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PSS – Rate IT?

I just wanted to share my experiences of contact with MicroSoft (SQL and OS) support. I have had four experiences and would sadly say that none of them was pleasant. I recently ran into a cluster memory leak issue and was again disappointed with the knowledge and skill levels of the tech I worked with. Except for running some PSS reports stuff and bunch of FTPs, I could not find any real help. Finally we were able to fix the problem ourselves($th time – Ironic or what?). Anyways, I wanted to get some feedback about what others have experienced in this area? Any comments? Thanks.
(moved from Performance Tuning for Hardware Configurations section)
i think PSS 1st level is ok. their main function is to collect information, look for obvious issues, look for any error messages and known issues.
it is also important to have the PSS report kit running before the problem starts and capture the symptoms, otherwise there is nothing for even the escalation staff to do.
there is only so much that a person do remotely, without being onsite to troubleshoot.
Thanks for your feedback.
I am talking about 3rd and 4th level help. In my most recent experience, I have a clusted node with 8 GB RAM each. Just to get the memory dump after making all necessary hacks / Page file location etc, took Microsoft 35 reboots in 2 months to get a memory dump? We were assigned 3 top level OS Enterprise platform techs. Yet another earlier incident in replication made me rebuild the replication from scratch to get going. As I mentioned that its already 4 times now that I did not get a satisfactory support ( I still admire the techs I worked with as they did work hard on the case ) but working hard vs: working smart? I just wonder why Microsoft Gold Partners are much knowledgeable than the actual product designer? Or the design team never gets to help the end user support? Just curious?
I’ve had several really good experiences with the top level support from MS PSS. We had some severe issues at the place I now work. When I got there, we were running on ancient hardware. They were able to look at a lot of the memory dumps and quickly identify definciencies in hardware. In addition, when we switch all the hardware out for a new EMC SAN and HP DL 760’s, they help identify many issues with the EMC and HP hardware that HP and EMC couldn’t quite seem to figure out. We tried to move on SQL Server with Windows 2003 when it first came out. EMC claimed it was compatible with their system. It was painfully not compatible with anything at the time. They’ve since fixed the issues though. MeanOldDBA
[email protected] When life gives you a lemon, fire the DBA.
Good. I am glad to hear that….I guess I needed a little positive reinforcement to get my trust back. I am glad that it all went that way though as I was a beneficiary to get to know intimate details of OS on Kernal / debug issues. Thanks again for the positive feedback
We’ve had good experiences as well with 3rd line support. Most related to hardware issues that they could identify or issues with a specific hot fix.
Same here and many times we are basing on the web search for solution before PSS comes back with an information or solution. If no help on the web then the final resort is awaiting information from PSS. Satya SKJ
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