Hi Shannon,
I fully support Michael's objections! Customers spend a lot of time planning and executing an update. It is especially annoying if they run into an issue that is already known.
If Broadcom insn't willing or not able to provide the information about known bugs proactively, how would you suggest customers get aware of known bugs to prevent spending hours, days or weeks on an update attempt?
And as Michael already said: a non-widespread problem does not mean, that it's a minor problem for all customers. Quite the opposite: a bug in a mainframe agent does affect only a few customers but with potentially serious implications as a mainframe agent is not just "any agent".
You said that you enhance your test plans. Well, if you could simulate all possible hardware and software constellations there wouldn't be a single bug in a released version. So there will always be bugs that pass unnoticed - in any software. The more important it is to communicate the bugs that have been reported by the customer base. I know that this confession causes discomfort to any kind of vendor, but we're talking of a software that is extremly crucial to most of your customers. We're not talking of a nice to have gadget...
Cheers
Christoph
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Automic AE Consultant and Trainer since 2000
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Original Message:
Sent: May 11, 2023 12:59 PM
From: Shannon Hebert
Subject: Known problems not listed in Release Notes tool
Hi Michael,
Thank you for taking the time to provide detailed feedback.
Our primary objective is to assist our customers in attaining their business objectives and goals by leveraging our products. We recognize the importance of our customers' time invested in testing, implementing, administering, and maintaining our products. To fulfill their needs, we continuously strive to improve our offerings' usability, features, security, and quality.
As we enhance our software, we also enhance our test plans to minimize the possibility of any missed defects. In the rare event of a high/critical widespread defect, we will record it as a known issue. However, not all reported issues impact our entire customer base; many are classified as Severity 3's or 4's. While these are not included in the known issue list, we ensure they are addressed and reported as fixed issues in the upcoming release.
To your specific questions,
3. The issues resolved within 21.0.6 will be published in the release notes. As mentioned, if a problem is critical and widespread, we will post a notice as we recently did for 21.0.5.
4. We will continue to notify our customers if a critical problem impacts everyone. Our contributions to our knowledge base can be searched as you linked, and here's an index that our team categorizes and updates regularly.
Thank you,
-Shannon
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Shannon Hebert
Head of AOD Automation Support
Broadcom Software | Agile Operations Division
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Original Message:
Sent: May 08, 2023 06:40 PM
From: Shannon Hebert
Subject: Known problems not listed in Release Notes tool
Hi Michael,
I'll work with Kaj and the team to provide an update. As you've seen, we have improved our communication and transparency as requested and will continue to do so.
We plan on notifying our customers once 21.0.6 is publicly available.
Thank you,
-Shannon
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_______________________________________
Shannon Hebert
Head of AOD Automation Support
Broadcom Software | Agile Operations Division
_______________________________________
Original Message:
Sent: May 08, 2023 05:51 AM
From: Michael Lowry
Subject: Known problems not listed in Release Notes tool
For several months, we have been preparing to upgrade to v21.0.5. During our initial testing, we ran into a serious ZDU bug that Broadcom had known about but had not yet made public. Broadcom claimed to have fixed the bug in v21.0.5 HF2, so we restarted our tests using that version. We have mostly completed testing of v21.0.5 HF2 in preparation for upgrading our customer-facing systems.
Last week I learned that Broadcom is preparing to release Automic Workload Automation v21.0.6 very soon - perhaps as early as this week. I used the Release Notes tool on the Automic Downloads Site to check for known issues in the version we have been testing.
The Release Notes for v21.0.5 list two Known Issues:
- Issues with ZDU (AE-31514)
Issues with ZDU; due to issues with ZDU we recommend manual upgrades - :RESOLVE function does not work in v21 (AE-31512)
:RESOLVE function does not work in v21.
The Release Notes for v21.0.5 HF2 mentions an additional known issue not listed for v21.0.5:
- UNIX Agent may not reconnect automatically after an unintended disconnect (AE-31810)
UNIX Agent may not reconnect automatically after an unintended disconnect (e.g. due to a network failure). Workaround: Kill the listener process of the respective Unix agent and restart the agent with Service Manager or manually. The Unix agent will then reconnect.
The most recent hotfix does not have any Known issues according to the downloads site.
Contrary to the information provided by the downloads site though, we know there are other bugs affecting v21.0.5, because we reported some of them in our support tickets. Knowing this, I went to the support portal and searched for "21.0.6".
None of these bugs is listed in the known issues on the downloads site.
Once again, we find ourselves in the same situation that we were in a few months ago:
- We invested considerable time in testing a new version, in preparation for upgrading our systems.
- We learned that there are potentially serious bugs impacting the version we have been testing. This will significantly delay the upgrade and increase our costs because we must restart our testing from the beginning.
- Broadcom took no proactive steps to warn us about the bugs; instead, we found out only by asking and doing our own research.
- The Known Issues listed in the Release Notes are not up-to-date, and we have to piece together information from other sources like KB articles and support tickets.
The lack of a consistent and proactive approach to publicizing known problems and notifying customers has been a weakness for a long time. I wrote about this back in 2017.
Questions for @Shannon Hebert:
- Where should customers turn to find a complete list of the known problems with a particular release?
- If there is currently no single place to find this information, does Broadcom have a plan to address this need?
- Broadcom appears to have made the judgement that the bugs fixed in 21.0.6 did not merit proactive notification to potentially impacted customers - not even to customers known to be planning to upgrade to the impacted version. Is this correct?
- More generally, how does Broadcom recommend customers avoid installing software with known problems? E.g., should customers search the KB again every day up until the day of the planned upgrade?
Cc: @Pascal Osthus-Bugat, @David Ainsworth