Server warranty expired

[mjos]

Hi,
One of our HP Itanium server's warranty is going to expire next month & the management doesn't want to renew the warranty or the AMC renewal contract.
In this case, how do we go about if any internal H/W or S/W issue happens in the server in future. Replacing any part without support, will that be more expensive than the support renewal?

Thanks in advance.

[Kapil Jha]

why you worries?

if management don want to renew the contract just work with HP and management whenever any hardware go bad.....
whatever the price is....

BR,
Kapil+

[Michal Kapalka (mikap) · Accepted solution]

Hi,
One of our HP Itanium server's warranty is going to expire next month & the management doesn't want to renew the warranty or the AMC renewal contract.
In this case, how do we go about if any internal H/W or S/W issue happens in the server in future. Replacing any part without support, will that be more expensive than the support renewal?

Thanks in advance.

= i'm sure that if the server is critical for your company and something will happen, the money will be no problem, in your cases i think you are Sysadmin, and you can;t be responsible for the decision of your management.

- if some problem happen, you could open a HW call, and them the HP will contact your company responsible person to agree or disagree the price for fixing/solving/troubleshooting your HW problem.

mikap

[Trygve Henriksen]

Micap; the SysAdmin will ALWAYS be blamed for ANY downtime, especially on critical servers, even if it's the management's fault for discontinuing service and support contracts.
"We haven't needed this before, so why should we pay for something we never use?"

Mjos: If I was you I would start stocking up on spares...
A support contract usually means 'contractor has to respond withong X Hours' and possibly have spare parts close by.
Without a contract, you end up behind those who does have one in the queue. Also, the contractor may not bother to keep spares nearby.
Which means it'll take longer to fix anything. Also, if it's a critical server, which they need back up quickly, it can get pretty costly to courier parts in.

I'm not that familiar with Itanium servers, so I don't know how much of the work you can do yourself, but there may be a cost saving there?

[mjos]

Thanks all for the replies. The server is actually used for development purpose. So the management decided that we can call up HP whenever required for any h/w issues instead of renewing the contract. I think the ad hoc services provided by HP will cost more than the AMC renewal....am i true here?

Thanks

[Michal Kapalka (mikap)]

hi,

check in HP in your country if its possible to get the support "Per Call"

mikap

[Bill Hassell]

> I think the ad hoc services provided by HP will cost more than the AMC renewal....am i true here?

There is no correct answer. Ad hoc service is usually the lowest priority so unless you pay extra for immediate service, your system may be down for days before HP can fix it. Now if nothing fails, then of course a service contract will be more expensive. If your system requires several repairs for different parts during the year, then a support contract is less expensive.

Since the box is a development system, as long as the system can be off for several days waiting for repair, paying per call may be a reasonable choice. If you have taken a class on troubleshooting and repairing your Itanium server (and receive service bulletins about changes and updates), you could buy extra parts and fix it yourself.

[Dennis Handly]

>how do we go about if any internal H/W or S/W issue happens in the server in future.

If you don't have software support contract you won't be able to get new versions of HP-UX.

[rick jones]

While you do still have a HW support contract, you might call the number(s) and ask about a few possibilities for costs on a time and materials basis - for instance how much it would be on time and materials to replace a CPU or a DIMM or disc drive.

[Steve Reece_3]

HP will often do time and materials calls, but beware that they will usually set a minimum cost of something like 2 hours at 150 pounds and hour so yourminimum call is actually something like £300 or £400. This can be more than your maintenance contract.
If you have no maintenance contract you will need to buy new versions of the operating system and update licenses. This is likely to be more than the cost of maintenance too.

More importantly than both of those, I have had a client in the situation of needing a replacement tape drive. Although HP had a tape drive in local stores, this was specifically reserved for those who had maintenance contracts. As someone who didn't have a contract, the client had to wait several days with no backups while a tape drive was brought in from Holland.

Management will ultimately make the decision that they want to make. There are alternative companies providing maintenance, but your best bet is to make a list of all of the costs for things like software maintenance and the minimum callout fee from HP and then compare that total cost with the cost of, say, next day response callout. If not having cover still comes out cheaper then maybe management are making the right choice?

[Paul Jerrom]

Make sure you have a company credit card as HP won't do ad-hoc stuff or even log a call without a credit card to charge it to.

So make sure you have your boss's 24 hour phone number and make him aware that you will be ringing him to pay for any calls or hardware/software fixes.

This management decision is a false economy. The first failure will cost more, and from September you won't even be able to download patches without a valid support agreement.