Conference ilbbak::us_sales_service

198.0. "Seen on the Internet" by STAR::NCARR (Talk dates & features - but never together....) Wed Nov 17 1993 08:59

    
    
    The following note appeared on the Internet yesterday (in
    vmsnet.alpha). The last paragraph should be of interest to people in
    sales/services.
    
    (The technical issue with respect to licensing has been resolved. I
    wish the last paragraph could be fix as quickly.....)
    
    
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Article 4 of vmsnet.alpha:
Xref: ryn.mro4.dec.com vmsnet.alpha:4 vmsnet.sysmgt:967
Path: ryn.mro4.dec.com!nntpd.lkg.dec.com!pa.dec.com!decwrl!ames!agate!news.Brown.EDU!news
From: [email protected] (Joel Plutchak)
Newsgroups: vmsnet.alpha,vmsnet.sysmgt
Subject: Clustering an AXP with MicroVAXen
Followup-To: vmsnet.alpha
Date: 16 Nov 1993 15:07:20 GMT
Organization: Brown University Planetary Geology
Lines: 34
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: lager.geo.brown.edu
Summary: What's going on?
Keywords: AXP, VAXcluster


   We just received an AXP workstation, which came preloaded with
OpenVMS 1.5 (and absolutely no software/OS documentation or other media).
The workstation came up OK as a standalone machine.  Upon attempting
to add the machine to our existing local-area VAXcluster, we encountered
a problem.  The symptom is that we can't log onto the workstation after
the cluster configuration, getting a "software not licensed" message when
attempting to log in.  (Is that the OS itself that isn't being seen as
licensed?)
   One thing I've thought about is VMS versions-- we're running 5.4-2 on
the other machines in the cluster (a MicroVAX 3400 and a VAXstation 3520).
Is it mandatory to run something like (at least) 5.5-2 on those machines
in order to cluster an OpenVMS 1.5/AXP system?  Another possibility
that occurs to me is licensing-- we generally depend upon a campuswide
license agreement to run everything.  Is it possible that that set of
licenses doesn't do the trick, and we need something extra?  Oh, yeah--
the VAXstation boots off the MicroVAX, but we expect the AXP to boot
itself (like the VAX 11/750 it replaced).
   I was the one who originally clustered our machines, so I'm at least
a little knowledgeable about the process (who was it who said "a little
knowledge is a dangerous thing" :), but I would not exactly describe
myself as a VMS wizard, so I'd appreciate hearing any ideas as to what
may be wrong with our setup, or what we may have to do to get up and
running as a cluster member.
   (Oh, and DEC won't give us any help, since we bought the machine from
a third-party vendor.  It apparently doesn't matter to them that I did
call my local DEC salesperson, who then gave my name and number to the
vendor, who incidentally has an office and telephone number right in
the local sales office, which made me believe I was still dealing with
DEC.  Good thing DEC is committed to customer support, though, eh?)
--
Joel Plutchak, Research Programmer/Analyst

"It turned out to be, you know, not a pleasant day." - Reginald Denny


    

    So.  What's your point??
    
    Those distributors are supposed to be doing a much larger percent of
    our business and suppose to be well trained.  The probable reason he
    got no support from DEC was that they had no idea of what he ordered,
    etc.  
    
    If they were impolite about it that's another story.
    
    Ken 

If Digital was contacted and did not help this customer get a solution to his 
problem, either directly or indirectly, then we failed to 'do the right thing.'

Blowing off customers or sending them on wild goose chases is not in our best 
interests, regardless of where they purchased our products.

My two cents...

Regards,

Jim Mickol
Xerox Acct Team
Rochester, NY

    re -1
    
    You misunderstood.  If contacted by the customer, the rep should have
    referred him to where the paperwork/order was maintained.  
    
    If this didn't work, he should have gotten involved, but all that
    implies is that the system as defined by our management doesn't work.  
    We (s/r's) continually get lectured that our cost of sales is too high
    and we should be turning more of this work over to other sales
    channels.
    
Ken