Figured out it was fortinet huh? I guess it was pretty obvious in my rant. Maybe my issue is layers of government BS in that case. We've got 2 HA paired firewalls and some core switches that actually get funded by a larger state agency for us. They do this for state organizations all across California, and while we could choose to pay our own way, the savings is too good. Anyway, this agency contracts a managed security services vendor provider to support that hardware(the 1st and 2nd tier support guys I talked to). They handle the support contracts on our hardware, so even though I knew the firewall was dead, I couldn't RMA it myself through fortinet. It's under a special contract. This is also why I can't talk to fortinet directly, and this dude has to get a fortinet engineer on a conference call instead. Basically, that lady sucked, but I can't do shit about it because the vendor is actually their customer, not me.
I did go back and let the managed security services guys know that whole thing sucked. I'm still technically not the entity paying their bills, but I'm kinda-sorta their customer.
We have two other sites with fortinet firewalls and my government rep over there has been awesome.
It just seems like there are more and more people not giving enough of a fawk to be successful at what they're doing. I've got more stories like these about other aspects of the industry, and damn it's getting hard to find reliable people anymore.
about 10 years ago, we were rearchitecting things at work. We were looking at all the various ways to solve problems and so, since we were getting peppered with calls from Fortinet, so, we agreed to meet, at their place, with some conditions.
We sent them our design and we specifically asked for a demonstration of their hardware and software working to support a single, specific peripheral device.
They said, 'oh not a problem'. The day came, I told one of our guys, 'just in case, bring a brand new, in the box, device, so that we'll get to see it work out of the box.'
We get there, modest offices from where I came from before retiring, but fine. They kick off the meeting with their history and they introduce all their people being specific that 3 of the individuals are CCIE's. I am one of the earliest CCIE's from when the designation was invented. Heck, I wrote a bunch of the curriculum for the cisco academies and designed the first instances at Colorado Mountain College.
As you probably know, you can search current CCIE's... One of my outside engineers hopped right on it and confirmed... the 3 CCIE's weren't.
We called it out. First thing. A great relationship can't start with bullshit and lies.
They were embarrassed but continued the lie saying they were ABOUT to get their certification. They were all CCNP's.
They continued their presentation and we listened politely and they were about to dive in to the next section and asked if we had questions. I politely asked that before we go further, we'd made a single request in order to come down for the meeting, could they show that before going on or at least show us when we would see that.
The presenter feigned surprise and said that he had not heard that request. I pulled up the email and read it to the group. The sales guy sheepishly said, 'Oh, yes, we can show that. We reached out to for one and we didn't get a response.' I nodded and said, 'who did you contact?' He could not remember.
The vice president said, 'well this shouldn't be a problem, hell, we'll go buy one and test it and get back to you because ANYTHING will work like what you are asking for, so I can ASSURE you there will be no problem.'
Our network engineer pulled the device out of his bag and said, 'here is one. since it is so simple and not an issue, why don't we see you do it here and now.'
They couldn't get it to work. They came up with a shitty, half assed connection that limited the device and not in a good way.
The vice president was embarrassed and promised that 'no matter what' they would get it working if we would agree to work with them.
We didn't stay for lunch, we wished the CCNP's luck on their exams and bid them goodbye.
They have a decent product, but they were jackasses and used to working with people who will accept nonsense. In my previous life at the fruit company, we fired pinheads like that once we sniffed them out. Life is too short.
that is my fortinet story.
), so I call him and he's like "I'll be there in 10 minutes". Well 20 minutes later he shows up and I tell him "We don't need you today, or any other days going forward.), and he says, "That sucks, you could have told me that over the phone", and I said, "That's right I could have told you that over the phone".
) thinking to look at that pattern of events and draw that the conclusion that it was some feat of aspirational work ethic when literally every other party involved dropped the ball.
