On Sat, 17 Jul 1999, Thomas D. Wilkinson wrote:
>
> How well does IBM support DB2?
>
> > I certainly won't contest this! Yes, Oracle Support sucks in general. I
> > have never called Oracle Support because if I can't find the answer myself
> > (among the various databases for such things), then they won't be much help
> > either. Unfortunately this seems to be normal for Big Corporate Support.
...
This verges on off topic, but while I don't have any specific knowlege of
DB2 support issues I have *lots* of experience dealing with IBM tech support
in a wide range of other contexts.
First you will get next to NOTHING if you don't have your I's dotted and
T's crossed on the appropriate licences and support contracts. But once you've
gotten your problem number you WILL get the callback from their TS people.
Generally their knowlege at level one can be wildly variable from the
'trained monkey' to very good. BUT they will work with you to solve your
problem and will promote you to "level two" as soon as it's obviously needed.
On the very rare occasions its been necessary I've had incidents promoted all
the way back to the actual developers actively maintaining the code. As said
before - you will have your problem solved (assuming it's really within IBM's
purview and you persistantly and sometimes very tediously give them the
information they request - and while this too is wildly variable I've had
incidents where IBM's people have gone well beyond the call of duty to
identify a specific problem in and interaction between their product and
a vendor's product [albeit the other vendor was an IBM "Business partner"]
when the problem was obviously with the vendor code).
But IBM is a *HUGE* company and if a problem require support past (and
depending on circumstances at) level two it can take days and (rarely)
weeks. But you will get the support you're paying that big money for:
whether it's worth it is almost purely a business decision.
With MySQL it's very rare I can't find the resolution to a technical
problem in the mailing list archives and when I must ask it's enormously
helpful that other MySQL users have likely encountered and solved the same
problem are on the list and will respond, and equally so that Monty, Sasha
and other developers usually respond themselves within a day and sometimes
within an hour. (OTOH MySQL is *tiny* in terms of LOC and other interactions
compared to most of the IBM products for which I've required support).
-- TWZ
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