Our purpose in Enterprise Solutions Group is to develop technology solutions that enable people everywhere to grow and thrive. This means we are committed to helping our customers execute a daily task that has become frustrating and challenging – firmware updates.
Firmware updates are necessary to ensure system stability and optimal performance. But in the process of doing these updates, customers may risk interrupting production networks as well as incurring data unavailability. Another complication is human error: users may dispose of serial cables for firware upgrades of I/O modules or find it difficult to remember the 3-4 step update process. If a user doesn’t follow processes properly, network availablity becomes compromised.
We are aware that unplanned downtime can lead to an exaggerated perception among customers that our systems are unreliable. This can result in a high number of replacement requests (even if the product is recoverable) and a poor customer experience. Unfortunately, there is no panacea to fix this, because firmware issues, human errors, and hardware defects are inevitable, and not unique to any vendor.
So what is the recourse for our customers?
Dedicated Software Support
To ensure a better networking customer experience, we’ve established a new, dedicated software business unit, led by John Swainson, that brings together software capabilities to deliver the best outcomes for our customers. The Software group will add to our enterprise solutions capability and reinforce our ability to execute in various strategic areas critical to our customers; particularly, productivity.
Proactive Knowledge Sharing
Meanwhile, our teams are continuously thinking beyond reactive outage containment and working toward quicker recovery plans to minimize unforeseen downtime. We’ve also established a TechNet team that will produce “How-To” videos, white papers, interoperability guidelines, as well as reference architectures.
New Product Testing and Validation
With product complexity increasing, extensive gap analysis through new product testing and validation prior to product release helps Dell ensure product integrity and reduce average time to closure (ATC) when an issue does arise. This analysis has shown that overall software design and coding capabilities at Dell are continually improving.
In addition, a new sustaining lab initiative will handle a substantial number of common use case scenarios. Plus, Dell’s latest firmware update has shown significant improvement in testing rigor as well as a decline in documented lab defects.
So tell us what you think! Are we missing anything? Are there other activities besides dedicated support, proactive knowledge sharing, or rigorous testing and validation that we should focus on to better alleviate your frustrations around firmware and software quality issues? We’re working hard to improve your customer experience, and we want to hear from you.
References
White papers: http://dell.to/AraRHL
How to Videos: