RV345 Smart Software getting beyond disgusted!!!!!

[viningele]

Finally installed an RV345, and upgrade from an RV042 and Packedge APs I installed years ago.  So now I have the RV345 and 4 WAP371's.  I see this new Smart software feature and investigate, set up some web filters but in the log set to debug it says some BS about no license despite the fact that it is supposed to have a 90 evaluation period before a license is needed.  I also figured I'd try the AnyConnect VPN since that comes with 2 licenses and maybe with the evaluation period more can be used.  

First trying to find info is a real pain specifically license P/N to see what the price would be should I suggest the client to buy.  I did find that info here on the forums but that was after a lot of wasted time on the Cisco site.

So I find to use either of these products you need special permission, a special account despite selling Cisco products for nearly 20 years.  So I enroll and they require your own email domain for the account.  Sure I could if I want, my website has them at no added cost but I never wanted to change from the one I had.  I'm a small company so why bother other than a little ego and coolness having my own email domain.  The form allows an option of using the domain plus what comes before it so I just use my full email.  Don't hear back for days and now I want to play with the AnyConnect so I go to download the software but here we go again and need that special account with Cisco to download the software that we should be able to download because we sold the **bleep** hardware that has it pre-installed but nope, more convoluted hoops.  

So I email these Smart people that my application went too to find out what's the delay in approval and they inform me I need a private email domain an god only knows what that option was for on the application form.  I tell them I'm not getting a private email domain just to access some special Cisco software level for the products I'm selling.  So they say if I don't have a private domain email I have to open a private account.  WTF?

They then reply with this:

"To get an approval for a personal Smart Account take some steps that please understand. We don’t guarantee the Account creation if you fall in the export controlled restrictions. If you still need a personal account, please provide me with the IP address of your primary place you use the product.

Please contact me back if you would like to proceed."

To which I relplied you just don't get it I'm a dealer, blah, blah, how am I supposed to give you an IP of where this is to be used when the intent is to sell these Cisco products and software to as many clients as possible.  In every email I sent this person I told her I was a dealer and this was a clients property and the software manager is for dealers to manage their clients.

So now I installed an RV345 with 90 day evaulation software that doesn't work, I also have AnyConnect VPN software on it that can't be used because I don't have the proper access level to download the client software.  I can't get the proper access level because I don't have a private email domain for my small company and if I want a private account I have to give them the IP of the client's router's public IP which of course is dynamic and updated through dyndns.org.  ?? WTF ??

I do like some of the new feature and layout of the RV345 GUI over the RV325, does need more work but at this point I'm just sick of Cisco's BS.  Now I remember all the problems there were with the early firmware releases for the SG300-xx switches and I'm begining to think it's time to switch to another product line form another company.  Funny thing is I just started using the Cisco WAP 371's and 571's and like them over the Packedge WAPs I was using.  Packedge at least was dealer friendly and they worked with you not against you but they're not in the enterprise market which is all Cisco apparently cares about.  

Totally disgusted and tired of wasting time!!!!

Thank you for your feedback also.

[viningele]

Just got some more emails.

First first I get this:

Good day! I hope you are doing well.

I have recently informed you that in order to activate your Smart Account the domain ID that you have should only be msn.com and not ******.msn.com. Please kindly request the Smart Account with the correct domain ID. Will there be anything else that I can help you on this case? If no further licensing assistance is needed, can I proceed in setting this case as resolve?

NOTE: Please be advised that if we do not hear a feedback after 48-hours after providing the licenses, we will be proceeding in tagging the case as resolved. However, if there will be issues with the licenses provided 14-days after case closure, please feel free to contact me directly (please see my signature for my contact information and updated normal business hours) so I can reopen the case and assist you further.

I look forward to your prompt response.

Thank you for contacting Cisco and have a wonderful day!

Which is wrong since it can't be a public email domain, it has to be private.

And then this:

You have the web site, ********.com, with which we can’t create an SA? Creating your SA with *******.com makes more sense, if you have an email address with @*******.com.

"A personal SA is for a small business, a startup, or a consumer, who doesn’t have a corporate domain or email domain, to create a SA by using the CCO ID, and it takes several steps verification. This is due to the export control restrictions.

If the purchase is for trial and still in the demo stage, and the End Customer doesn’t want to create an SA yet, the above are the options.

If it’s for your End Customer, to whom the software assets belong to, please have a Smart Account for your End Customer with their domain, not yours. You can request a new SA as you did, then please enter the EC’s email address in the Account Creator field. I can look up if there would be any existing SA for your EC, if you would like.

Please let me know for anything I can of any assistance.

I apologize for the difficulty you have been encountering."

Believe it or not I know I have a website and I told them I did and I could create an email account through that site but I also told them I wasn't going to just to sell Cisco products and software, why should I.  Especially since I did check and it would cost be $5 each month per account.  I've been fine with my current email for a very long time and have a lot of stuff tied to it including VPNs.  It's also a for fee account and I have no desire to pay for two email accounts simply so I can use and sell the features bundled into the RV345 after all it's their loss not mine.  It's beyond absurd!  It's easier for me to sell other products so if Cisco wants to bundle this stuff into the SMB vertical market they need to accommodate the dealers like myself who sell their SMB products who may not have a private email domain.

[Terabyte]

I couldn't agree more.  The Smart Account is NOT smart at all.  It's a terrible design, very cumbersome and beyond difficult to use or manage.  There's absolutely no excuse in this day and age for Cisco to have such a cumbersome system other than they're Cisco and that's how they do things.  The product itself works reasonably well once you get it setup (some application filtering doesn't work well, but the rest does).  IMHO, whoever designed this Smart Account system needs to go back to the drawing board.

[Glenn Martin]

Hello Viningele;

It appears you're talking about smart licensing. if this is the case, please refer to the content in the community regarding "Smart Licensing". If I'm incorrect please message me as soon as possible, and I will see how we can get you to the right team for assistance.

Thanks

Glenn

[viningele]

I've seen the resource available here and elsewhere.  Finding the resource was a PITA but tolerable compared to the requirements necessary just to download a software client for AnyConnect VNP.  Then in order to use the web security I can't just buy a license and install a key I have to use Software Manager to download a token but to do that I have to have a private email domain?  Really, who's brain storm was that, why and if I don't which I don't and won't there are limitations, restrictions, etc.  You people have made something simple complicated.  The antithesis of what technology should do for this market.  IMHO Cisco has made this product unsalable in the SMB market for a lot of people who could sell it if it wasn't made into such a miserable process.  Not "Smart"at all!!!

I'm pretty sure I've been talking to the right people, I'm leaving out their actual Cisco email account but these are the people.  It's not the people per se' but the process and the requirements to have a private email domain.  Sorry but it's ridiculous especially for an SMB solution.  

SR 683874428 : Cisco Smart Software Manager Support Request Submitted

*********** (***** - CONVERGYS CUSTOMR MANAGEMENT GROUP INC at Cisco)

<******r@cisco.com>

Cisco Global Licensing Operations

And

************* -T (******* - KELLY SERVICES INC at Cisco) <*******@cisco.com>

cc smart-acct-pending(mailer list) <smart-acct-pending@cisco.com>

[Terabyte]

Couldn't agree more. I spent days on the phone trying to find an answer with a plethora of calls and e-mails.  It's just so badly designed and implemented that Cisco needs to start over from scratch.  I don't believe this system can be repaired in its current form.

What must happen is inside the RV34x devices, one should click on a link where it takes you to cisco.com/somelink where you enter your demographic and CC info and 30 seconds later your device is authorized and, if necessary, a CCO idea created.  If there's already a CCO idea associated with the e-mail address then it asks for the login info and proceeds.  Enough of this junk with ordering from resellers (where they're charging retail anyway so why not buy directly from Cisco) where it takes days.  I can sign up and create 200 e-mail addresses and assign licenses for all 200 people in Office 365 in 5 minutes.  Why in the world does this process take days and have such a poorly designed GUI?  

In this form, as a consultant, I simply cannot and will not put customers in this software.

[Glenn Martin]

I'm escalating this issue.. stay tuned. In the meantime, can you let me know the case numbers you both o[ened these issue with?

[viningele]

I told them we used an alternative solution to satisfy our client’s needs so I no longer needed to get aggravated with this.  I did tell them to accept my email as is because I had no intention of getting a private email domain or just lose this stupid reauirement since it makes no sense.  I do have another RV345 spec’d on an install next month that may or may not change now, we’ll see.  Either way I won’t inform the client of this Cisco solution since as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t exist until it’s made a less convoluted process.

”Hi Dan, sorry for the trouble.
The request below is now cancelled.

******** (*******)  ********
Program Analyst – Smart Operations
San Jose, California, United States
Cisco Systems, Inc.
**********@cisco.com
 

[Terabyte]

Sending in a PM.

[dondaniel]

i just bought an RV345P I'd like to install and I see that I will probably run into the same problem of signing up for licenses...

First of all, I am a private person who is installing the router for the family. 10 Users right now would need vpn access...

How Would I, as a private person, get the smart account? I do not have an own domain and would probably fail already there as written in this blog. 

and the other question about 25 minimum licences.... against buyable single licenses.! what would h appen if I buy only 10 single licenses? Wouldn't I be ableto use them??

and.. i see there is a reply pending here from a cisco guy who wanted to clarify things... so what is the clarification?

regards

dondaniel

[pgrey]

Did you have any luck getting this set up?

I'm trying to do the same (still), and every time I try to ask to have a Smart Domain created (so I can use the rest of the router features), I get a "form" of things from the Cisco CSR, all revolving around a business setup.

Surely there's SOME way to unlock the rest of the functionality, without creating a full "electronic business presence"?

I've walked through this guide, but then I get to the point where the CSR pings me back, and wants my fully qualified domain, my fixed IP, my business address and license, etc.  

This is where it's "fallen apart" for me, right now I'm in my 3rd attempt to set this up, without having to "create a fake business", in order to complete the process.

[viningele]

No, I gave trying to deal with the stupidity.  I think their heads are up in the clouds and they can’t see the reality of what’s gong on down here on the ground in the real world that they’re supposed to be serving.