I have pretty good instincts, but sometimes I let my brain override my instincts. I have to say a full 90% of the time i do this, my brain screws me. This is one of those times.
Let me preface this by saying we are still a current customer of Kaseya and are attempting to get resolution to these issues. I will keep this post updated as new developments occour.
In November of 2008 purchased 1000 seats of Kaseya VSA. For as much as they charge for this, I expected a full immplementation team wth fireworks, dancing girls, and a marching band. What I got was an email with a link to training.kaseya.com. The training videos were so bad they kept calling IIS, ISS. That was my first warning sign.
So now it’s time to install. I checked their recommended specs, and spoke to Justin Ramsay aboiut what to get. This was going to be a new install on new hardware with a fresh install of the OS and IIS. I asked several times “will this run on Server 2008 or do I need to put it on 2003?” 2008 is fine was the answer. After 2 days of this not installing, and dealing with level 1 support I get escalated to level 2 support and get this answer.
Dear Customer,
Apologies for the delayed response.
The Kaseya Server is not currently supported for use on Windows Server 2008. Due to IIS changes, significant re-development is required and this is planned for a future release. Please refer the following KB article.
http://kb.kaseya.com/article.asp?article=291895&p=11855
Regards
Kaseya Support.
F@# me again! This was my second warning. I even wrote it in my email response back to them which follows here.
I was very specific with Justin Ramsey about Server 2008. I asked him specifically if this would run on Server 2008 and he said yes. I never would have gone with Server 2008 if there was even a question that it might not work. Now I have a server OS that I have paid for and can’t use. Also, since my server is hosted in Seattle, I will have to spend more time and money to get them to install a new Server2003 OS which I have to purchase. In addition, I have invested about 9 hours configuring the server and trying to get Kaseya installed. That’s $1000 for the OS which is now worthless, 2-3 hours @$175 for the hosting support to rebuild the server, 9 hours of my time @ $149/hr AND the fact that I am now two weeks late getting this to my customers who are expecting it on the 1st.
I am going to need some help or a credit or something here or I will have to opt out of the contract and find a different solution. My billing starts on 1/1/09 and it is going to take me at least 2 weeks to get my server straight and Kaseya installed. Then I have to configure the agents.
Please let me know what you can do ASAP. If I don’t have a satisfactory answer by 12/31/08 I will be forced to opt out.
Scott Smeltzer
Principal
On-site Tech Support
Their response:
Let me know when the server is running with Windows 2003. I’ll be more than happy to help you get installed.
No credit, no resolution, not even an apology for their ineptitude. This was a HUGE red flag, but again, my brain overrode my gut.
A new install of Server 2003 and IIS and the thing was finally running. I was getting agents deployed, writing scripts, life was good. Now all I needed was a good backup solution that integrated with Kaseya. What do you know?, Kaseya had a BUDR solution that plugged right in.
They gave me a 30 day trial which had to be extended 2X because I couldn’t get it to work. Third warning. Who in their right mind would waste 3 months trying to make something work? It even crashed one of my clients servers while trying to install it.
We did end up getting it to work and $4200 later and I had a brand new shiny BUDR solution. Now all I had to do was get it to replicate offsite. Two months and ALOT of time on phone and email support I finally got the first files to replicate! Two more months?!?!? WTF was I thinking? I should have handed this P.O.S. back to them during the trial period.
Sidenote: I have never taken drugs nor been committed to a psychiatric institution. Four major red flags and my brain still proceded to override my gut instinct.
The offsite replication was so slow and clunky no customer was ever even close to having all of their files replicated. For one of our larger clients, we “seeded” the backup at the colo. After the first week, we didn’t even have one day transferred. After 2 weeks, we had less than 2 days transferred. 12 days behind! In working with Kaseya to reseed the backup and make it faster we learned that the replication process looks at the files at the colo one time and notes the file name in a text file. Then it looks at the source and replicated everything that is not listed in the text file. Seriously?, a one time notation of the file name in a plain text file is how they keep track of what needs to be replicated?
Needless to say, we stoped using the BUDR and found another solution. I asked Matt Wertheim, my current sales rep what my options were to return or sell the licences and he said they would not take them back and I could not sell them. I told him I didn;t want thhem any longer and was not going to pay mainetenance. Here is his response.
Scott – following up on this maintenance invoice. Unfortunately you can’t selectively opt out on maintenance. It’s all or nothing on your support plan. I was incorrect in assuming we could do this. Your option on BUDR is to forfeit the seats if you don’t want to pay maintenance on them. Let me know what you’d like to do so I can have accounting process accordingly.
Matt
Forefit the seats?!?!?!?
Because I don’t want to pay maintenance on a product that never worked?!?!?!?!?
As of today, my VSA maintenance has been charged and updated in my Kserver but only through 1/22 when it expires again. I can only assume they did this to buy some time to work this out, but as of now, I still have not heard from them.
More to come.
***************UPDATE*******************
This morning (1/24/12) I got a call from Matt Wertheim to discuss my BUDR issues. I must say, up until this point it seemed that Matt has been passing this issue through to the accounting department and then giving me back the company line. Today, however he said he had been in meetings all weekend and my issue was brought up. After working with the accounting department again, he has come to a resolution that is acceptable to both On-site Tech Support AND Kaseya.
For as much crap as I gave Matt in our email conversations, he really is a good guy and worked very hard to achieve this resolution.
As I have said before, Kaseya is a great product but sometimes “company policy” is really screwed. In the end, I am happy and got the resolution I was seeking.