13. Service Request (SR) Handling and Escalation

13.1 Case Handling

VDURA addresses all customer and partner related technical questions for products under valid entitlement and/or current support contracts using our SR process.

• TSEs open and update SRs, while you use the Support Portal or the toll-free phone support line.
• All phone conversations, case updates, emails, and remote troubleshooting sessions are documented using the SR process. You receive an email copy of all updates and can review the entire case history at any time using the portal.
• Once VDURA and the customer or partner agree the issue is resolved, we will close the case.

SR Resolution Flow

1. You submit a new SR through the Support Portal or by calling the toll-free phone number. Both are available 24x7.
2. VDURA Customer Service creates the SR and performs the initial triage and assignment. A Level 2 TSE does this for direct customers, and a Level 1 partner does this for customers supported through a partner.
3. A Level 2 TSE troubleshoots the issue with you.
4. If needed, a Level 3 TSE provides advanced troubleshooting for internal technical escalations. Level 2 and Level 3 TSEs work together.
5. If the issue requires it, Level 4 hardware and software engineering gets involved for SRs that need bug fixes, and a Solution Architect is dispatched for onsite troubleshooting.
6. VDURA and you update the SR, or VDURA issues an RMA.
7. When the issue is resolved, we close the SR.

At any point, you can ask for an escalation, which brings in more senior staff on a set schedule (see 13.4).

13.2 Priority Levels

The priority you set when you open an SR reflects the impact of the issue on your environment. The levels and their descriptions are in 8.4.

13.3 Response Times

After an SR has been submitted to VDURA, the next steps are directed by VDURA service level response commitments. Our commitments are designed to help the Customer Service team drive SRs to a prompt conclusion. The first objective is either to answer the initial call immediately or provide a call back within 15 minutes. Should you submit an SR through the portal, you should expect immediate confirmation that the case was successfully logged into our case management system. Our follow-on service level responses, timeliness of the initial technical contact, SR update frequency, and troubleshooting efforts are dependent on the SR priority and SR status categories below:

13.4 Service Request Escalations

Should you feel that an SR is not progressing in a reasonable fashion towards closure for either technical or case management reasons, you may request an escalation of the case.

• Escalation of SRs can be done through the portal or by calling the Customer Service phone line. Once an escalation occurs, the event is logged into the case and the VDURA management team will contact you to develop a detailed plan of action to drive the SR to closure.
• When a customer initiates an SR escalation, the SR is updated to reflect this fact and the following processes are followed:

13.5 Gathering Troubleshooting Information

There are two main commands VDURA Technical Support uses to gather initial troubleshooting information: sysstat all and collect_logs. Both of these commands are issued using PanCLI, the VDURA Command Line Interface. Both commands also have equivalents in the VDURA Management Console GUI.

• sysstat all: Provides an overall VDURA system summary. Examples of output include director node CPU utilization, OSD disk and CPU utilization, node status, bladeset information, volume information, network configuration, gateway services, and current warnings and errors.
• collect_logs: Gathers a set of debugging data for a single node, a subset of nodes, or the entire system, if required. The data is automatically combined into a single file (.tar) and compressed (.zip). This single file can then be uploaded to VDURA Technical Support for analysis. If the collect_logs command is issued on an RM repset member node, it will automatically generate and include a sysstat all output and logs/cores for the last seven days. As it contains powerful filtering capabilities, issuing collect_logs ? at the [pancli] prompt will list all available options for this command.

Any single log file or sysstat all output can be attached to your SR, as long as the file is under 5 MB in size. Any file greater than 5 MB in size must be uploaded to our uploads logs server. Available protocols for upload are SCP, FTP, and HTTPS. Our TSEs will provide you all the information needed (server names, login names, and passwords) to access the uploads server. This is a “jailed environment”, therefore simple commands will not work if used (for example, ls and cat). Since collect_logs uses the realm name and a timestamp in the resulting logs filename, giving the logs a custom name is usually not necessary.

Details for each of these file transfer methods are available in the knowledge base article “How Do I Upload Large Files?” (article 244198).

13.6 Feature Requests

On occasion, a Service Request will turn into a customer’s desire for a new product feature. At this stage, VDURA will change the SR status to Feature Request and it will be forwarded to our Product Management team for evaluation. VDURA will then update the Service Request, close it, and contact the requestor if the feature will be included in a future release. We would ask that the requestor provide as much detail as possible to help the evaluation and possible implementation of the new feature. VDURA strives to add small feature requests with each release so that we can be as responsive as possible to the needs of our valued customers.

13.7 Service Request Statuses and Meanings