...

• Every minor change requires:

  • Ticket raised requesting changes

  • Change request goes to account manager

  • Account manager sends a quote

  • Quote agreed

  • Account manager sends contract addendum to Steph

  • Steph signs addendum, adds it to the every growing pile

  • Once signed, works are scheduled

  • Some time later, works get completed. Occasionally, if the stars align, this happens without issues.

• Aside from extra effort, this makes lead times for what should be 5 minute jobs extend into days or, typically, weeks.

• Cloud credits agreed to be added as a “final” addendum on 15/11/2023

Part 2 - Did it make any difference

• Ordering new MS365 licenses before moving to account credit took around a month.

• Ordering new MS365 licenses after moving to account credit took around a month.

  • Did occur over the holidays, so hopefully better next time. I’m not holding my breath though.

Ongoing - Missing basic features

...

Ongoing - That constant feeling that no matter how many things we have going on, we should never ask AIMES to do more than one thing at a time otherwise something will get missed

Ongoing - Intermittent radio-silence on simple tickets

• T20231106.0006 raised 06/11/2023

  • Request for info on max RAM availability for each server

  • Assigned to Heather on 06/11/2023

  • No response as of 20/11/2023, chased up in morning

  • 20/11/2023 16:17 ticket closed abruptly with note “Inforamtion sent to Joe Moorhead”

Mid 2022 - NBT migration communication issues

...

• Request for extra phone numbers, along with the process for these requests in future, raised 24/07

• Chased 02/08

• Chased 07/08

• 22/07 08 - Email from Lisa, asking if the users exist in 365 (answered yes the same day)

• Chased 30/08 - informed they aimes didn’t have an account on our 365, despite them having done the initial configuration, password reset and sent over

• Chased 06/09 - Request was then completed for some of the users requested but not all

• 15/09 - Numbers assigned to all requested users. I (MR) am still none the wiser as to the actual process this is supposed to go through for new users

...

• 31/01/2023 18:00 Michael finds rebuilt server is unlicensed, unable to complete transfer, raises this with AIMES

• 01/11/2023 09:52 Joel chases this up with AIMES.

• 01/11/2023 12:10 AIMES apologise for the error received, do not acknowledge the root cause or disruption

• 01/11/2023 15:08 AIMES re-install SQL server, licensing issue apparently caused by them having installed the wrong version

• 01/11/2023 16:12 AIMES and Michael agree to attempt migration again tonight, with IP cutover tomorrow 8am pending confirmation of successful transfer

January 2024 - VPN Outage due to failed certificate renewal

...

• Certificate used for all AnyConnect VPN clients was allowed to expire

  • View file
    name _.aimes.services.crt

    • Common Name: *.aimes.services
      Subject Alternative Names: *.aimes.services, aimes.services
      Organization:
      Organization Unit:
      Locality:
      State:
      Country:
      Valid From: December 19, 2022
      Valid To: January 20, 2024
      Issuer: Go Daddy Secure Certificate Authority - G2, GoDaddy.com, Inc. Write review of GoDaddy
      Key Size: 2048 bit
      Serial Number: dbe0653f36391488

• Noticed around 22:00 Saturday 20th January

• Reported as P1

• Call from support shortly after

  • Support agent said this would be billable out-of-hours support

  • We pointed out this cannot possibly be true given the issue is entirely due to ARO failing to renew a critical certificate. This is basic stuff.

  • Support agent suggested they would look at it “first thing on Monday” and be resolved “by 8:30am”

• Sunday 2st ticket escalated as UKKA management want it sorted before Monday

  • Updated request not acknowledged

• George chased up around 6am Monday

  • No acknowledgement

• 09:24am Monday: “Good morning, the issue is being worked on by Richard Johnston in the network team , we are looking into a potential certificate issue on one of the core Firewalls. Unfortunately I don't have an update on potential fix time at this moment.”

• 10:45am: “We are just in the process of applying a new certificate, the CA has issued this due to some (as yet) unknown issue with the current certificate.”

  • From George: “I don't think it's as-yet unknown, it's that current SSL certificate expired on Saturday at 1:45pm without having been renewed in advance.”