Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!goanna!minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au!s900387 From: s900387@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Craig Macbride) Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp Subject: Installation slackness Keywords: slack unlucky pathetic Message-ID: <1991May26.110956.4445@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au> Date: 26 May 91 11:09:56 GMT Distribution: comp Organization: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia Lines: 64 I might as well put this little story in chronological order, to make things easiest to follow. A part of Australia's Telecom (which owns some proportion of HP's Australian operations) for which I am currently part of a team doing some development work has an HP9000/822 running HP/UX 7.02. This machine is being used for testing and developing software at present. Our first important request to HP for support was solved. When we had another software problem, concerning the HP implementation of NCS, we were politely informed that we should contact a particular contractor, as he'd know better than them!!!! This problem remains to this day, as nobody at HP here or on the net seems to know anything about NCS. When this project was started, our HP contact told us a software guy would be available full-time for it. This person subsequently didn't turn up, and we later learned he would not be available because he was giving courses. Nobody had informed us of this, however. Rumour has it that HP then said he could be obtained after he had finished with the courses for something like $2000 per day. Anyway, as the original machine has certain undesireable setup characteristics (like a single hard disk partition), HP was asked to send someone out with the machines which will be put into the production site to load the O/S and set the machine up properly. Last Thursday, the first of the new 822s appeared. It was silently delivered to us with no comment from HP as to when/whether any support person would be arriving. A phone call on Friday to HP brought us the response that someone would come out that afternoon. When the HP engineer arrived, he unpacked the machine, loaded software onto it, and left. During the course of his stay we learned that: 1. The machine had a single 508MB root partition. 2. The machine had no O/S tape with it, so it was impossible for it to be re-partitioned to something approaching a sensible setup. 3. The operating system could always be loaded off the older machine's tape. (... though it is not the same version.) 4. HP/UX verion 8 is out, but we received 7.08 on this "new" machine. What concerns me is that HP are sending out machines with an incredibly bad setup, when they've been explicitly asked to set the machine up properly, and that they are sending out machines in the guise of being new, while they have an out of date operating system installed. Scheduling of work demands that we start work on the machine immediately, so a total reload of the operating system, repartitioning of the disk and upgrade to version 8 will be rather time-consuming, particularly since it will mean all our testing will have to be done again after things get put right. Is it normal practice overseas for HP to behave this way, or just here? Or is it just a special contempt which HP Australia holds Telecom in as they know they are guaranteed of sales no matter how bad their support is? Disclaimer: I am not an employee of either Telecom or HP. I am employed by ESA, who are in turn one of the companies being contracted by Telecom on this project. I speak not for any of the companies concerned, just for myself and other individuals in the project team, who are becoming more and more disgusted with HP as time goes on. -- _--_|\ Craig Macbride / \ \_.--.*/ v