Re: Oracle screws up Sun host

In article <89aaavc42i7314oc9a02j7bieq7u868afd_at_4ax.com>,  Rick Denoire <100.17706_at_germanynet.de> wrote:

> "Michael Vilain <vilain_at_spamcop.net>" wrote:
>
>
> >> >It's probably best that you resolve those ORA-0600's with oracle
> >> >support.
> >>
> >> I used Oracle support once. It was enough. It is a waste of time.
> >
> >And pissing and moaning to _us_ is helpful?
>
> I did not think you were so sensible concerning negative opinions
> about Oracle Support. Again, I admit that my experience concerning
> support with this particular company is, at best, very limited.
>
> But let me recall the last two cases - exactly the last two cases -
> when I requested support from other companies.
>
> a) A Dell Server, certified to be used with Redhat AS2.1 and Oracle
> 9i, suddenly showed problems after putting 2 GB of additional RAM into
> it (so a total of 4 GB was used). Dell sent me to Redhat. RedHat
> argued that since I did not update the kernel and packages (the host
> was 4 months old) I do not qualify for support (in a previous problem
> with the same server, the OS hat to be fresh reinstalled because
> RedHat was arguing that since we updated things, they are messed up,
> of course). RedHat closed the case without any valuable help.
>
> b) Three weeks ago, only after mentioning that next time our lawyer
> would be involved, Sun sent a technician to fix a problem that they
> caused 16 months (!) ago (Tapes in a HSM system were deleted due to a
> configuration error in a complex script they were payed for, besides:
> Gold Contract).
>
> These are only two examples. The list could be much, much longer.
> The only difference is that some companies are *willing* to help,
> others aren't, and none of them really does.
>
> >Are you more interested in getting help to fix your problem or
> >complaining to us about it?
>
> I am not complaining about it. I just happened to answer to a
> proposition to require Oracle support. As a matter of fact, I accepted
> that support works that way (whichever company) and will try to solve
> problems myself, perhaps with your help in this forum. Call it
> resignation if you want. The "emotional" implications are non-existent
> in my case.

I note that both of your cases don't involve Oracle support. There have been times I've had to "escalate" a problem with SUN or some other vendor. Sometimes the basic CS people aren't as familiar with a product as I because I used it every day and worked with their internal developers to get known bugs resolved at my site. That doesn't mean that support is always worthless. The ability to call SUN or HP or DEC (back in my VMS days) and request a district service manager or district support manager to contact me regarding a contract was very important. Eventually you got the internal resource that knew what was going on and worked with them directly.

My point is that you are either committed to solving your problem or providing reasons why you can't. Some of your posts tended toward "That won't work" more than "I tried that. It didn't work. Any more ideas?" Can you tell the semantic difference here? I don't know German at all, but the first statement implies to me "I can't" while the second implies "Let's solve this".

Oracle support is typically pretty good about getting someone who could help solve a problem in contact with the customer. If you have the support contract, you've already payed them. All it costs you is a phone call to log the problem.

Surrender to being supported by others (a California thing)...

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