Networker: Are there alternatives with better support?

[goony]

I'm ready to throw in the towel... I'm too beat up and bruised to take this much longer.

I'm fairly happy with the V7.3.2 product, but the EMC support is so s-l-o-w and unresponsive - I basically have a dead backup server at the moment because of the EMC licensing people sending a bogus enabler code for V7.3 Update over a month ago; I went to use it and <sputter><cough><wheeze>.

I log a call saying my server is totally down, the techs refer me to licensing department which only goes to a voicemail. Oh, and the ticket is logged as an "S2" status, so it's not on the radar as hot priority.

I'll leave out the attempts to access the support website that has magically become (gasp) "EMC Powerlink" and has been "Sorry, site down for maintenance" off and on for the past 10 hours.

What other comparable networked backup products are out there that have decent support? Tivoli of some flavor? Veritas? I need to be able to run on a Solaris-based system and be able to touch many of the knobs via shell scripts - I cannot have a GUI-only solution.
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I guess as a former support engineer I'm sensitive to such things... but there are good support orgainizations out there - one such product/company is Secure Computing and their Sidewinder firewalls - great product and TOP NOTCH support staff that is totally professional, responsible and responsive.

 

[605]

This is just bad dur to several reasons:
- there is only 1 update enabler worldwide
- it is the same for ALL systems.
- As you must register it anyway, they finally should make it public ... and they still do not loose anything.

Run "nsrcap -nvv -c <enabler>". This should tell you which one you have. On a NetWorker 7.3 system it should come up with something like "NetWorker update enabler for 7.3". If you have a support contract, they should have given you the enabler right away.

Run the command, give them the info and force them to respond to the problem immediately. If not, cc sales or even better, your (partner's) sales manager. This will help.

 

[goony]

Here is the output (including spelling error) - I've obfuscated part of the output:

[tt]Read an enabler:
name: Update for NetWorker 7.3 (manufactoring code unknown)
enabler code: xxxxxx-xxxxxx-54605f (yyyyyyyyy)
license type: U9
demo days: 45 days[/tt]

It's the enabler code that I found among the EMC online V7.3 docs in a .pdf file.

For some reason, I never received the permanent code - no surprise as I've never received any official updates anyway.

We have a support contract, but the path it takes between my company and EMC is not a straigh one - some brainchild in our purchasing department was able to save a few pennies by buying EMC support from a reseller - that reseller, in turn, buys it from another reseller, who then buys it from EMC. We've lost far more than the money saved in terms of frustration, phone calls, etc. And this happens every year, despite my complaints to the money handlers. We give the reseller a big chunk of $$$ and we never hear anything after that until we need support, then it takes a week or two of emails and phone calls to get it all straightened out as we are coded wrong (or not at all) in the EMC support database.

So that's why I never receive any official media or updates; they are probably at the bottom of some desk drawer at one of the reseller offices.

 

[goony]

All fine now - finally got in touch with a knowledgeable person in licensing that sent me the auth code to make the enabler permanent. Without the auth code it is merely a temporary enabler.

He was able to give me auth code despite the "licensing system being down".

 

[goony]

Gee, there's a ready answer to "what are some alternatives to Legato Networker?" right here:

http://www.tek-tips.com/threadforum.cfm?lev3=49

 

[605]

Just to clarify the facts:
- ALL enablers are 'temp' enablers - they ALL work for 45 days
- There is no technical difference between a bought enabler and a temp enabler (aka 'loaner' or 'evaluation enabler')
- The difference is that you can not register a temp enabler. So you will never receive an auth code.