Automic Knowledge Base and the general state of organizing Automic documents with Broadcom

[Carsten Schmitz]

Hi.

I started writing this in Customer Care, but then decided to place it in Water Cooler instead because it turned into more of a generic observation.

Broadcom aquired CA, and with it Automic.

I wonder: Under Broadcom ownership, is there any way to access the various knowledge bases that existed for Automic in the past? And I don't mean the stuff that pops up when I try to open a ticket - I mean an actual interface independent of creating tickets. I for one am utterly lost finding one.

At the same time, are you actually aware that so many legacy links remain broken?

For instance.

Automic had for a while hosted their product knowledge base with SalesForce. There are still plenty of links like this floating around:

https://automic.force.com/support/CommunityArticleDetail?id=ka3b0000000kBWQ

This, then, if you let it load for what feels like a short eternity attempts to redirect to:

https://eapi.ca.com/kbredirect?legacyId=ka3b0000000kBWQ

... which in turn results in really fancy errors the various browsers don't know how to handle because apparently, eapi.ca.com is:

$ nslookup eapi.ca.com
;; Got SERVFAIL reply from 10.202.0.57, trying next server

If I go scouring for old KB articles starting at the obvious https://techdocs.broadcom.com/#intelligent-automation, there isn't even a product "Automic Workload Automation". There is "Automic Automation", but by the semantics used by Broadcom in other places that's a different product category. It does lead to Automic Workload Automation documentation though (so the semantics here is different from the semantics in other places), but it does not lead to a knowledge base either.

There is another product there, workload-automic-de. That leads to this page:

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/content/broadcom/techdocs/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/intelligent-automation/workload-automation-de/12-2.html

Almost all of the "view all" links on that page, then, no matter if for version 12.2 or 12.1 lead to glaring HTTP/404! This is just one example - when I spend a while on any Broadcom pages, I can find plenty of HTTP/404 in many places.

I am as of yet still astonished that after Automic and CA, Broadcom also does not seemingly employ an automated link checker for their web sites to identify broken links on sometimes second, but often times third and fourth order.

With all due respect, but this all is still in a bit of a chaotic and sad state of affairs, in my humble opinion. So besides the specific quest for a searchable KB, I wonder: is this integration process now complete and this is the result, or is this still all work in progress?

Thanks.

[Carsten Schmitz]

Oh, and also, before I look like a fool cause someone points this out:

Yes, there certainly is https://www.broadcom.com/support/knowledgebase. But the Automic articles are not in it, and Automic products are not even a category I could filter for. So yeah, that is probably the place where old Automic KB content should be imported into, but as of yet, it isn't.

[Carsten Schmitz]

Update:

Ooooh found it! It's the "search support" box, that holds the old KB articles now. Nevermind on that one.

Regardless, my comments on the fragmentation of knowledge base portals, inconsistent product name semantics and most of all, the many dead links remain unaffected.

[Carsten Schmitz]

So am I'm saying I find loads of broken links within seconds on the website?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. It took me literally (!) 20 seconds and five clicks to find the next big one.

1. https://www.broadcom.com/how-to-buy/terms-and-conditions
2. click on Termination for Convenience (CA Technologies Software)
3. observe:

404 Not Found

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nginx

[Diane Craddock]

Hi Carsten,

I am looking for the right owner to address this.  Stay tuned for more information once I get it.

Thanks
Diane

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Diane Craddock
Community Manager, Broadcom Enterprise Software Division
Broadcom Inc.
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[Natalia Fontan Garcia-Boente]

Hi Carsten,

many thanks for bringing this to our attention. We'll do our best to mitigate this situation and will get back to you with the details as soon as possible.

Best,

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Natalia Fontán
Senior Documentation Engineer  | Enterprise Software Division
Broadcom
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