Hardware Maintenance
Craig Reno
Has anyone had experience with 3rd-party DEC hardware support. We're in
the St. Louis area and would like to consider alternatives to what we
feel is rather pricey service. I've heard the Bell Atlantic and IBM (?)
are offering multivendor support, but would like to have other opinions
from peer system managers if possible.
Any help is appreciated...
Craig
Pudge
Ok..here's another opinion...from the field...of field service!
The BEST bargain U can get is to obtain service from the MANUFACTURER.
And I'll tell you why:
1. The third party people can't begin to be as knowledgable on the equipment
as the people who built it.
a. they have no access to update announcements re hardware changes.
b. they do not have diagnostic test routines(the proprietary ones) that
shake out the indepth bugs.
c. most parts you will receive are removed from junk equipment set aside
for scavaging purposes.
d. parts that are bought from orig mfgr do not get high priority by the
orig mfgr...as in shipping whenever.
e parts installed in ur equip prob will not be latest(updates missing),
you may have bugs actually installed in yr equip.
f. there is no support org for your guy to call for assist..an they sure
can't call the factory(ok maybe they hired 1 guy from orig mfgr for
support..but the day they hired him...his knowledge was frozen)
g. technical books(and revisions) probably won't be avail to your guy,
except some cursory overview training stuff composed by few people's
memory that they hired from orig mfgr.
2. The economy of third party maint is a joke...U get what U pay for!
Ibm goes out an bids on Dec maint...at 30% off Dec's price, an Dec
bids on IBM eq maint...at 30% off IBM prices...so you save money,an
so does your neighbor...really??
What U have is 2 engineers that don't know squat about fixing ur
broken computer..or ur neighbors...But THEY WON'T let U know that.
U see the TRAINING is in BS'ing the customer...not in fixing the eq.
An..U know what U have done...reduced revenue to the mfgr field support
so it can't function as well either..so quality service goes down
for everybody...and the whole industry. Who do U think chases down
those screwy bugs that happen 5 times a month to customers in 5 different
countries...THE ORIGINAL mfgr...and that takes MONEY...and that makes
for a quality product...now and in the future.
Suppose ur third party guy is not interested in continuing yr contract?
Will the mfgr pick up maint again...sure they will! But first YOU will
pay to have all eq brought up to current mod level and satisfactory
operation. And this is BIG money in most cases.
If you are talking terminals/printers(table top stuff), U can do the
same thing third party people do...put the thing in a box and send it
to one of several companies that specialize in mail in maint of selected
mfgr stuff..All they are doing for U is shipping the stuff anyway, U can
that yourself.
Bottom line is.......If U have IBM,,get IBM to fix it,if U have DEC, get
DEC to fix it....
If ya wanna try one on for size...trade jobs with your neighbor that
has an IBM sys for couple days...an see how lost YOU are in a foreign
environment.
It's hard enough to keep up with fixing/modifying our own stuff an we
make it...so how ya gonna keep up with 5 other mfgr stuff too.
YA can't...that's the answer!
Only way this works is if very old (mature eq) an ya got a lot of
redundant equipment so ur not real dependant on any 1 item. An yr
paycheck isn't printed on it.
So much for the soapbox...I been needing to say this to someone!
Hope lot of people THINK before jumping ship of MANUFACTURER.
Pudge...@ 30 years in this business.
Brian Tillman
In article <5LAsyg...@delphi.com>, pu...@delphi.com says...
>
> Bottom line is.......If U have IBM,,get IBM to fix it,if U have DEC, get
> DEC to fix it....
Funny. Digital has been successfully repairing our Sun and IBM and Gateway
and Dell and Compaq and Apple and Digital equipment for a year now.
--
-----------------------------+--------------------------------
Brian Tillman | Internet: til...@swdev.si.com
Smiths Industries, Inc. | tillma...@si.com
4141 Eastern Ave., MS239 | Hey, I said this stuff myself.
Grand Rapids, MI 49518-8727 | My company has no part in it.
-----------------------------+--------------------------------
Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.
In article <5LAsyg...@delphi.com>, Pudge <pu...@delphi.com> writes:
> Ok..here's another opinion...from the field...of field service!
> The BEST bargain U can get is to obtain service from the MANUFACTURER.
> And I'll tell you why:
Are you sure you don't work for DEC?
> 1. The third party people can't begin to be as knowledgable on the equipment
> as the people who built it.
The people who built it aren't accessable to the DEC service people, and in
many areas the people who come when you call DEC for service aren't even DEC
people, but temporary/contract employees of an outside service firm. The ex-
pertise, such as it is, is concentrated in DEC's support centers, and some
3rd-party providers have their own support centers, or buy that service from
DEC.
> a. they have no access to update announcements re hardware changes.
Not true. Anyone can purchase field change update notices (DEC-O-LOG) or
the complete FCO texts and fiche/CD-ROM libraries (MDS). Many service
providers do so. Likewise for FCO kits. If the FCO is for a safety or
functionality issue, DEC is required to perform it for both end users
*and* 3rd-party providers, as long as the equipment is shipped to them.
> b. they do not have diagnostic test routines(the proprietary ones) that
> shake out the indepth bugs.
Newer DEC processors have all their diagnostics on-board, while the diags
for the older processors have been re-implemented (for example, the PARSE
diags for the 78x and 86x0 are equal to or better than the DEC ones).
> c. most parts you will receive are removed from junk equipment set aside
> for scavaging purposes.
For older systems, that may well be the case - where is anyone, DEC in-
cluded, going to find RP06 disk drive heads these days? Non-mechanical parts
don't wear out, and if they're up to rev, I have no problem with used parts.
Buying a brand new system and cutting it up for parts may well be cheaper
than buying spares from DEC for brand-new systems.
Oh, and a little anecdote about DEC - I had some DECserver 200 (DSRVB)
fans go bad, and since they were riveted to the fan tray, had a special
power connector, and were a custom-for-DEC variant, I decided to buy 4
"new" fan trays from DEC. I received 4 scavenged fan trays, of which 2
didn't turn at all and 1 was incredibly noisy, for the spectacular price
of $53 per fan tray (2 fans). I told DEC they could take them back if they
couldn't get new ones (they couldn't, so they took 'em back) and I bought
brand new fans from Nidec (the same vendor that DEC used) for $6 per fan
($12 per tray).
> d. parts that are bought from orig mfgr do not get high priority by the
> orig mfgr...as in shipping whenever.
Not sure what you mean here, though if you mean customer/reseller spares
don't get the same priority as internal spares, I think you're mistaken -
and you (or your service provider) can always buy spares from DEC Field
Service instead of DECdirect if the need is urgent.
> e parts installed in ur equip prob will not be latest(updates missing),
> you may have bugs actually installed in yr equip.
I've had worse problems with DEC - I had a PDP-11/44 on 24x7 DECsupport
and DEC couldn't get a working spare board that was up to rev for over 2
weeks!
DEC has a problem in that they demand more "productivity" from their FS
people while giving them less time for non-service tasks. As an example,
spares kits are supposed to be given out sealed by Logistics, and the FS
tech is supposed to swap boards until the problem is found, then make sure
all the kit boards are back in the kit and the customer's boards back in
the system (except for the bad board) and the bad board tagged for Logis-
tics. However, the customer is in a hurry to get the system up (what do
you mean, it's working but it'll be another 45 minutes?) and the FS tech
is getting paged to go to another call *right* *now*, so the customer's
other boards (which might have problems and are probably out of rev) are
in the Logistics kit along with the bad board. When the tech gets a few
minutes a week later to clean the kit to return it, he doesn't remember
which board was bad, so now a kit goes back with bad and out-of-rev boards
in it, and Logistics is so overworked that they don't check it either be-
fore they re-seal it and it goes to another tech. This is the root of the
joke that goes: "Q: How many DEC FS techs does it take to change a tire?
A: It depends on how many flats they brought with them!".
> f. there is no support org for your guy to call for assist..an they sure
> can't call the factory(ok maybe they hired 1 guy from orig mfgr for
> support..but the day they hired him...his knowledge was frozen)
For a period of about 6 months, every time I would call for DEC service
I would get a new tech, who'd introduce himself as my new regular tech
because the previous tech got laid off. Finally the manager was laid off.
I'm now a Maintech service customer and I have the *same* people fixing
my systems as I had when I had DEC, while other sites still using DEC are
telling me horror stories of high school graduate-level board swappers
who are paid as temps by DEC to do service.
> g. technical books(and revisions) probably won't be avail to your guy,
> except some cursory overview training stuff composed by few people's
> memory that they hired from orig mfgr.
See a. above. This material is available to anyone (and if it wasn't,
we'd have a Justice Department action like the one that forced IBM to be
more open).
> 2. The economy of third party maint is a joke...U get what U pay for!
> Ibm goes out an bids on Dec maint...at 30% off Dec's price, an Dec
> bids on IBM eq maint...at 30% off IBM prices...so you save money,an
> so does your neighbor...really??
> What U have is 2 engineers that don't know squat about fixing ur
> broken computer..or ur neighbors...But THEY WON'T let U know that.
> U see the TRAINING is in BS'ing the customer...not in fixing the eq.
Bull! If you do nothing else, go get bids from a bunch of 3rd-party
providers and show them to DEC at renewal time. At the least, they'll
match these bids and you'll save money, though I honestly think that you
will get better service (at least in Northern NJ) with some 3rd-party
providers. Of course, there are some turkeys out there too...
> An..U know what U have done...reduced revenue to the mfgr field support
> so it can't function as well either..so quality service goes down
> for everybody...and the whole industry. Who do U think chases down
> those screwy bugs that happen 5 times a month to customers in 5 different
> countries...THE ORIGINAL mfgr...and that takes MONEY...and that makes
> for a quality product...now and in the future.
DEC has killed their own field support with layoffs - it wasn't just cus-
tomers being dissatisfied and going elsewhere.
As far as oddball bugs, in 1984 (during DEC's prosperous period) I found
a bug in the PDP-11/44 logic - a series of valid instructions would put the
CPU in a state where it wouldn't detect invalid instructions, so any user
could crash the program. I had a test case that was 100% reproducable in
about 5 minutes execution time. DEC was unable to find anyone to work the
problem, despite the 11/44 being a new and "well-supported" product on 24x
7 DECsupport.
At the same time, I had an IBM 3138 CPU (System 370/Model 138) which had
been obsolete for about 10 years at that time. It had a non-reproducable
intermittent problem that happened maybe once a week, and was on the cheap-
est possible IBM service. After 3 days of troubleshooting, IBM sent the
original designer of the machine to our site and he found the problem in
about 15 minutes.
These examples certainly demonstrate the extremes of the various possibil-
ities, but are actual real-world examples.
We no longer have IBM equipment, but our experience with DEC service shows
that DEC has gone downhill from there. There are cases where I've had out-
standing tech support (hardware and software) but the techs told me that they
did this because they were interested in the problem and that management
would be upset because they didn't close the call out in a few minutes.
> Suppose ur third party guy is not interested in continuing yr contract?
> Will the mfgr pick up maint again...sure they will! But first YOU will
> pay to have all eq brought up to current mod level and satisfactory
> operation. And this is BIG money in most cases.
Not necessarily. You should write into your 3rd-party contract that they
are responsible for all FCO's and any re-certification needed by DEC if you
change back to DEC.
Being a school, we receive lots of donated DEC gear, ranging from very
old to less than 6 months old. I can say that the most out-of-rev, badly-
documented systems were the ones under DEC maintenance.
I was given 2 PDP-11/70's and peripherals by Citibank in 1988 because
DEC moved them from one facility to another and couldn't make them work
after *months* of labor. DEC refused to work on them under contract be-
cause the other *DEC* office let them get out of rev. [I managed to fix
them in about 2 weeks of puttering around. I've also designed some of my
own 11/70 FCO's - if you use the DECUServe conferencing system, do a
search for some of them].
> So much for the soapbox...I been needing to say this to someone!
> Hope lot of people THINK before jumping ship of MANUFACTURER.
I hope I've presented a userful opposing viewpoint. DEC makes some very
good hardware (I've had a VAX 4000-700A for about 3 years that's never
had a problem) but they have pricing and attitude problems, and their
service isn't very good, especially considering the price they ask.
Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing
te...@spcvxa.spc.edu St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA
+1 201 915 9381 (voice) +1 201 435-3662 (FAX)
Ron Natalie
Brian Tillman wrote:
>
> In article <5LAsyg...@delphi.com>, pu...@delphi.com says...
> >
> > Bottom line is.......If U have IBM,,get IBM to fix it,if U have DEC, get
> > DEC to fix it....
>
> Funny. Digital has been successfully repairing our Sun and IBM and Gateway
> and Dell and Compaq and Apple and Digital equipment for a year now.
Funny, Digital was never able to successfully repair our DEC equipment
when
I was working for the BRL, we pretty much banished them from our machine
room after a couple of unfortunate incidents (shortly there after are
headache
CE managed to banish her self by shocking her self on one of the VAX
power
supplies).
At other places (Martin and Rutgers) we managed to rate or otherwise
cultivate an on-site CE that actually could do a good job.
-Ron
Jerry Leslie
Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr. (te...@spcvxb.spc.edu) wrote:
[ snip ]
: I hope I've presented a userful opposing viewpoint. DEC makes some very
: good hardware (I've had a VAX 4000-700A for about 3 years that's never
: had a problem) but they have pricing and attitude problems, and their
: service isn't very good, especially considering the price they ask.
A friend whose company does 3rd party DEC maintenance as a sideline
for some of their customers says that they've gotten the maintenance
contracts because DEC has centralized spare parts, so parts must be
ordered from a depot, usually increasing downtime by a day.
--Jerry,
Gerald (Jerry) R. Leslie Aspen Technology, Inc. (my opinions are my own)
jerry....@aspentech.com jle...@dmccorp.com gle...@isvsrv.enet.dec.com
Pudge
Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr. <te...@spcvxb.spc.edu> writes:
> Are you sure you don't work for DEC?
> The people who built it aren't accessable to the DEC service people, and in
calls..but a defficult prob will get the MSEE guys on site.
>and you (or your service provider) can always buy spares from DEC Field
>Service instead of DECdirect if the need is urgent.
use of contract customers only...and rightly so I believe.
> Bull! If you do nothing else, go get bids from a bunch of 3rd-party
>providers and show them to DEC at renewal time. At the least, they'll
>match these bids and you'll save money, though I honestly think that you
>will get better service (at least in Northern NJ) with some 3rd-party
>providers. Of course, there are some turkeys out there too...
in the industry goes down since there is less revenue to support field
service. It is a short term solution for older eq.
Pudge
>been obsolete for about 10 years at that time. It had a non-reproducable
>intermittent problem that happened maybe once a week, and was on the cheap-
>est possible IBM service. After 3 days of troubleshooting, IBM sent the
>original designer of the machine to our site and he found the problem in
>about 15 minutes.
expected to do..that's why U pay a premium. I was addressing comments
to the industry(mfgrs) not necessarily Dec.
> I hope I've presented a userful opposing viewpoint. DEC makes some very
and wasen't talking about desktop pc's maint. although most points would
apply as well.
regards
Pudge...the other side of the fence view.