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How can one escalate within Cisco TAC?
We opened a case on Jan 22 (Case #694936467).  Since then we have
exchanged countless email, countless logs and countless command output
captures.


On Jan 31 we requested transfer to a more senior IOS-XR team. The case
was transferred to Mexico TAC on Jan 31 and was assigned an engineer,
yet after 9 days we have not heard from anyone inside Cisco TAC.  The
case is listed as moderate - we requested that the case be moved to
Amsterdam on Feb 5 and as of today no Cisco engineer is assigned to the
case, no engineer manager is listed and it would appear that after 9
days in TAC limbo, no one wants to touch this TAC case since they have
run out of ideas of how to solve it.


So how does one escalate such an issue within TAC?  Is there some secret
email like escalations@cisco.com or vp-tac@cisco.com that one can contact?


Thanks,

Hank

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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
On Wed, 8 Feb 2023 at 09:48, Hank Nussbacher via cisco-nsp
<cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net> wrote:

> So how does one escalate such an issue within TAC? Is there some secret
> email like escalations@cisco.com or vp-tac@cisco.com that one can contact?

You call your account team, express your grief and set expectations.
Then you have someone in your corner internally, which is far more
effective than externally trying to fix it.

It saddens me greatly, because it shouldn't work in a world full of
responsible adults, but having weekly case review calls works very
well, because then the account team will be embarrassed to say 'ok
this didn't move since last week', and they ensure things move even a
little bit. It steals 30min-1h per week per vendor of your time, but
pays dividends. Working would be much more pleasurable if half the
world's white collar workers wouldn't be unemployed plat card holders
and cruising without output, while looking down on people doing 3 jobs
and not qualifying for a mortgage.

--
++ytti
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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
On 2/8/23 09:48, Hank Nussbacher via cisco-nsp wrote:

> We opened a case on Jan 22 (Case #694936467).  Since then we have
> exchanged countless email, countless logs and countless command output
> captures.
>
>
> On Jan 31 we requested transfer to a more senior IOS-XR team. The case
> was transferred to Mexico TAC on Jan 31 and was assigned an engineer,
> yet after 9 days we have not heard from anyone inside Cisco TAC.  The
> case is listed as moderate - we requested that the case be moved to
> Amsterdam on Feb 5 and as of today no Cisco engineer is assigned to
> the case, no engineer manager is listed and it would appear that after
> 9 days in TAC limbo, no one wants to touch this TAC case since they
> have run out of ideas of how to solve it.
>
>
> So how does one escalate such an issue within TAC?  Is there some
> secret email like escalations@cisco.com or vp-tac@cisco.com that one
> can contact?

Your account team at Cisco are your best bet.

Mark.
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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
On 2/8/23 10:23, Saku Ytti via cisco-nsp wrote:

> Working would be much more pleasurable if half the
> world's white collar workers wouldn't be unemployed plat card holders
> and cruising without output, while looking down on people doing 3 jobs
> and not qualifying for a mortgage.

Sadly, as folk move up in career, title, status and income, they tend to
become less useful on a real, practical, rubber-meets-the-road level.
Which, in all fairness, I would be okay with if they had a team that
made them look good. But in most cases, they don't even have that, or if
they do, find a proper way to muck that up as well.

It's a general issue - not to pick only on Cisco.

Mark.
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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
i think the problem is they let the good ones go.

On Wednesday, February 8, 2023, Mark Tinka via cisco-nsp <
cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net> wrote:

>
>
> On 2/8/23 10:23, Saku Ytti via cisco-nsp wrote:
>
> Working would be much more pleasurable if half the
>> world's white collar workers wouldn't be unemployed plat card holders
>> and cruising without output, while looking down on people doing 3 jobs
>> and not qualifying for a mortgage.
>>
>
> Sadly, as folk move up in career, title, status and income, they tend to
> become less useful on a real, practical, rubber-meets-the-road level.
> Which, in all fairness, I would be okay with if they had a team that made
> them look good. But in most cases, they don't even have that, or if they
> do, find a proper way to muck that up as well.
>
> It's a general issue - not to pick only on Cisco.
>
> Mark.
> _______________________________________________
> cisco-nsp mailing list cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net
> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp
> archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
>
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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
Hi Hank,I had similar experience with Cisco TAC in the past. I managed to escalate it via my Cisco account rep. That landed the case on the desk of someone who actually knows a thing or two and we were able to at least have an intelligent conversation about the issue. 
Realistically though, I understand that Cisco is not going to fix my issues anytime soon so I just learnt to live with it.
-- ek





On Wednesday, February 8, 2023 at 02:48:50 AM EST, Hank Nussbacher via cisco-nsp <cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net> wrote:

We opened a case on Jan 22 (Case #694936467).  Since then we have
exchanged countless email, countless logs and countless command output
captures.


On Jan 31 we requested transfer to a more senior IOS-XR team. The case
was transferred to Mexico TAC on Jan 31 and was assigned an engineer,
yet after 9 days we have not heard from anyone inside Cisco TAC.  The
case is listed as moderate - we requested that the case be moved to
Amsterdam on Feb 5 and as of today no Cisco engineer is assigned to the
case, no engineer manager is listed and it would appear that after 9
days in TAC limbo, no one wants to touch this TAC case since they have
run out of ideas of how to solve it.


So how does one escalate such an issue within TAC?  Is there some secret
email like escalations@cisco.com or vp-tac@cisco.com that one can contact?


Thanks,

Hank

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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
Another available avenue is to reach out to the TAC duty manager. It's an
on-duty role that various managers in the Cisco support org cover.

They can take a look at your case and hopefully make a decent decision on
how to push the case forward.

To reach a duty manager you call the TAC number and ask the first person
that picks up the phone to "speak with the duty manager"

On Wed, Feb 8, 2023, 00:24 Saku Ytti via cisco-nsp <
cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net> wrote:

> On Wed, 8 Feb 2023 at 09:48, Hank Nussbacher via cisco-nsp
> <cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net> wrote:
>
> > So how does one escalate such an issue within TAC? Is there some secret
> > email like escalations@cisco.com or vp-tac@cisco.com that one can
> contact?
>
> You call your account team, express your grief and set expectations.
> Then you have someone in your corner internally, which is far more
> effective than externally trying to fix it.
>
> It saddens me greatly, because it shouldn't work in a world full of
> responsible adults, but having weekly case review calls works very
> well, because then the account team will be embarrassed to say 'ok
> this didn't move since last week', and they ensure things move even a
> little bit. It steals 30min-1h per week per vendor of your time, but
> pays dividends. Working would be much more pleasurable if half the
> world's white collar workers wouldn't be unemployed plat card holders
> and cruising without output, while looking down on people doing 3 jobs
> and not qualifying for a mortgage.
>
> --
> ++ytti
> _______________________________________________
> cisco-nsp mailing list cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net
> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp
> archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
>
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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
On 08/02/2023 15:27, Mark Tinka via cisco-nsp wrote:
>
>
> On 2/8/23 10:23, Saku Ytti via cisco-nsp wrote:
>
>> Working would be much more pleasurable if half the
>> world's white collar workers wouldn't be unemployed plat card holders
>> and cruising without output, while looking down on people doing 3 jobs
>> and not qualifying for a mortgage.
>
> Sadly, as folk move up in career, title, status and income, they tend to
> become less useful on a real, practical, rubber-meets-the-road level.
> Which, in all fairness, I would be okay with if they had a team that
> made them look good. But in most cases, they don't even have that, or if
> they do, find a proper way to muck that up as well.
>
> It's a general issue - not to pick only on Cisco.

Ah the days when a post on cisco-nsp or nanog would get Tony Li
answering with a detailed solution. I'm getting old :-)

Thanks to all for your recommendations.

-Hank

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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
Yes miss the old days....

On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 12:21 PM Hank Nussbacher via cisco-nsp <
cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net> wrote:

> On 08/02/2023 15:27, Mark Tinka via cisco-nsp wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 2/8/23 10:23, Saku Ytti via cisco-nsp wrote:
> >
> >> Working would be much more pleasurable if half the
> >> world's white collar workers wouldn't be unemployed plat card holders
> >> and cruising without output, while looking down on people doing 3 jobs
> >> and not qualifying for a mortgage.
> >
> > Sadly, as folk move up in career, title, status and income, they tend to
> > become less useful on a real, practical, rubber-meets-the-road level.
> > Which, in all fairness, I would be okay with if they had a team that
> > made them look good. But in most cases, they don't even have that, or if
> > they do, find a proper way to muck that up as well.
> >
> > It's a general issue - not to pick only on Cisco.
>
> Ah the days when a post on cisco-nsp or nanog would get Tony Li
> answering with a detailed solution. I'm getting old :-)
>
> Thanks to all for your recommendations.
>
> -Hank
>
> _______________________________________________
> cisco-nsp mailing list cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net
> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp
> archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
>


--
Mario Ruiz
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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
On 2/8/23 16:45, Aaron wrote:

> i think the problem is they let the good ones go.

That is a trend currently affecting our industry - mostly because our
group has converged on the basics of a well-built platform, and
"automation" is causing exec's to think they don't need the hard skills
anymore.

Mark.
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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
For those going to Manila for this year's APRICOT meeting, I will be
part of a panel that is discussing this very issue - about the dwindling
talent pool as it pertains to those with the hard skills, that were able
to train-up the the next generation of network engineers:

https://2023.apricot.net/program/schedule/#/day/11/panel-discussion-internet-operations-talent-drain

While it is focused on the ongoing battle between the ISP and content
communities, it has not spared the talent situation in the vendor
community either, as this thread is clearly exposing.

Mark.

On 2/8/23 19:22, Mario Ruiz via cisco-nsp wrote:
> Yes miss the old days....
>
> On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 12:21 PM Hank Nussbacher via cisco-nsp <
> cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net> wrote:
>
>> On 08/02/2023 15:27, Mark Tinka via cisco-nsp wrote:
>>>
>>> On 2/8/23 10:23, Saku Ytti via cisco-nsp wrote:
>>>
>>>> Working would be much more pleasurable if half the
>>>> world's white collar workers wouldn't be unemployed plat card holders
>>>> and cruising without output, while looking down on people doing 3 jobs
>>>> and not qualifying for a mortgage.
>>> Sadly, as folk move up in career, title, status and income, they tend to
>>> become less useful on a real, practical, rubber-meets-the-road level.
>>> Which, in all fairness, I would be okay with if they had a team that
>>> made them look good. But in most cases, they don't even have that, or if
>>> they do, find a proper way to muck that up as well.
>>>
>>> It's a general issue - not to pick only on Cisco.
>> Ah the days when a post on cisco-nsp or nanog would get Tony Li
>> answering with a detailed solution. I'm getting old :-)
>>
>> Thanks to all for your recommendations.
>>
>> -Hank
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> cisco-nsp mailing listcisco-nsp@puck.nether.net
>> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp
>> archive athttp://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
>>
>
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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
Effective human capability redundancy does not persist as a stable
status inside of any discreet organization.

Mark Tinka via cisco-nsp wrote:
>
>
> On 2/8/23 16:45, Aaron wrote:
>
>> i think the problem is they let the good ones go.
>
> That is a trend currently affecting our industry - mostly because our
> group has converged on the basics of a well-built platform, and
> "automation" is causing exec's to think they don't need the hard
> skills anymore.
>
> Mark.
> _______________________________________________
> cisco-nsp mailing list cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net
> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp
> archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
>
>

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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
On 2/9/23 09:01, Joe Maimon wrote:

> Effective human capability redundancy does not persist as a stable
> status inside of any discreet organization.

Tell that to HR departments that think "institutionalizing" skilled
labour is a practical thing beyond the paper the policy is written on.

Mark.
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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
Hank Nussbacher via cisco-nsp <cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net> writes:

> we requested that the case be moved to Amsterdam on Feb 5

Bad choice. They're probably all at Cisco Live this week. Better go
there and see if you can find a TAC engineer at the show ;-)

https://www.ciscolive.com/emea.html


Bjørn
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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
Hi Mark,

> On 9 Feb 2023, at 05:42, Mark Tinka via cisco-nsp <cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net> wrote:
>
> For those going to Manila for this year's APRICOT meeting, I will be part of a panel that is discussing this very issue - about the dwindling talent pool as it pertains to those with the hard skills, that were able to train-up the the next generation of network engineers:
>
> https://2023.apricot.net/program/schedule/#/day/11/panel-discussion-internet-operations-talent-drain

See you there!

> While it is focused on the ongoing battle between the ISP and content communities, it has not spared the talent situation in the vendor community either, as this thread is clearly exposing.

It makes me sad when I notice that all of the specialists on certain topics are even older than me :( A lot of us learned on the job when the internet was less critical infrastructure and mistakes were part of the learning process. These days a lot of experience is getting lost, and the industry hasn’t found a way to transfer that knowledge to new generations.

Cheers,
Sander

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Re: How can one escalate within Cisco TAC? [ In reply to ]
On 2/13/23 01:13, Sander Steffann wrote:

> It makes me sad when I notice that all of the specialists on certain topics are even older than me :( A lot of us learned on the job when the internet was less critical infrastructure and mistakes were part of the learning process. These days a lot of experience is getting lost, and the industry hasn’t found a way to transfer that knowledge to new generations.

The focus on "automation" and turning the network into software has
created the perfect condition where the next generation of kids that
need to take over from us are skipping 10 - 15 years of experience
gains. And we have all seen automation fail to pieces, on a global
scale, more often than we would like, and a lack of knowledge on the
bare basics delaying restoration.

It's worse in the training space, because a lot of the instructors who
have the protein the kids need are old and/or retiring. Who is going to
take over from them?

These are the concerns that panel is looking to draw out.

I have nothing against automation, or whatever an operator uses to
define the easing of repetitive tasks. But it should be complimentary to
the basics, and not a replacement of them.

Mark.
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