CREATE PRODUCT FORUMS

andrew.burns · ‎11-12-2007

Hi,

Finding answers is usually straightforward as the search function works pretty well - but it would be very useful to have product forums for a couple of reasons.

The first reason is that currently it's impossible to "browse" issues relating to a specific product, and secondly it's very confusing for new users - because the forums are technology oriented new users seem to have great difficulty working out where they should post their question.

I'm not suggesting that the technology structure should be dropped entirely, but I see a lot of advantages to a more product oriented structure.

Andrew.

l.zambrano · ‎11-26-2008

I strongly agree, besides, should be helpfull link products with their respective associated services

scottmac · ‎11-26-2008

It would be a nice feature.

Perhaps there could be some sort of cross-index such that if you went to one forum list, it was laid out by product, and the other forum list would have it laid out by technology.

I *don't* think it would work to have a series of checkboxes available to the OP for "Where does this post belong" because some would just check every box hoping for maximum exposure (the ultimate cross-posting).

I believe it would end up being another complete set of forum pages, but the upside would be more "targeted exposures" for the marketing types and, even better, product focused to boot.

andrew.burns · ‎11-26-2008

What I'd like is for the forums to at least match the Cisco product categories. For example, under Data Center we currently have this:

Application Networking

Accelerating and optimizing applications in the data center and for branch offices

Server Networking

Server Virtualization, Blade Server Switching, HPC, Clustering, Service Orchestration, VFrame DC, SNA

Storage Networking

Storage consolidation, disaster recovery and data replication

But I'd like to have this (taken from the ANS product category):

Application-Oriented Networking

AON product-set listed here...

Data Center Application Services

ACE Products, AVS, CSS, CSM

Wide Area Application Services

ACNS, WAAS, etc.

Data Center Technologies

Non-product specific questions (e.g. environment, design, etc.)

I think a product-oriented structure makes sense in a lot of categories (such as security, unified communications, wireless, etc) but I do see some potential issues with the more generic routing/switching questions which often are technology-oriented. Maybe two branches at the top of the tree, product-specific and technology-specific.

Obviously, there is no "perfect" structure, but I do think we could make the current structure better.

Just an idea...

Andrew.