Does anybody find Oracle support acceptable ?? - I sure don't !!
A Ustby
Has Oracle support ever been OK?
Each time I deal with Oracle support, it seems to get worse.
It's hard to believe, because I don't think it could get any worse!!
ORACLE SUPPORT IS THE WORST !!!!!!!
Brendan Welch, W1LPG
I have to agree that I, a new user, am dissatisfied with it; so
dissatisfied that I did not bother to send back the fax form they followed
up with, to sample my satisfaction.
I get the impression that they did make some efforts. It maybe was
satisfactory in the past to have Compuserve for general support.
But they should have an 800 number, and/or an automated system so that
they obtain the necessary info to call you back, and/or an Internet address.
The first time I called (paying for it) I was on hold for 10 minutes,
just so that someone could take my number to call me back.
As it happened, the info then given to me by a beginner was wrong (well,
misleading, not quite true at the time, but useful to prevent foulups
down the road); I can forgive that.
On my second call (paying for it) I was on hold for over 20 minutes,
until I just hung up in frustration.
Also, I find the installation handbook frustrating overall, with some
minor mistakes (maybe because outdated). This whole experience has colored
my approach to getting this thing off the ground before school starts in a
couple of weeks. Why can't it be a one-liner, instead of a 20-day-er?
Gee, I get the feeling that I am the only person who wants to put up
the absolutely simplest of databases on a VMS operating system. Perhaps
I will eventually learn to be humble, that it is a great product, that
good things require an investment; right now I feel quite different.
--
Brendan Welch, system analyst, UMass/Lowell, W1LPG, wel...@woods.uml.edu
Peter Moore
wel...@woods.uml.edu (Brendan Welch, W1LPG) wrote:
> I have to agree that I, a new user, am dissatisfied with it; so
> dissatisfied that I did not bother to send back the fax form they followed
> up with, to sample my satisfaction.
No offence meant, but isn't that a bit stupid.
How are Oracle supposed to know that you're dissatisfied if you don't
return their form which asks you whether you're satisfied or not?
That's as dumb as being the sort of person who complains about their
Government when they didn't bother voting in the first place.
--
Peter Moore.
DBA, IS Ops,
Sequent Computer Systems Ltd, Weybridge, UK.
Richard Lloyd
In article <1996Aug15.145408.1@aspen>,
wel...@woods.uml.edu (Brendan Welch, W1LPG) writes:
>But they should have an 800 number, and/or an automated system so that
>they obtain the necessary info to call you back, and/or an Internet address.
Here in the UK, they do indeed have a WWW site for customer support:
But they've totally password-protected the WWW server (yes, even the home
page !), meaning you can't find out even how to apply for a username/
password ! Nice one, Oracle - I've phone up Oracle UK to draw their
attention to this problem. No WWW server should have its top-level page
password-protected - at the very least there should be a holding page saying
"You need to be a UK Oracle customer to access this WWW server. To obtain a
username/password, please phone/e-mail/fax...". And *then* they password-
protect the lower levels.
Richard K. Lloyd, E-mail: r...@csc.liv.ac.uk
Connect, WWW: http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/users/rkl/
5-31, Great Newton St,
Liverpool University,
Merseyside, UK. L69 3BX
Tony Noble
In article <1996Aug15.145408.1@aspen>, wel...@woods.uml.edu says...
>
>In article <Dw6L...@boss.cs.ohiou.edu>, aus...@centuryinter.net (A Ustby) writ
>es:
>> Has Oracle support ever been OK?
>>
>> Each time I deal with Oracle support, it seems to get worse.
>>
>> It's hard to believe, because I don't think it could get any worse!!
>>
>> ORACLE SUPPORT IS THE WORST !!!!!!!
>
>dissatisfied that I did not bother to send back the fax form they followed
>up with, to sample my satisfaction.
>
>satisfactory in the past to have Compuserve for general support.
>they obtain the necessary info to call you back, and/or an Internet address.
>
>just so that someone could take my number to call me back.
>As it happened, the info then given to me by a beginner was wrong (well,
>misleading, not quite true at the time, but useful to prevent foulups
>down the road); I can forgive that.
>
>On my second call (paying for it) I was on hold for over 20 minutes,
>until I just hung up in frustration.
>
>Also, I find the installation handbook frustrating overall, with some
>minor mistakes (maybe because outdated). This whole experience has colored
>my approach to getting this thing off the ground before school starts in a
>couple of weeks. Why can't it be a one-liner, instead of a 20-day-er?
>
>Gee, I get the feeling that I am the only person who wants to put up
>the absolutely simplest of databases on a VMS operating system. Perhaps
>I will eventually learn to be humble, that it is a great product, that
>good things require an investment; right now I feel quite different.
>--
>Brendan Welch, system analyst, UMass/Lowell, W1LPG, wel...@woods.uml.edu
Yes, it's bad... however...
They do have an 800 number, but you have to pay for it. You have to buy silver
or gold level support.
They do have an 'automated system' it's called RTSS, 'Real Time Support System'.
For access from a PC you'll need a modem and some form of communications
software, i use crosstalk, but anything in that category should work. The
tricky part is that the RTSS runs under Oracle Forms 2.3 and so you need to
know your keyboard mappings for the various functions.
If your dialing directly from your vax/vms machine it should work with the
key mappings from 2.3.
Call client relations and they can set up your account.
You can actually create and update TAR's with it. It's very handy for checking
on the status of a TAR and for adding more, detailed information to a TAR.
As for staying on hold forever, try calling powersoft for a reality check...
--
Tony Noble
tno...@mt.gov
Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
Brian Martin
Lots of other pipples wrote:
<some good and bad orasupport stuff>
Not that I wanted to add fuel to the fire, but this latest
incident really torqued my bolts. We HAVE silver support
and all it gets you is faster access to the same silly
answers.
Last week....
Whilikers Martin, what are these huge snp processes on our
UNIX box. They're taking up 20MB of RAM!
I dunno boss (me being UNIX by trade and not Oracle) I'll
call Oracle and find out.
Ring Ring
Those are your snapshot processes Mr. Martin. Are you
running distributed server? No. Well you can get rid of
them then. Bye.
<martin edits the init.ora file and removes the reference>
<next day>
AAAHHHH!!!! Our updates are taking forever!
AAAHHHH!!!! My program is not running!
Martin: ooops.
Ring Ring
Hi. Do snapshots have anything to do with dbms_jobs? No?
Okay, how about affecting operations? No, only with DS
options? Okay. Thanks.
<martin searches valiantly for the cosmic principle behind
the sudden problems>
<next day>
same users. same problems.
<martin puts init.ora back together again $ dbstart & >
<next day>
Hooray! no users problems.
Now back here in reality land, the fact is I called Silver
support twice, talked to two different support personnel,
and got the same befuddling answer twice. I have since
undertaken my own research and found out that snapshot
processes are _very_good_things_ and not just for
breakfast anymore.
And for this I pay good money?
bmartin
Brian Martin
David J Roth
Brian Martin wrote:
>
> Lots of other pipples wrote:
> <some good and bad orasupport stuff>
> Not that I wanted to add fuel to the fire, but this latest
> incident really torqued my bolts. We HAVE silver support
> and all it gets you is faster access to the same silly
> answers.
>
> Last week....
>
> Whilikers Martin, what are these huge snp processes on our
> UNIX box. They're taking up 20MB of RAM!
>
> I dunno boss (me being UNIX by trade and not Oracle) I'll
> call Oracle and find out.
>
> Ring Ring
>
> Those are your snapshot processes Mr. Martin. Are you
> running distributed server? No. Well you can get rid of
> them then. Bye.
>
> <martin edits the init.ora file and removes the reference>
> <next day>
> AAAHHHH!!!! Our updates are taking forever!
> AAAHHHH!!!! My program is not running!
> Martin: ooops.
>
Why are they Good?
How do they effect performance?
What are they used for besides dbms_job?
Brian Martin
David J Roth wrote:
> So tell us what you learned about snapshot processes!
> Why are they Good?
> How do they effect performance?
> What are they used for besides dbms_job?
As I mentioned I'M NOT AN ObOracle.dba I'M A ObUNIX.admin.
This stuff is about as clear as mud.
First off, try and look up snp in the indexes of the manuals.
NADA. Snapshot brings more but not much better.
ANAICT, snapshots make things go faster. When you issue a
rollbackable or majorly joined command, snapshots "fix" an
image of the state of the query. Guesswork.
The reality of it was, without snapshots running, a 10 minute
delete or update took hours. In fact, we never ran one to
completion because we kept running out of swap. Go figure.
We do have a rather large dbs tho.
I'd say your questions call for Oracle insider info. Like
one of the programmers or something. This stuff is not
covered in the manuals. Kind of like SENDMAIL: Magic occurs
here...
bmartin