Cisco,
I see that you got your licencing system hacked. I get that it hurts and you need to help contain the damage. But I think you're doing it at the expense of your paying customers.
Today is the day I met my breaking point. I've been on a big project to upgrade a bunch of client site ASA firewalls and bring them up to date with the NGFW ASA 5500x series devices. So as of late we've been purchasing a fair bit of kit as we forklift the routers at the sites (probably 50 over the last 6 months).
So last week we got hit with two licenses that won't activate due to their new licensing process for PAK's. Ok, fair enough, simple verification process to verify entitlement. First they want to have an invoice from my clients showing they purchased it from us, the amount they paid and sent by the client from their corp email account, among other things. Well that's a problem because I don't sell them to my clients but we provide them as part of an overall managed service. So that's hurdle #1. I explain this and they request our purchase invoices for the devices.
Hurdle #2. I finally round up the invoicing of where we purchased the devices from. One device is not from one of the big vendors we use (Read: InnoTekData, or MigraneMicro). We've ordered a lot from this vendor a lot, but I could see how it could be an issue. So I can accept there could be a problem here and I'll deal with that directly.
Hurdle #3. The first firewall that we bought during our planning and testing stages of this process over a year ago, was part of the big intel cpu RTC recall. We contacted Cisco and pulled the defective device, replacing it with another we had in stock. The RMA device that finally came direct from Cisco almost a year later was put back into our inventory. That is until we installed it at a client site. Following our normal procedure we go to add the PAK to our cisco account and BAM it won't activate and tells me I need to open a support case with Cisco.
This is where it goes down hill. So already frustrated about the other activation failure that happened a day prior, I contact Cisco. Front line chat is helpful, but the new outsourced Licencing operations(Zensar), is atrocious. Simply will not answer any questions, or even address my concern about the PAK being direct from Cisco themselves. Just keep copy/pasting the standard block of text regarding the rejection. They just tell me the original license which I purchased was from a non-Cisco Authorized vendor was could be counterfeit and their inability to activate it.
Even though I purchased the device that came with the stupid control license, Had smartnet on it. Then replaced it and the original PAK with ones that were supplied by Cisco themselves in the RMA. So neither the original PAK or device even exist, just what Cisco TAC sent me as a replacement.
To me it's just a case of I'm sorry our system is totally effed, who cares if you got it as an RMA replacement? When you originally bought it it wasn't directly from us or our worthless vendors. So now sit and spin.
Gawd I'm just so pissed.... I know we're only part way into this project, but I just want to pull the plug, dump my inventory and go to another vendor. Even though my staff are all trained in this product, I'd almost pay for re-training just to be rid of your licensing cancer.
</end rant>
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