US support on non-US source hardware

[technicidat]

Hi,

Not a very technical question but I'm hoping someone here who has had similar troubles can provide me with a more definite answer.

I have read bpr01266 (Global Warranty and FAQs), spoken to various hardware suppliers (conflict of interest really), HP support themselves (difficult to find anyone who knows for sure) and I'm still not quite happy that what I'm being told are the facts.

Situation:
We are a UK Limited company with data centre operations in the US (New York). We are not incorporated in the US at all (yet), we just have space in the data centre there.

Our client wants to purchase their HP DL360/380 servers and MSA2000i SAN storage hardware from their UK hardware supplier (also no presence in the US) and ship it from the UK to the New York data centre.

My questions:

1. I understand that there is a global warranty on equipment purchased in country A and exported to country B.
HP will honor this warranty, but what will this support level be if the equipment is not in it's original market? (HP state "it may change your support level").
Onsite support or just parts shipping - Next business day? 48 Hours? etc..


2. What if I need to purchase a Care Pack or some better support for this exported equipment in the US.
For e.g. we need a 4 hour response time for repairs on the SAN.

- Will it be possible to purchase a Care Pack on exported equipment?

- Will I have to buy the Care Pack from HP in the US?

- Will they sell it to me as a non-US company with equipment in the US?


It just seems really difficult to get a straight answer and of course we need to make sure we can get proper support on the kit.

We have also had issues in the past with US customs holding equipment because it was not purchased by a US company (i.e. we are not shipping to anyone in particular, just the data centre provider).

Anyone have similar experiences?

Thanks.
Regards,
Andy.