On Sep 19, 9:47*pm, Cydrome Leader wrote:
wrote:
Cydrome Leader kenjka:
Talking to me, I've seen management for UPS machine... We were looking at it
trying to figure out which drives are installed inside... ))) Took us
about and hour...

That sounds about right.

All the error message have misleading IBM like error codes like
"KAIC10175-E" except there's no book to look up the error or what it
means. I suspect they're random and nobody knows what they are, even in
Japan.

DDDDDDDDDDDDD

Here in Croatia, everything is sold through partners... My company is a
partner for almost everything that counts (EMC, Hitachi, IBM, HP, Sun,
VMware, Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, etc)... When we sell any stuff, we have to
stock spare parts and take warranty on us...

Interesting. So when an IBM customer has problems, you switch out your Sun
shirt and show up as IBM?

Nope... We have people designated for every vendor... Few guys are
technicians for their vendor, like 3 guys for EMC, 2 guys for HP, 2 for IBM,
3 for Sun, etc...

Ok.

Don't know how business is done i USA, but here in smaller countries accross
Europe, almost everything is done via partners... So, let's say, EMC has got

Here most vendors have people who could do work, but they want to force
you to use a VAR as well. All most VARs do is try to sell you extra stupid
services you don't need and then botch the order up somehow. It seems like
a stupid way to do things to me, and it's especially annoying when they go
out of business. Try calling Cisco for license enable keys at 4pm on
Friday after your VAR went out of business or changed names. Even if Cisco
sends you new hardware, you have to deal with the stupid VAR to get
license keys again. It's completely stupid and whoever though of that
model needs to set on fire.

Most maintenance from any company is handled by third parties that just
pretend to be from whatever vendor their work order says. It makes some
sense as less people can handle more work that way, and I'm sure it's
cheaper for everybody that way.

Even software companies make you do stupid stuff like find a VAR. Last
time I ordered Vmware, I had to call Vmware to find a VAR that never
returned my calls or emails. Then I had to call back to get the name of
another VAR, then I got a quote for the published price, then I had to
make a PO for the software and support. I didn't even get a piece of paper
or anything. It's completely retarded that I could not just type in a CC
number on vmware.com and download a license key. I had to fill out all
sort of paperwork to download a file from a website.

and office in Croatia that serves 3 major partners, 1 distributor, 1
training centre... Croatia is a small country with 4 mil people, but we have
offices of almost every big vendor here... You'd be surprised, but this
market is very funny, a lot of enterprise boxes are sold here (EMC
Symmetrix, IBM DS8000, HP XP, Hitachi USP, IBM System-z, HP SuperDome,
etc)... Almost everything is done on FC SAN, and nobody even thinks about
iSCSI or NAS systems... )) Like I said, totally funny, nobody asks how
much it costs, all that is needed is that it's working and that it's
expensive...

What do all these machines do- who uses them?

For HDS here, it seems they have real employees that come out, but simple
stuff like disk swaps is handled by a third party, like maintanence for
SUN and HP unless you have some sort of 4 hour support and a really big
deal problem. I have no problem with this as those techs know their stuff,
I really don't care what company name is on their paychecks.

Well, we have a stock of spare parts for customers that have SLA's signed
with us...

Here is the US major vendors have parts depots, either at
logistics/shipping company warehouses or at warehouses at major airports.

For instance, if I want a new fuser assembly for a HP laserjet, it's
probably sitting in a box, right now at UPS logistics (something like
that) in Kentucky . They get the order from HP, print a label and it get
shipped to me, probably within hours. If I need Netapp parts, I think
they're sitting in a warehouse by O'Hare international airport and a
courier or tech can get them to me in just a couple hours, maybe even
less. It works pretty nicely. I'm sure it's a bit slower if you're in some
far away rural area though.

Years ago the concept of a VAR was explained to me as a company that
could sell us OEM parts at a discount, assist with the specs,
configuration, administration, etc. I asked, um, are you replacing us
Admins with these people? I got no answer from management.
Fortunately it has yet to happen, much. Today, years later, it seems
the only way you can buy equipment, parts, licenses, or service
contracts from an OEM is through a VAR.

But you can be creative. We purchased an EMC DMX through Dell with a
service contract direct with EMC. Purchasing through Dell got us
credits for our parent company that improves the discount that
corporate gets when buying other Dell products. I don't have to call
Del(hi) to get some level I bonehead to send it up through the Dell
idiots only to be told that they will have to call EMC anyways. I
just call EMC. It's all about what you put in your contract. Don't
be spoon fed by the "VAR".