Re: Hardware support: VIOS service vs IBM i Service

Have to believe that tech wasn't true IBM i service person - I bet this would never happen with our real service people.

Vern

On 3/24/2021 9:16 AM, Jeff Crosby wrote:

Turns out he had reached end of shift and just put us on hold and went

home.

Are you freaking kidding me?!?!?


On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 9:20 AM Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis <
midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have one customer who lost their entire system years ago due to IBM
#FAIL with a system that had VIOS for hosting (Internal disk) of three
IBM i partitions. Improper understanding of the configuration meant IBM
couldn't find the failed disk that the HMC had reported and thus left
without repairing it. When drive two failed some time later, bye bye.
They had gone into all three IBM i partitions and Service Tools reported
all disks were good!

Some months later that SAME customer lost their entire system once again
when a failed drive replacement procedure took out the RAID set
containing the hosting storage. After this failure we rebuilt with IBM i
hosting replacing VIOS. To them VIOS is indeed a 'four letter word.' At
one point before throwing all the VIOS disks into the dumpster and
making the call to host with IBM i, we were waiting on the phone with a
tech and couldn't get him to respond. Turns out he had reached end of
shift and just put us on hold and went home. Once we discovered he was
gone, and national duty manager struggled to find someone to help us,
that was the instant the IBM i tape came out of my bag and we began
reconfiguring the system.

Your absolute best friend when you run VIOS is to 'know a guy' who who
runs strong with the AIX. No joke here.

         - L

On 3/24/2021 9:02 AM, Rob Berendt wrote:

I'm so used to when a disk drive needs replaced in IBM i you log on to

the system, get into STRSST, step back and let the hardware repairman do
his thing.

It's a whole different animal in VIOS.

First of all when you open the ticket with IBM they ask you the

stupidest question:  What operating systems are running under this?

Why is this a stupid question?  Well if you tell them IBM i then they

send someone out who knows IBM i and doesn't have a clue about VIOS.  So
when you start a putty session and get them into the vios console and they
type in STRSST and get command not found you already know you can tack
hours on to the call.

The next thing is that they assume the customer is all knowing and

comfortable with VIOS and/or AIX and know how to unmirror disk drives and
all sorts of stuff that were all set up for me.  Since you are not you will
have to open a software ticket also.

And Heaven help you if you are not at a version 3 of VIOS.  You get a

reply like, your choices are:

-        Upgrade to a supported version of VIOS

-        Contract with IBM Lab Services for a minimum of 40 hours at

several hundred dollars an hour

-        Sign an extended support contract for the expired version of

VIOS

It doesn't help that you drove hours to a remote data center on Monday

for an appointment you scheduled with the IBM hardware guy the week
before.  AND HE NEVER SHOWS NOR CALLS!  The national duty manager had a
tough time finding anyone in Indy and had to get back to me.  Service man
claims he was at a customer site with his phone in the car and doesn't know
when he'll ever get out of there.  Who leaves their phone in the car?!?
The only time I can think of this is my son has to because the Navy really
frowns upon anyone taking a phone into a secure area.  He lost it for a few
days while they scanned it to see if he took any pictures, etc.

So you drive back down on Tuesday.
I wonder if the NCAA having their tournaments in town had anything to do

with this.  Like did the serviceman score tickets?

Oh well, driving out of town allowed me to check out some shops on the

way home and I scored a little powder to reload some rounds...

Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1
Group Dekko
Dept 1600
Mail to:  7310 Innovation Blvd, Suite 104
            Ft. Wayne, IN 46818
Ship to:  7310 Innovation Blvd, Dock 9C
            Ft. Wayne, IN 46818
http://www.dekko.com

--
IBM Champion for Power Systems

www.iInTheCloud.com - Commercial IBM i and Power System Hosting
www.iDevCloud.com - Personal IBM i Hosting
www.Frankeni.com - IBM i and Power Systems Consulting.
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