If We'd Known Then...

"If we'd known then, what we know now"...what would be different?  Thinking back on products and technologies of the past, if you had known more, what would you have done differently?
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Looking at some things we've done, I might have decided differently on these few.  Just to clarify, I think these are all good products.  I'm just questioning if they are the right products, or best products, for our needs, so please don't hear this as a bad report on any.

Astaro firewall.  We went live on the Astaro in December 2005.  It's been good.  However, it's taken a lot of work to get it "right," the reporting is far from trivial, and the support is a bit lacking.  Overall, I don't see that it's gained us much over, for instance, a SonicWall.  When it comes time for our next major maintenance contract, it will be hard to write that next check.

IBM 4300 SAN.  When we did VMware back in August 2005, iSCSI wasn't a supported option, so we went with a "real" SAN, the IBM 4300.  This is a nice SAN.  Fiber Channel.  Dual everything.  Fiber Channel even for the disk drives.  What that means is EXPENSIVE!  300GB drives are over $2k.  It has been a great SAN.  We just don't want to spend more to add to it, so it's time to consider replacing it.  Ouch.

Lenovo desktops, notebooks.  We had used Dell for years, and a few years ago when Dell's service started slipping, badly, we moved to Lenovo.  For a while, things were great.  Well...the honeymoon is clearly over.  Lenovo, you had us, and you could have kept us forever.  But, alas, it's time for us to go elsewhere.  HP?  Back to Dell?  Bueller?

Citrix.  This really was the right answer when we implemented it, back in 2003 I think.  Just a few months ago, we made the switch to Provision Networks, and I'm pretty sure that's a "more" right answer.  Could we have selected Provision Net years back?  Probably not.

Level Platforms.  We've been using a monitoring solution from Level Platforms for years.  It mostly works.  Except for this annoying little problem -- some of the times when the things fail that it's supposed to be monitoring, it doesn't tell us.  Now, it's certainly conceivable that my team is a bunch of idiots and can't figure out how to make it work.  Or...maybe it's just a bit too hard to configure.  I think I'll go with the latter.  (A new solution is in the works, soon.  Hopefully John will be telling us about that), although the new baby is probably keeping him busy right now)

NeoWare (now HP) WinTerms.  We tried out a lot of WinTerms at the beginning of our Citrix implementation - Wyse, of course, some clones, some other brands I no longer remember, but we finally settled on the NeoWare Linux-based devices.  One of the great features was the internal power supply that didn't require a brick.  Well...in retrospect, there's good reason why nearly everyone else uses a brick.  The failure rate on the NeoWare units is pretty high around the 2-3 year time period.  So much for our anticipated 5+ year life span.

Desktop Authority (vs. ScriptLogic)  We love ScriptLogic!  When it came time for our first maintenance renewal, we stepped up to Desktop Authority.  Seemed like a good idea, but surprisingly (our bad!), we hardly use the extra features.

to be continued...  "things were we still don't know NOW"

Do you have any "wish we'd done something else" stories?

Comments

[Richard Dolan]

Re. Desktops & Laptops, I've heard of Dell, HP, & Lenovo, but what's a Bueller?? :-D

[Jason Powell]

We dumped all our Lenovo Thinkpads and went back to Dell Latitudes ... much easier to support and fewer issues.

[Clif Guy]

Any "wish we'd done something else" stories? Are you kidding me? The only people who wouldn't have such stories haven't been doing this very long. How about a $10,000 Cisco VPN concentrator bought in 2002? How about desktop management software called iNode for $6,000 bought in early 2006 and never fully implemented? How about this, that, and the other multifunction laser printer until we finally settled on the HP 3055 and got happy? These stories can go on nearly endlessly!

[Nick Nicholaou]

We began looking elsewhere in 2004 because of Dell's failing notebook quality, tried something else (short-lived), and came back to Dell. They've improved things, and the quality's back. Yea!

[Mark]

Tony,

Sorry to hear Lenovo let you down. Any chance for redemption?
Repent, Redeem, Reboot?

If not, I'd still like to learn a bit more about what WE might have done differently. Thanks for sharing.

Mark

[Daniel Koster]

Have you considered buying locally for computers? I've been in the IT business for 11 years now and switched from one company to another because the support and durability is always great on the first purchase, and not so great by the second.

I considered building my own boxes but decided to give Vision Computers a chance and have been very happy with them. You get quality parts and a local address to drive to when you need to swap failed hardware out.

[Tony Dye]

==> Mark. Thanks for your note, but honestly, I think we've given this enough of a try. Here's what one of my guys said in response to your comment: "I think I've given my opinion to too many Lenovo people with no acknowledgements nor response so I think it's time to put it to rest and let the guy know if he really wants to know what our hang-ups were, I can find the names of the people that should have an email from me stating the issues we had with their service."

So, thanks, but no thanks. We've moved on...

I'm expecting we're not alone, based on other comments.

[Tony Dye]

==> Daniel: Yes, I've *considered* it many times, but not acted on it, recently. We used a local clone vendor for many years, and were quite happy. Until one day when they suddenly ceased to exist! Vision is probably a notch or two above that status, and maybe I should give them another look. Thanks for the prodding.

[Bob Crosley]

Tony,
Saw your note on Desktop Authority vs. the original ScriptLogic product. I'm the product manager for Desktop Authority at ScriptLogic, and I'd like to talk more to you about your reactions to the new features. Not a sales call, just wanting to get more details on your thoughts. Could you shoot me an email and we can set up a time to talk?

Thanks,
Bob Crosley
Senior Product Manager, Desktop Management
ScriptLogic Corporation

[Tony Dye]

==> Bob: We'd be happy to have that conversation. Please understand, we don't have any negatives about DA, we just haven't used it well. Our problem, not yours! None-the-less, we'd love to have the conversation.