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When Warranty is not enough: Simplifying IT Support with HPE Foundation Care
By Becky Brooks,
HPE Pointnext Foundation Care Product Manager
Where would we be without warranties? When Iโm out shopping, I may not buy every extended warranty for every home appliance, but I do like the peace of mind that comes with knowing that a manufacturer stands behind its product, especially for big-ticket items.
In IT, warranties provide much the same reassurance, and theyโre a very pervasive part of the support experience at most businesses. So pervasive, in fact, that they can easily take on a life of their own, becoming one more complication for IT staffs already overloaded with routine monitoring and troubleshooting tasks (see Gerry Nolanโs post Energizing IT to Drive Business Growth for some jaw-dropping stats). To take one example: warranties expire at different times. Itโs challenging to track that. You buy different servers this month, and then six months from now you buy a few more, plus some storage, letโs say. Now youโve got different warranty term dates. Coverage varies, too; you may have parts coverage for three full years, or just one year. Down the line, you may not even be aware that a product is no longer covered until all of a sudden, you stop getting notifications.
No matter how good your warranties are โ and with HPE infrastructure, thatโs very good, but many companies eventually find themselves bumping up against their limitations. You may need a faster response time than your warranties provide so you can reduce unplanned downtime and ensure that you meet your SLAs. You may want to spend less time figuring out if itโs a software issue or a hardware issue. Donโt wait until warranties start to feel too restrictive and unmanageable to ensure you have a more rounded, simplified approach to your IT support.
The help you need, when you need it
HPE Foundation Care Services is an affordable and effective solution that simplifies the support experience for your entire environment, including HPE hardware โ servers, storage and networking โ HPE software, and even certain third-party software running on x86 servers. Itโs a multi-year service that includes onsite hardware support and delivery of replacement parts as well as simplified access to firmware updates. On the software side, we provide operational support, access to our technical resources, and software documentation updates.
HPE Foundation Care gives you:
A consistent, simplified support experience.
HPE Foundation Care amplifies and extends the value of your warranties. Letโs say you have a couple of ProLiant servers, an ML 110 and a DL 380, each with different warranty structures for onsite repair. With HPE Foundation Care you pay only the difference from your current warranty term for each server to round out support to a full term โ a full three years or five years, or whatever duration you choose. We'll renew each warranty for you automatically, providing the same consistent support experience for both servers, and for all of your HPE infrastructure.
In many cases, itโs broader coverage, too. With a warranty, you may diagnose an issue and we may send you a replacement part โ but with HPE Foundation Care we'll come onsite and replace that part for you.
HPE Foundation Care provides access to HPE expertise and experience that makes all the difference in diagnosing issues. Is it the software or the hardware? Is it a potential configuration issue? Firmware? Patches? It can be hard to tell. Our experts are familiar with all the hardware and software, all the bugs and fixes, across all the different versions, and they can save you tons of time in figuring out whatโs happening.
No more worrying about the different warranty status of any elements that youโve added to your HPE products, such as storage discs youโve added to a cabinet. No more wondering, when thereโs an issue, which ones were under warranty? With HPE Foundation Care, theyโre all covered. When a warranty expires, you continue to get parts support, on-site support, and phone support for your hardware and software without ever missing a beat.
Help with third-party software.
HPEโs expertise extends far beyond our own products. We maintain a database of known issues with software from independent vendors that we partner with. We have deep knowledge of many types of software that runs on our products โ industry-leading solutions from VMware, Red Hat, Microsoft, and many others โ and we use it to help you troubleshoot. This is an aspect of HPE Foundation Care that we call collaborative support, and we believe itโs unique in the market.
If researching our database canโt resolve the issue, we can do a โwarm transferโ to the software provider. We initiate a call on your behalf (given that you have a support contract with that vendor), and we provide all of the details of the issue as we understand it. That way you donโt have to make a cold call to the vendor and start over with the explanations.
Response times as fast as you need them.
A big part of the decision in choosing a support service centers on the speed of the response you need. At HPE, we recognize that companies vary in the level of response-time commitment theyโre looking for, so we offer three options within HPE Foundation Care: Call to Repair, 24x7, and Next Business Day โ see the graphic below. Whichever level you choose, itโll be a significant upgrade on the typical warranty coverage of business-hours-only phone support, and a big step towards maximizing availability and ensuring your SLAs.
HPE Foundation care gives you the confidence that you've got the coverage you need across your IT infrastructure to keep your business running at peak performance.
Read more about HPE Foundation Care and how it can help you manage growing IT complexities with economical but effective support, or watch the short video below.
Related Articles:
- Energizing IT to Drive Business Growth: Real-Life Results from HPE Datacenter Care, by Gerry Nolan
- Rx for Business Vitality: Choosing the Right IT Support, by Gerry Nolan
- How to Simplify Datacenter Support for a Multivendor Environment, by John Gunther
About the Author:
Becky Brooks is the Global Product Manager for HPE Pointnext Foundation Care Service. Her goal is to ensure a quality support experience that drives business outcomes for customers. Becky has worked in international technology and support services for over 30 years providing leadership and innovation in a variety of roles including sales engagement, storage services, software business practices and software product services.
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