VMware Support and Severity

Seeing several occasions where many are not sure what to do when logging a support call.  Depending on your support that you have purchase which comes in the follow: Basic Support, Production Support, Business Critical Support (BCS) & Mission Critical Support (MCS).  You can compare the support types at here.

You can log a call via two ways 1) online via myVMware, 2) phone providing your Customer Number.

Now first you need to know the support landing page here.  Here you see three options and all of them will bring you to login your myVMware account.  That would be simple assuming you have the rights to the licenses and you will see your customer number in the portal.  You will then be able to log a support case easily.  You can follow this guide here to learn how to log a online support ticket.

What if you do not have the rights to view the licenses but you manage to get the customer number from a co-worker who has it but he is off duty.  Simple you can log a case via phone with VMware.  You can click on "phone" under Technical Support here.  You will then be brought to a page with list of countries and what number to call by clicking on the country of choice.  In this page, it also have provided how you can retrieve your Customer Number and what is a Customer Number.

Example: If I click on Singapore, the contact details will be shown on the right.

Singapore
English Language Support
1800 823 2238
6823 2239 - See more at: https://www.vmware.com/support/contacts/singapore.html#sthash.4XH6likU.dpuf

Singapore
English Language Support
1800 823 2238
6823 2239

Next I like to address what is the Severity to choose and not selecting the wrong one.  I have seen people logging a Severity 1 but only wanting to do it the next day.  Or a Severity 2 ticket but wanting immediate attention.  There are some confusion and this to be address to allow you to get the right support.

Here is the description of the Severity.  Mainly I want to focus just on two common support Severity that is 1 and 2 which are often used in a Production environment.

Severity 1

Let's talk about Severity 1 which I will share my past experience.  Severity 1 initial response time is 30 minutes.  I was working on a project in the past in a production environment and we did not want to work round the clock.  However we wanted immediate attention once the log provided are analyzed so we selected Severity 1.  Support got back to us in the night however none of us was in the data center.  End up this ticket was demoted to Severity 2.

What I did wrongly here is I selected Severity 1 for a quick response.  Indeed, VMware Support will be working round the clock to resolve the issue for Severity 1.  However by selecting Severity 1, you must be committed as well to work round the clock.  Meaning to say, if a call need to be done or a log required to be upload you need to be available to do that immediate.  Severity 1 is a very serious case, meaning you have something broken and require immediate attention and fix and no waiting time.  If there is a waiting time possible or alternative workaround, this would not be a Severity 1 case.

Severity 2

Severity 2 cases are mostly commonly encountered and this is often a fix or a troubleshooting that needs to be done by no critical impact in the production environment.  Simple to say this allows no disruption while the fix or troubleshooting is going on.  You have alternative at the moment while this support is waiting to be resolve.  You do not expect yourself to return a request e.g. uploading a log or setting up a call with the support anytime any day even in wee hours as you like to do this normally during your work hours.  Initial response time is 4 hours for Severity 2.

Update: Do note that all response time listed above, are the initiate response time after case opening and not on every correspondence.

I hope you are now more clear on how to log a support call.  If you do not have a rights for the licenses in your myVMware account, I will advise you to keep the number in your phone somewhere and note down your Customer ID.

Do consider to upgrade your support to Business Critical Support (BCS) or Mission Critical Support (MCS) if you require dedicated support engineer who will know your environment well or with faster response time 24/7.  Having someone who knows your environment also means you do not have to go through multiple times to explain your environment when logging a support call.  Another good reason is to find out the Root Cause Analysis (RCA) which many customer is not aware.  RCA is only provided in BCS and MCS customers.  In Basic and Production support, only resolutions are provided and not RCA.  Of course all this will come with extra cost but it will be worth for a Business Critical production environment where every minute counts.

You can compare the different support options here.


Update 19th Jul 2021

Initiate response time after case opening.

Update 31st Jul 2014
Compare support option.

Update 3rd Feb 2014
Added BCS and MCS support information and links.

Singapore
English Language Support
1800 823 2238
6823 2239 - See more at: https://www.vmware.com/support/contacts/singapore.html#sthash.4XH6likU.dpuf

Singapore
English Language Support
1800 823 2238
6823 2239 - See more at: https://www.vmware.com/support/contacts/singapore.html#sthash.4XH6likU.dpuf