[TriLUG] RHES

[Ryan Leathers]

I have had spectacularly good results the 4 or 5 times I have called on
support.  Once was for a vexing disk subsystem problem they helped me to
identify.  Another time they helped save me from an LVM blunder, and in a
shocking display of customer service they even helped me figure out an LVS
problem even though I wasn't using Red Hat's own Piranha front end.

That said, there are a number of TriLUG list regulars who have given me
assistance at least on par with what I have paid Red Hat to provide.  I
guess the difference is, if Jon or Jason or Tanner, Jeremy, Mark, Aaron,
Mike, Lee, Chris, or the several others whose names I just got tired of
writing, all perish in a horrible painful Crazy-Fire demise, requiring
closed casket services due to the gruesome disfiguring inferno, I will still
be able to call on Red Hat for some help when I need it.

Ryan 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason [mailto:jason at jw2.org]
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 5:11 PM
To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] RHES


* rwshep2000.2725323 at bloglines.com (rwshep2000.2725323 at bloglines.com)
[050221 10:56]:
[snip]
> * How often have you folks had to rely on Red Hat's technical
> support, and how would you rate it?
> * Have you experienced any trouble with RHEL "officially" supporting
> various hardware, or run into other distro-specific restrictions?
> * Allowing that we do have Linux expertise, would you choose RHES
> over OSX?

RedHat is like just about every other vendor who provides technial
support.  It's a real pain to get them to understand that you're not
an id10t, and you *did* read the manual, and yes, you *already* sent
them all the information they need to diagnose the problem, so please
just fix it!

I've been a RHES customer for over a year now, with several x86 and
zSeries licenses.  Their zSeries (mainframe) support is pretty weak,
at least at Level 0, 1 and 2 support. (Yes, you usually start a
conversation with Level 0 support, but at least it's always an
English-speaking individual). The last time we called in for a zSeries
problem, they wanted to know what kind of motherboard and CPU we had
on the box.  <sigh>  They have good people behind the scenes, it's
just hard to actually get in touch with them sometimes.

Like I said, they're just as good (or bad) as everyone else for
support, but sometimes I wonder why we pay all this money.  Where I
work, we also have AIX contracts, and if we bought everything that
Redhat is trying to sell us, it would almost cost as much as AIX --
makes it hard to sell to maanagement.  Redhat certainly wouldn't be my
first choice, but my management wants someone to throw money at and
sue if there are any problems, I guess.

I only rely on Redhat support if I can figure the problem out myself,
or if mailling lists and other open-source venues don't have the
answer.  My boss wants me to open a ticket with RedHat for everything,
but it takes too long, and I know I'll have better luck out in the
community.

Hope that helps,
Jason

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