Ascend Archive
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Re: (ASCEND) Patches?

At 05:51 PM 10/6/97 -0700, Randy E. Reinhardt wrote:
>Mr. Smith,
>I have had enough - it is time to make my voice heard and try and raise as
>many other voices in protest as I can.
>First, a little background:  

[snip]

>Now....the problem(s):
>
>1.    How hard is it to get either an i or p software Rev. that supports
>56Kflex/Rockwell 1.x or later - and - ISDN without the HDLC going insane -
>and - V.34/fc/fast - and - works with radius Auth/Acct?
>
>    A.  What was it, p16 that introduced Rockwell 1.x, but also introduced
>        the ISDN HDLC insanity?
>    B.  p23/24 introduced v.fc/fast support but also added Radius insanity?
>    C.  p27 solves the Radius insanity, has v.34/fc/fast, has Rockwell code
>        1.x but it has been 11 weeks since you added HDLC insanity - where 
>        is the fix?
>
>I have also noted with increasing frequency you folks adding 'enhancements'
>to the p series - look folks, that is for the i series, leave the p series
>bloody well alone for features and concentrate on just fixing bugs.  And
>while you fix one bug don't add three more in the process please.

As you probably know, you are not the only person who has
commented on the problem with patch releases and new bugs. Taking into
consideration all of the comments that we regularly get on this subject, we
have made some radical changes to how we will be releasing software in the
near future. What we are seeing today is the tail-end of the "old way". 

I hope that some of you have been around long enough to recognize that we
already made major improvements in stability and performance at around
the same time as we started releasing patch and incremental releases in
separate branches. That was the first step in moving from the very dynamic
small company method of software releases. We used to be able to turn around
new features "on a dime", the cost to that was the limited time allocated
to fixing bugs in existing code and reduced regression testing time. We
largely fixed that with the two-branched release structure. One branch was
dedicated to fixing bugs in the base-code, while the other was for bringing
new features to market at an accelerated pace (customer requests). 

Things are still not perfect, so we're moving ahead again. We will be making
more changes to the way that new features are released, and concentrating
more on bug fixes in existing base code - without the addition of new features
or major 'enhancements'.

Watch out for an announcement within the next two weeks on our new
software release strategy - I think you'll be pleased.

>2.    I was happy to see you consolidating the p series docs to include all
>the previous ones as well.  Now to continue that line....why is it certain
>features, even with a new set of manuals, I have to go all the way back to
>4.5 and 4.6 manuals to find what they do/how to use them?  There are certain
>features that you may have to research 7 or 8 different manuals, online
>and/or paperbased, just to find the answers.  Why can't you have one
>baseline manual, an i series and then a p series that between them has ALL
>the functions, features, syntax, etc.?

Hmm. I'll be sure to pass this onto the tech pubs manager. I'm sure he'll 
want to discuss this further to understand what features are missing....as
you can see we have been working on major improvements in the documentation
and how it is presented.

>3.    Lastly, this HDLC problem blind-sided me, we can find out in the docs
>what bugs/enhancements you have fixed, but where can we find out what issues
>are still pending?  It would have been nice if there had been an online
>resource where I could have gone to see what problems were still pending and
>let me make the decision whether to upgrade or not with information in hand
>instead of seeing, yeah, they fixed that bug, cool lets upgrade, then
>finding out all my ISDN customers are going to be very unhappy with this
>upgrade - after the fact?  If you know there is a problem, tell us about it
>please.

Agreed. I have an action item to bring this subject up in our next few TR
meetings so that *ANY* potential service-effecting problem that is still
open in a new release should be considered as a possible "Known Problems"
item in the release notes. NOTE - we *did* do this with the RADIUS Accounting
problem.

>I have been a staunch and loyal supporter of all things Ascend, fending off
>marketing people from Cisco, Livingston, Hayes and US Robotics because I
>believed Ascend was the best.  Folks, the very foundations of that belief
>are being shaken to the core.  My customers are losing their faith in us,
>and I am losing my faith in you.  I hope you listen well to this because
>from what I hear from your own tech support people and read in this list, I
>am not the only one.  The boss is looking at/is spending thousands of
>dollars to set up a parallel system, one to handle 33.6 or less and ISDN,
>another to support 56Kflex.  In the past where we spend our money would not
>have been questioned, now.....do we go with Ascend or someone else?

Well, we do have the commitment of all relevant parties to "fix" this
software release issue. The specific HDLC problem is being worked on as
the highest priority. In the meantime, we are *ALWAYS* open to alternative
ways to workaround problems like this - just request that the issue be
escalated to support management, and we will take care of business!



Kevin


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