VERITAS Support Drives New Product Launch
In this issue
  • STAR Awards for Best Practices – Nomination Forms Now Available

    • Building supportability into products is one of the ways technology vendors can become more efficient in providing support and one of the key implications found in the 2005 SSPA Support Demand Research Series. Supportability was also a key message in the launch of VERITAS Software’s Backup Exec 10.0. According to Michael Wentz, VERITAS senior vice president of support, as many as 30 enhancements in version 10.0 were the result of input from the support organization.

    With this release, the company introduced its Web-based version of VERITAS DirectAssist, an electronic support application for Backup Exec software running on Windows platforms. DirectAssist helps customers troubleshoot, diagnose, and resolve technical issues independently over the Web. Pre-programmed diagnostic

    and repair scripts help customers resolve issues without involving support reps.

    “With the help of our TSEs, we were able to learn the things we could automate,” said Wentz. “Not all problems can be solved this way but DirectAssist also lets customers escalate cases electronically if self-assist doesn’t resolve the problem. When they do, the system pulls all the relevant environmental information TSEs need in one step – as opposed to our past practice of getting this information in a piecemeal fashion from customers. This is much more efficient for the customer as well as the Tech Support Engineer solving the problem”
    The new DirectAssist module is based on technology VERITAS licensed from Motive Inc., providers of self-management and automation software that can be embedded in applications. “We had a vision to see how we could transform the support business to an automated, self-assist model for a large portion of our customers,” said Wentz. “We believe that, implemented correctly, this could be a game changing paradigm. We want to follow this by very rapidly developing even more supportability strategies for all of our products.”
    When additional information is required to resolve a customer issue, DirectAssist provides a secure electronic link into the customer’s environment. Scripts can be run to gain even more information about the environment and system configuration. Unlike earlier versions that required customers to download and run an executable (.EXE) file, the new version is a Web-based service that requires only an ActiveX component on the customer side. Customers also have full control of the information flow to VERITAS and must approve the delivery of all information.
    Wentz’ objective is to “raise the adoption rate of DirectAssist to be 70% of our cases over the next year.” The company’s preliminary data suggests that technical service engineers (TSEs) will be able to manage and close twice as many cases as they could before this version of DirectAssist. The goal over the next few quarters is to introduce a DirectAssist module for enterprise customers.
    Another Backup Exec supportability enhancement is the Pre-Installation Environment Check utility that can be run before installation to detect any configuration issues. This utility provides system environment and Backup Exec configuration checks and identifies potential issues to help prevent errors or failure during the installation process. A report is then saved on the server, offering background information to support technicians when further support is required.

    “Probably 15% to 20% of our support calls involved configuration issues,” said Wentz. “Most of these cases deal with customer environments with older or modified .DLLs, or other components that aren’t up to date for our software to install cleanly.” Wentz expects the number of these cases to be “conservatively cut in half.”

    The company also announced a dedicated VERITAS Backup Exec software customer support portal, www.backupexec.com, featuring:

    • A fully-searchable VERITAS Knowledgebase.
    • An online support forum moderated 24x5 by VERITAS support engineers and advanced engineers. Users earn and accumulate points for answering questions in the discussion forum.
    • An e-mail notification service that provides the latest technical news on VERITAS Software products and alerts regarding critical issues.
    • Immediate access to key configuration and troubleshooting documents, drivers, patches, software updates and downloads.
    • Compatibility and reference information detailing operating system, platform, and device compatibility with VERITAS software products.
    The new products and services are available now. For more info, www.veritas.com.

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