer's problem at point of first contact. There is no longer time to do follow-up calls; for example, calling the customer who had the severity 1 call to ensure that they are happy with the fix.
This is just the tip of the ice-berg and I could rant on and on about this subject; I was ranting about the decline in service years ago and yet it really is not getting better. For example, I am personally aware of four companies this year who have experience major outages due to problems caused by vendor support; it may be that now I have a fairly high profile in the industry that people tell me their war stories but it seems we are on an upward trend.
I think it's about time that the vendors started to review what and how they are providing support (fix your websites or at least put a decent search capability on it, it is pretty awful that generally I find myself using generic search engines and the site: directive to search your site); it is also about time that they started treating support centre staff with respect and giving them time to do a great job.

dalaohu

JuJu 的贴有一半我是看不懂的， 另一半太长我看不了。

纯支持！

JuJu

你的帖俺也基本看不懂的, 嘿嘿, 隔行如隔山, 外人以为都算是IT.

bfox

too long...

乱码

貌似web programming这边还是不错的

dalaohu

原帖由 JuJu 于 2010-12-6 16:07 发表
你的帖俺也基本看不懂的, 嘿嘿, 隔行如隔山, 外人以为都算是IT.

我的贴一向贴近老百姓的生活，通俗易懂， 喜闻乐见。

那个贴你不懂了？

JuJu

这个基本上评价的是storage vendor 们的技术支持, 我觉得说得很是事实...

JuJu

原帖由 dalaohu 于 2010-12-6 16:11 发表


我的贴一向贴近老百姓的生活，通俗易懂， 喜闻乐见。

那个贴你不懂了？

我基本都不懂, 汗.

JuJu

编程俺基本一窍不通...

righttang

诶哟，这不就是在讲那个啥support嘛。。。。

我自己看过一遍的log，你再拿去看，然后告诉我log看不出是很么问题；废话，要是log里有问题，我自己看不出来？天天发生这个事啊= =

dalaohu

原帖由 JuJu 于 2010-12-6 16:14 发表
编程俺基本一窍不通...

我好久没发什么编程的了。。。。 最近发的都是些手机，家电，小商品， 小道消息之类的。。。。

JuJu

就是就是, 要了log, 再要一遍log, 拖来拖去其实就是不知道怎么解决, 一直在浪费时间, 很烦.

JuJu

原帖由 dalaohu 于 2010-12-6 16:17 发表


我好久没发什么编程的了。。。。 最近发的都是些手机，家电，小商品， 小道消息之类的。。。。

那我看来错过了,以为你发的都是高深的, 难得有个我看懂的, 嘎嘎.

degra

原帖由 dalaohu 于 2010-12-6 16:02 发表
JuJu 的贴有一半我是看不懂的， 另一半太长我看不了。

纯支持！

JuJu 的帖总是引起共鸣的， 可能是你没有做过vendor support吧

JuJu

原帖由 gandu 于 2010-12-6 21:15 发表


JuJu 的帖总是引起共鸣的， 可能是你没有做过vendor support吧

象那个作者写的一样, I have been on both sides of the fence.

又是那句"屁股决定立场"了, 虽然粗俗了点.

superblue

1) Why? Will it fix my problem? Where in the release notes does it talk about something even vaguely related to my problem? And if I'm in a really sceptical mood, can you send me the piece of the code which fixes the problem. And you realise that this is a live production system and just applying fixes is unacceptable, I will get asked all the questions I've just asked you by the change board. And if it makes it worse, it's my job on the line.
2) Why? Will that log help you diagnose the problem because I've already looked at the log and I can't see anything. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is when you have got a disk off-line and marked failed to be asked for logs from the array?
3) Which files do you want to see and why?
And often, I've already attached the information to the ticket already; so you asking for them again shows that you have not read the ticket or are just working off the script.

我也是 been on both sides of the fence，确实是有人问过上面的问题，一般这种人分两类：
1。巨牛的人，而且刚刚被另外的vendor support弄毛了的。
2。小牛的人，刚刚读的几本书，急于证明自己有多牛，拼命和vendor engineer争辩。

对待这种人不用太认真，哈，一般我就

JuJu

我目前站在客户的立场, 看vendor support比较看不惯  我做vendor support的记忆已经模糊了, 太久以前的历史.

koyuu

以前IBM的pSeries support 上来就问 微码是不是最新的...

yesngo

it appears to be more important to keep the queue within the targets than solving the customer's problem at point of first contact.

这句话才是真谛！在无法找到替代的SLA的情况下，queue的大小是management能使用的唯一标准。

JuJu

所谓经验, 有时侯就是知道哪些情况大约不太可能得到多少vendor support, 能不搞尽量不要搞! 花力气说服老板或客户比起今后的痛苦来说仍然是比较容易的选择, vendor说支持的东西不见得是成熟的东西,比如,当你看到过那些为了省钱不想扔掉已经有的设备, 试图把Cisco switch, Brocade switch, McData switch 弄在一个fabric 搞interopmode的人的痛苦,你就会在今后避之则吉了. 想要vendor support吗? Brocade不会帮你的, 他们不喜欢你把他们的switch连到任何别的vendor的switch, Cisco倒是会帮的, 但是只帮到Fabric里面的cisco switch, 倒也很合理, 问题好象在Brocade switch那边? 那就对不起了,自个人琢磨去吧...

superblue

哈，这个是我的大爱啊，Cisco＋其他vendor，一个conference call能一天，晚上回家写summry，第二天小老板，大老板，vp大人都要update

能用一个vendor尽量用一个vendor，没事别玩什么interoperate，省心。

大饼

上来抱怨一下。
上周单位的data storage 整个崩溃3天！！！
Finance，HR还有最重要的B系统全部完蛋。
俺工作可以暂停。可是在需要工资单的节骨眼上，连个pay slip也打不出来

用的是E家的东西

koyuu

原帖由 大饼 于 2010-12-7 13:41 发表
上来抱怨一下。
上周单位的data storage 整个崩溃3天！！！
Finance，HR还有最重要的B系统全部完蛋。
俺工作可以暂停。可是在需要工资单的节骨眼上，连个pay slip也打不出来

用的是E家的东西 ...

充分说明 DR 和BCP 还是有必要的

tritri

呀，这个感受很深呢。
一个好的vendor support, 综合素质的要求是很高。比如，你的知识是否丰富过硬，你对产品是否真正了解，你的troubleshooting判断是否准确，你的沟通技巧是否能帮助你说服客户与你合作直至问题得到彻底解决。
很多时候，好的产品质量是产品的立身之本，一个烂产品怎样都说不过去的。但客户遇到的问题以及解决，可以帮助产品日臻完善。没有一个产品一出世就是完美的，跟这个世界一样。对于产品使用中遇到的问题，用户也要有个平常心。
Knowledge Base和文档也是一个关键， 如果release notes, user manual, KB可以让客户自己帮助自己解决问题，那是最理想的。
同时，vendor support怎样合理的评估问题的严重级别和优先级，及时给客户作follow up, 也是至关重要的。态度决定服务的质量。client management也是一个很好的课题。
troubleshooting的过程中，最忌讳工程师不做分析，直接jump to the cause。见过太多的悲剧，都是工程师不能清醒地判断，直接作出推测，浪费了大量时间造成客户的损失。科学系统的troubleshooting方法尤为重要，大家都忙，力气要花在点子上。
另外，escalation的渠道和反应速度也很关键，当问题严重到需要专家来深入分析的时候，这个escalation的渠道和流程是否通畅，往往是解决问题的关键。

总之，我还是认为service是产品附加值的关键，也是产品口碑的关键。而做好相关的工作，是一门艺术。

[ 本帖最后由 tritri 于 2010-12-10 17:37 编辑 ]