Once in a blue moon, we get a support request like this:
“My server isn’t responding. Please reboot it.”
Well, yes, we’d love to, except we have thousands of servers and don’t know which one you’d like to reboot. In this case, we would need to write back asking for more information before we could start. Back-and-forth data hunts are an unnecessary delay.
Other times, a ticket comes in like this:
“My server SQLDB27-A in rack EL176 appears to be hung. Please visually inspect this machine for error lights, and if none are found, power-cycle it. Let me know what you find.”
In this case, we have everything we need to jump right over to cabinet EL176, find the machine labeled SQLDB27-A, and start our visual inspection. Informative requests like this one are completed in minutes.
Here’s some good information to include in a ticket:
- The cabinet location: “EL176.”
- The physical (not logical) name labeled on the device, or the device’s numbered location in the cabinet: “The device ID is SQLDB27-A.”
- The suspect problem or issue, with as much detail as possible: “The 1 T SATA disk in bay 3 reports failed.”
- The operation you want done and the results you expect: “Please take a spare 1 T SATA disk from our stock and hot-swap the disk in bay 3. The diagnostic light blink for bay 3 is now on to help identify it. Please mark the old disk as failed and put it in our storage.”
No matter what the request is for, spare no detail for the fastest turnaround.
