[Beowulf] Repeated Dell SC1435 crash / hang. How to get the vendor to resolve the issue when 20% of the servers fail in first year?

[Gerry Creager]

Rahul Nabar wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 12:08 PM, Gerry Creager <gerry.creager at tamu.edu> wrote:
>> Yep.  When the hardware arrives, and is installed (at $5K or more/rack!),
>> the bill is due.  Acceptance testing?  No way.  And if we choose to run
>> something silly like Rocks/CentOS, there's a question of support (even
>> hardware), too.
>>
> 
> I wonder if any vendors follow the exchanges on the Beowulf list! :)
> They could grab more tips about customer satisfaction than those
> surveys they keep sending me after every interaction.
> 
Yes, they do, and I know some of the better Dell employees are cringing. 
  This is a corporate thing, not a shot at the guys who work for Dell. 
Some of the sales guys (not the engineering support: I've never had them 
blow smoke at me) seem to want to remind us poor little University folks 
that, as was pointed out earlier, HPC's not a big part of their revenue 
stream.

I've had several Dell folks let their management know my feelings, but 
as near as I can tell, it's never gotten back to the sales folks we deal 
with, so little changes.

gerry