FWSM problems

For over 6 months now we have had two serious problems with our FWSMs. One was recently cleared with a slightly nervewracking OS upgrade (we're really not wild about versions that end in 0) but the other is not fixed. You'll notice I am being deliberately light on detail here. We do have open cases with Cisco but they are finding it difficult to diagnose the problem.

If there is anyone else out there who will a) admit to having FWSMs (they seem to be fairly rare) and b) will admit to having any problems with them then I'd be very happy to compare notes.

Thanks,

Sam Wilson Network Team, IT Infrastructure Information Services, The University of Edinburgh Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Reply to
Sam Wilson
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FWSM's are not widely used and I guessing that Cisco has only a few hundred customers. This is a niche product (for Cisco) that it is a mediocre product, priced at a premium as if it were "best in breed". This is true of all of Cisco's blade application servers including the ACE.

I'm sure Cisco will solve your problem, but you need to make sure you have everyone hammering them to solve it. Get you sales team and your reseller in the loop, and ask to setup a conference call with everyone including the TAC and developement engineers. The squeaky wheel gets the grease! Good Luck!

Reply to
Thrill5

"Art of dealing with Cisco TAC" ISBN

Joking aside - if you have legitimate problem and getting run around from TAC, there is only one solution. Escalate.

I don't run FWSM in a production (on account of not having a production environment). But I deal with them from time to time. If you would care to share details...

Regards, Andrey.

Reply to
Andrey Tarasov

As already said, but maybe another voice won't hurt:-

TAC does work, but sometimes it needs a bit of direction as to your requirements. Obviousy there is a bit of politics involved as there is with any human interaction but if you have something that is demonstrably not working they will get to the bottom of it. In a genuine case the development team have to get involved if the TAC engineers cannot figure it out.

Your job is to present to them a repeatable problem that they can work with.

It can be worth checking that your case is not "customer pending" if you don't think it should be. I have been caught out by the off-hand remark "I'll check this other bit out after hours today" with the expectation that TAC and myself would work in parallel since I had given them plenty to go on. i.e. A repeatable behaviour with a clear anomaly pertinant to a communications failure. Instant - "customer pending" - since I offered to do more work on the problem:-) You just have to explain that you think they should get on with it and they do.

As Andrey said there is a bit of an Art to getting what you want from TAC.

Reply to
bod43

TAC is lazy to work.You have to make them work. If your problem is genuine CISCO will drill down to the end and clear the situation/issues to you. Don't wait for them to contact you, just give them a browse every hour, if your is production environment.

Reply to
CK

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