Re: Business Continuity
That very much could be true, I have read some similar stories. I certainly can't vouch for their quality of service never having been a customer only from what I know of what their model was years ago. But support in general from many vendors has fallen off a cliff in that same time frame, which also is sad. I've experienced this myself over the years too. Can't remember the last time I read someone speak positively on VMware support for example(even those in big accounts that spend tons of $$). One of my last HPE 3PAR support tickets I literally had to help their support type in the right commands to get the task done (via HPE MyRoom). These were basic linux commands (the task was to delete some ISO images related to past software updates on the storage controllers to free space). They actually wanted to replace the controller hardware because the internal disk was getting full. I forced them to escalate and not replace hardware when a few "rm" commands to nuke those ISOs was enough. What should of been a 30 minute process dragged out over days, and the final call where we did the tasks probably took over an hour while they struggled to get the commands right until I had enough an intervened.
Fortunately (and I'm sure there is some luck involved) my strategy is building simple yet reliable systems that end up rarely needing to interface with support staff. Also very conservative software versions and configurations further limiting exposure to bugs. I'm almost always years behind the bleeding edge allowing others to experience the bugs and get fixes first. My VMware stacks averaged less than 1 support ticket per year(with front line VMware support provided by HPE) over a decade. Fortunately none of those tickets were too concerning.
I read some comments last night regarding Rackspace's hiring practices, the staff seemed super protective of their domains, and were more concerned with "who you knew at rackspace" rather than "what you know about the technology". Which is a bad situation for sure. All the more reason I like to operate my own stuff end to end (but I do use co-location). I haven't dealt with corporate email(as in managing it) since 2002(which I ran with Linux at the time, the last time I considered myself part of corporate IT, in the years since have been in operations).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
