This is a question that we as a service provider have to deal with on a regular basis. A lot of customers feel the way you do, and this is partly because some resellers don't take the time to explain what collaborative support actually means.
The annual renewals you pay to Check Point entitle you to the following major benefits: 1. Hardware warranty (in cases where you have purchased an appliance and it is faulty). 2. Software assurance (allowing you access to new versions, service packs and patches) 3. On-going service blade subscriptions (for things like URL filtering which requires updates - these features will switch off if not renewed). In addition, it also provides a benefit to your service provider in that your service provider may log a call with Check Point if they are unable to fix the problem themselves. **It does NOT allow you to contact Check Point directly for support** The concept here is simple. If you want support directly from Check Point, you need to pay for it. The cost is much higher for direct support, but you can contact them directly and talk straight to their experts. However, if you don't want to purchase direct support from Check Point, then Check Point expects you to get support from a reseller / service provider, and this is usually a paid-for service. Your service provider is not entitled to receive "free" support from Check Point. They can only contact Check Point for support if their customer's renew the annual collaborative support. Check Point do not want to spend a lot of time having to solve "simple" problems, and because of this, they require that the partners have certified support staff that are capable of solving at least 90% of the issues raised by their customers. Check Point do not allow service providers to simply "pass" the support up to Check Point. If they do this enough times, they could lose their support provider status or it could affect their partnership level. Your service provider is under absolutely no obligation to provide you with "free" support just because you renewed your subscription. Remember that most partners are not just selling a product. Skilled technical staff costs a lot of money, and the partners need to pay their staff, so they need to charge for the services they provide. Check Point does not pay the partners any money to provide support. The partners need to earn this money by themselves. So to answer your question, if you need a problem solved, contact a service provider and pay them some money to help you, or if you really want direct support from Check Point, consider purchasing direct support from Check Point. If your issue is not a purely technical problem (maybe you have a problem with licensing, or something related to your account) your reseller should be able to help, or you can contact your local Check Point offices for assistance. This is usually not charged for. There is one other thing to note. You should have access to the knowledge base. If you have investigated the error, and you can see that it is a known issue that Check Point says there is a fix for, then most reasonable resellers will get this for you on your behalf without asking for payment. Matthew Odendaal Technical Manager Information Security Architects (Pty) Ltd matt...@isa.co.za -----Original Message----- From: Mailing list for discussion of Firewall-1 [mailto:FW-1-MAILINGLIST@AMADEUS.US.CHECKPOINT.COM] On Behalf Of a bv Sent: 10 October 2012 04:54 PM To: FW-1-MAILINGLIST@AMADEUS.US.CHECKPOINT.COM Subject: [FW-1] Support issues and case opening Hi, What must the way to open a case when you are renewing yearly at Checkpoint? When you try to open a case they close it nearly immediatly and reports and says that open the case through a partner. When you return to partners they sometime say that we have to a new support aggreement with them (and some wants money) which seems foolish. What to do to open a case if you are an end user? Regards ================================================= To set vacation, Out-Of-Office, or away messages, send an email to lists...@amadeus.us.checkpoint.com in the BODY of the email add: set fw-1-mailinglist nomail ================================================= To unsubscribe from this mailing list, please see the instructions at http://www.checkpoint.com/services/mailing.html ================================================= If you have any questions on how to change your subscription options, email fw-1-ow...@ts.checkpoint.com ================================================= Scanned by Check Point Total Security Gateway. ================================================= To set vacation, Out-Of-Office, or away messages, send an email to lists...@amadeus.us.checkpoint.com in the BODY of the email add: set fw-1-mailinglist nomail ================================================= To unsubscribe from this mailing list, please see the instructions at http://www.checkpoint.com/services/mailing.html ================================================= If you have any questions on how to change your subscription options, email fw-1-ow...@ts.checkpoint.com =================================================
