Community Feedback

Hello,

I'm not certain this is the correct forum location to post this issue, I was unable to locate a more suitable sub community.

We've been using Aruba 2930F+M switches for a bit over 4 years and have been quite happy with them. Nice performance, the GUI accesses most things our users need, and the CLI differences from Cisco are easily discoverable.

One of them has recently developed a problematic SFP+ port. I'm not asking for support here in the forum yet, I'm still attempting to find out if it's a hardware issue or not. I'll eventually be cleaning out the slot and other physical issues along with updating firmware and initializing the config.

So--- the first step is to find updated firmware before I break anything, we're currently running 16.08.x. In the past I've been able to download from the Aruba/HPE site. Now I must sign up for the Support site which I attempted to do. I received an interesting message - 

"Error during authentication, The domain of the email address that you
have specified "icloud.com" is public domain. We do NOT support
public domain email addresses
Please retry onboarding with a different email address, which is not
public domain."

Initially I didn't understand the message and attempted again receiving the same error. Finally figured out they mean they want a private company domain. Seems a bit arbitrary to me as I've never seen that before. There's no way to message support without an account and the ArubaBot on the page, after trying every possible selection, always reverts to sending me to the support page which of course I'm unable to access.

I finally called support and the person who picked up the phone said I must have a company email. I politely explained the iCloud address I'm using IS the company email address for this company. She kept insisting I had a company email, and then hung up on me. Odd at best.

Therefore I have two questions please - 

A - is there any way to sign up for support with an email address that everyone else (to a first approximation) on the planet accepts? I'm currently unable to access support that I should be able to access even if I need to pay for it.

B - For my education, does anyone know WHY this odd email prejudice exists? I'm willing to understand but at the moment don't have a rationale.

Sincerely,

H

I'm not a full expert on this, but there appears to be an obligation for HPE to validate who downloads software. That appears to have to do with export requirements and preventing software/hardware ending up in embargoed customers or countries.

Because everyone can get an icloud.com / gmail.com / outlook.com mail address, addresses from one of those providers seem to be considered as non-business as they don't tie you as a business to the mail account. If you work for iCloud.com, you probably have an @apple.com mail address as well.

Can't speak for 'everyone else on the planet', but have seen this type of validation happening at more vendors before you can download software. Note that having a business e-mail account (as mentioned, not from a public e-mail provider) is just step 1 of the verification process and you may even need active support to get access to software downloads (depending on several things). Easiest is to use a mail address in your own company domain, and if you don't have one, get one.

I'm just explaining what I know (with a few assumptions here), please don't consider this as a judgement or claim that this an optimal situation (under all circumstances). It may help to better understand what's happening and why.

Hello,

I'm not certain this is the correct forum location to post this issue, I was unable to locate a more suitable sub community.

We've been using Aruba 2930F+M switches for a bit over 4 years and have been quite happy with them. Nice performance, the GUI accesses most things our users need, and the CLI differences from Cisco are easily discoverable.

One of them has recently developed a problematic SFP+ port. I'm not asking for support here in the forum yet, I'm still attempting to find out if it's a hardware issue or not. I'll eventually be cleaning out the slot and other physical issues along with updating firmware and initializing the config.

So--- the first step is to find updated firmware before I break anything, we're currently running 16.08.x. In the past I've been able to download from the Aruba/HPE site. Now I must sign up for the Support site which I attempted to do. I received an interesting message - 

"Error during authentication, The domain of the email address that you
have specified "icloud.com" is public domain. We do NOT support
public domain email addresses
Please retry onboarding with a different email address, which is not
public domain."

Initially I didn't understand the message and attempted again receiving the same error. Finally figured out they mean they want a private company domain. Seems a bit arbitrary to me as I've never seen that before. There's no way to message support without an account and the ArubaBot on the page, after trying every possible selection, always reverts to sending me to the support page which of course I'm unable to access.

I finally called support and the person who picked up the phone said I must have a company email. I politely explained the iCloud address I'm using IS the company email address for this company. She kept insisting I had a company email, and then hung up on me. Odd at best.

Therefore I have two questions please - 

A - is there any way to sign up for support with an email address that everyone else (to a first approximation) on the planet accepts? I'm currently unable to access support that I should be able to access even if I need to pay for it.

B - For my education, does anyone know WHY this odd email prejudice exists? I'm willing to understand but at the moment don't have a rationale.

Sincerely,

H