4 ms·

I don't work with Cisco kit but it certainly seems like they are hostile in the support realm. Even if you buy something used and there are software patches ava

I don't work with Cisco kit but it certainly seems like they are hostile in the support realm. Even if you buy something used and there are software patches available for it you can't get them without a support contract for example. Stories like this "something serious is wrong and Cisco says get rid of it" seem fairly common as well. They must be damn amazing at what they do because these support stories would have me looking elsewhere.

psd1 3y ago
The prevailing opinion on /r/networking is that cisco is trading on reputation and position, like a tank rolling forward with all the crew dead. Competitors matched their features years ago and cisco has been unable to innovate due to crippling technical debt in legacy product lines (build system is: find Nancy and ask her to compile with her version of this feature) and glaring deficiencies with their Firepower successor line. That's my potted sentiment analysis, anyway
- Maxburn 3y ago
  I don't think this is wrong. Question is how much time does "nobody gets fired for buying IBM" buy you?
bombcar 3y ago
At least when I was dealing with them, if you DID have a support contract (we had one for our phone system) they would move hell and high water to get it working, whatever it took. Which is why this "we won't do shit no matter what" attitude is a bit surprising; often they'd have a firmware available for long-dead devices that was only available via support (or very sketchy Russian websites).
sliken 3y ago
Heh, I had some Cisco gear, from a company Cisco bought. It would crash under certain conditions. They gave me the "we need a support contract" line. I said I didn't need support and don't need new features. I just wanted it work as advertised, they didn't budge. I emailed a mailing list of other large site admins to not buy Cisco. Next morning I had 2 support folks and an account manager on the phone the next morning, they got me my patch. The idea that you need support for things to work as advertised is insane.
- bombcar 3y ago
  The dirty secret I learned was to find out the name of the firmware file that fixed your issue, and then search for that via various means. The other thing I realized was that our stupid support contract for some dinky router happened to give us access to any firmware file they had if you knew where to look ... I assume they've fixed that second one.
  - Maxburn 3y ago
    I hear they did, but if you know a guy with a support contract on the same model...

psd1 3y ago

The prevailing opinion on /r/networking is that cisco is trading on reputation and position, like a tank rolling forward with all the crew dead. Competitors matched their features years ago and cisco has been unable to innovate due to crippling technical debt in legacy product lines (build system is: find Nancy and ask her to compile with her version of this feature) and glaring deficiencies with their Firepower successor line. That's my potted sentiment analysis, anyway

Maxburn 3y ago
I don't think this is wrong. Question is how much time does "nobody gets fired for buying IBM" buy you?

bombcar 3y ago

At least when I was dealing with them, if you DID have a support contract (we had one for our phone system) they would move hell and high water to get it working, whatever it took. Which is why this "we won't do shit no matter what" attitude is a bit surprising; often they'd have a firmware available for long-dead devices that was only available via support (or very sketchy Russian websites).

sliken 3y ago

Heh, I had some Cisco gear, from a company Cisco bought. It would crash under certain conditions. They gave me the "we need a support contract" line. I said I didn't need support and don't need new features. I just wanted it work as advertised, they didn't budge. I emailed a mailing list of other large site admins to not buy Cisco. Next morning I had 2 support folks and an account manager on the phone the next morning, they got me my patch. The idea that you need support for things to work as advertised is insane.

bombcar 3y ago
The dirty secret I learned was to find out the name of the firmware file that fixed your issue, and then search for that via various means. The other thing I realized was that our stupid support contract for some dinky router happened to give us access to any firmware file they had if you knew where to look ... I assume they've fixed that second one.
- Maxburn 3y ago
  I hear they did, but if you know a guy with a support contract on the same model...