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Support Cost

 
Diskman
New Member

Support Cost

Could anybody tell me how much (a justifiable) amount can be paid (or you guys are paying) as support cost (in terms of % as the original cost) for XP or EMC disk arrays?

I was stunned to see that normally it ranges between 17 %- 21%, when compared to other hardware (servers, fabric) which often in the range of 8-13%.

When the technology has developed so much (as per the vendors), that the reliability of disk been improved day by day (again as per vendors), what on earth we have to pay this high cost.

2 REPLIES 2
A. Clay Stephenson
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: Support Cost

Hi Diskman,

While not acting as a shill for HP or EMC, I suspect that it is not the hardware failure rate but rather the complexity of the administration of these boxes. I've been told (though I disagree) that the administration side of these boxes is beyond the abilities of most end users. The other side of this is the pricing model that goes something like this - If they ain't screaming loud enough we ain't charging enough. I really can't blame them for trying to get every dollar out of this that they can, after all my company does exactly the same thing. I have found that you can play EMC off against HP and get big concessions.
If it ain't broke, I can fix that.
Bill McNAMARA_1
Honored Contributor

Re: Support Cost

The XPs really don't fail in terms of hardware.. although it's nice when a disk fails someone arrives on your door with a disk and you know nothing about it. The XP has a dial home feature that reports system health.

The main sources of problems as user error.. I had heard that a theft of the laptop cause a problem at one site!

Later,
Bill
It works for me (tm)