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Ian Goldstein is the architect and technical lead for BEA Guardian.
Preemptive Support
Posted by iang on January 25, 2007 at 11:54 AM | Permalink
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What It Isn't
Traditional customer support in the software industry has always been reactive: you encounter some problem, you do a bunch of time-consuming research and troubleshooting, you report it to your vendor's support organization. You wait for a resolution.
What It Is
Pre-emptive support turns that model on its head by using software to check for potential problems before they become actual problems. BEA Guardian is that software.
How Does It Work?
Let's start with the facts: software vendors' support organizations know a lot about the kinds of issues you encounter when you run their products, and the experts in the support organization know how to resolve those issues. The problem has always been about how to share or distribute that vast collection of specialized knowledge and expertise to the right customers. BEA Guardian solves that problem: each potential problem is encapsulated and described in a signature. Guardian evaluates signatures against your target systems and makes specific recommendations for how to avoid the problems you may encounter.
What is a Signature?
A signature is an XML document which describes a potential problem. It includes instructions for Guardian to determine whether this signature is "detected" in your target system, and each signature provides user-friendly recommendations for how to resolve any issues that are detected.
BEA Support has already written lots of useful signatures which are helping our customers prevent potential problems from becoming actual problems. Do you want to help us? Check out the Guardian Signature Sweepstakes.
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