🚀 go-pugleaf

	Well, it's been a week, so I'm posting snippets of e-mail
I received on the question of purchasing Novell certified machines
for file servers.  The concise summary is that Novell support is
nil unless it's certified, but a local dealer may be able to
support his non-certified machine well enough.

			BEGIN SUMMARY OF MAIL
--
I will ALWAYS buy Novell Certified equipment in the future.  I have had a
problem that has been going on for 5 months; clearly, Novell support was
needed.  Novell began working on the problem for a week or so until one of the
techs said "By the way, what kind of NIC is in the server?".  When I told him
what it was, he looked it up and told me it was not certified.  He then said
"I can no longer work on your problem; put a certified card in the server, get
the problem to repeat and then maybe we will look at it again."

So I got a certified card, got the problem to repeat and called Novell.  They
began working on it again - for a couple of weeks.  Then one day the tech said
"Hey, I just realized your server is not Novell certified; I can no longer work
on your problem.  Get a certified server, get the problem to repeat and then
maybe we will look at it again."

So now all my hardware (in this problem) is certified anyway, and Novell will
talk to me.  It is not clear that non-certified equipment is causing the 
problem, but at least they talk to me.  And the saddest part was that weeks
were wasting because Novell didn't bother checking that it was all certified
to begin with.

By the way, Novell techs are very good; they will coordinate with the vendors
(of certified equipment) so you deal only with Novell, not 7 different vendors
of cards, PCs, hubs ,etc.  Novell will go to the ends of the earth to solve a 
problem -- if your certified.

Local support is great - but it doesn't help if the problem is a software one.

Spend the money, save the time and aggrivation.  It's not pleasant facing an
angry mob of net users...
__

	a) you pay for it, one way or another
	b) especially with mainstream types of machines, there's
		no real problem.
	c) the certification tests only a single configuration and
		does *NOT* test integration of say, a Zenith box
		with a Maxdor drive.
-- 

I wouldn't go with anything but a Novell certified server.

--

Lets just suppose that you have a problem with your server and/or network.
When you call Novell Technical Support they are going to ask you about the
error, the configuration, what brought on the error, etc.  They might ask
you to update drivers and software.  If the problem appears to be hardware
related and you do not have certified hardware they will ask you to swap out
the non-certified hardware for certified hardware.  If you cannot or will not 
do this there is not much chance that they can do anything for you.  Novell
technicians cannot duplicate problems with non-certified hardware.  As far
as a support stand point goes, get the certified hardware.  It will save
you grief in the future.  In fact look for certified hardware from vendors
that are members of the Technical Support Alliance (TSA).  This will insure
that the hardware vendor has a technical support relation ship with Novell
and other hardware and software vendors.

--

Until my server was certified, Novell would often abandon a wierd problem 
blaming it on the server and its lack of certification.  All my servers are 
certified so Novell can't cop quite so easily.
___
[note: Bob referrs to my mythical Bob's Computers outlet]

It depends does Bob have a bunch of the same machines out being used
as file servers.  If Bob is experienced in Novell and is already
using his machines as servers  I wouldn't worry.
So get references from Bob's customers, and
if they love his noname servers, there may be a reason.
--
		END SUMMARY OF MAIL

	Thanks to all who replied.  We're going with the certified
server since it only costs $40 more than the non-certified.  You
would not believe the hoops I've had to jump through to get this
approved!  Apparently support isn't considered a financial issue...

<Dan Sorenson, z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu, viking@iastate.edu, DoD #1066>
< Iowa State University and I have agreed to disagree on most things.>
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