Is there a reasonable way to purchase a "firmware & drivers" download subscription

[jb_wisemo]

(This was previously posted in the "services" forum, which resulted in nothing but misunderstood replies)

In recent years, HPE has been strictly enforcing a policy of requiring a current warranty or support contract for valuable downloads, such as firmware and driver updates.  As our organization has a number of aging HP(E) hardware products that have long lost their warranty, it would be interesting if there was a support contract offering that allowed us to access up to date downloads for old products without the escalating price of retroactively buying service subscriptions since the historic warranty expiry dates.

So are there any such contracts offered by HPE?  And what keywords should be used to purchase them either online or through a local HPE reseller?

Note that some products in our environment predate the split between HP consumer products and HPE.

[Suvamay]

Hello,

Please read through the below link, that would clarify all your query.

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c04055475#step7

Thanks,

[StorageMike]

Hi

You can get prices for support from the following link - https://ssc.hpe.com/portal/site/ssc/?action=clearHierarchy

At the bottom of the page you can browse by category, use this to select the server type and gen you're interested in

[jb_wisemo]

Thanks for the link to the catalog of existing support packages / care packs for each product.

Looking at the items offered there, my question was about the availability of more lightweight post-warranty packages, lets call it "Self Care" and the overall service description blob could be as follows:

HPE Self Care Service is composed of low cost hardware and software services aimed to help increase the availability of your internally serviced IT infrastructure. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) technical resources provides your IT team with access to the documentation and software that would be used by HPE Support engineers to resolve hardware and software problems with HPE and selected third-party products.  HPE Self care includes neither remote support nor hardware repair.  Contact HPE for more information and determination regarding which eligible software products may be included as part of your hardware product coverage. For software products and software-containing hardware products covered by HPE Self Care, HPE provides access to software updates and patches.

HPE Self care packages would be available as "Post-warranty with DMR" (In this case DMR means that the customer can retain deffective media while purchasing replacement/additional media from HPE at commercial prices).

An even lower support level would be "Billed care":

HPE Billed Care Service is composed of comprehensive hardware and software services aimed to help increase or restore the availability of your IT infrastructure. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) technical resources provide support and work with your IT team to help you resolve a hardware and software problem with HPE and selected third-party products. For hardware products covered by HPE Billed Care, the service includes remote diagnosis and support, and may optionally include on-site or mail-in hardware repair if it is required to resolve an issue. For eligible HPE hardware products, this service may also include Basic Software Support and Collaborative Call Management for selected non-HPE software. Contact HPE for more information and determination regarding which eligible software products may be included as part of your hardware product coverage. For software products covered by HPE Billed Care, HPE provides remote technical support and access to software updates and patches.

HPE Billed Care would be available as per-incident our per-hour service, with prices depending on the supported product (For example, the hourly rate would be higher for DEC PDP or VAX servers, due to the rarity of the specialty skills, while the per-incident rate for highly complex scenarios would be higher because of the higher average number of hours worked on such scenarios, pricing for hardware repair would be different from support-only prices).

[gavinbat]

Hi,

As my server is 20+ years old and only used for hobby use, I feel paying for this is a bit rough!

Years ago I downloaded everything I could except a rompaq, never thought I'd need it, which required no subscription or fees.

Now my battery is dead and I need to "replace" the bois I can't...

Regards,

Gavin

[Torsten.]

20+ years old?

Replace BIOS?

What hardware we are talking about?