john@pcad.UUCP (John Grow) (04/10/91)
I am evaluating our needs for hardware and software maintenance contracts for the Sun workstations on our network. My goal here is to cut the costs of our maintenance contracts since we currently have contracts with Sun. I would like to get some information about other people's experiences and recommendations before making any sort of decision. If this has been discussed and summarized before, I apologize for missing it earlier. Would it be possible for someone to e-mail me a summary if this is the case? Thanks. Information about our network: 10 suns which need to be covered. Most are SPARCstations (1 and 2) along with a couple 386is and a 3/60. We are located within 45 minutes of Boston. Currently covered by a Sun on-site next day contract which will run out shortly. People here are fairly technical and can perform board swapping and limited diagnosis of problems. None of these workstations are major file servers (our main file server, an IBM 6000, is covered separately). While one going down wouldn't bring the network to a halt, it would be desirable to get any machine back up within 24 hours. We also have another network (2-3 times larger) at another office (in San Jose, CA) which may be considered for 3rd party service as well. It would be convenient to use a vendor which could support us at both sites. Information I am looking for: Experiences people have had using 3rd party contracts. Are the potential savings worth the risk? Are there certain vendors which people recommend to use or avoid? What levels of service do people recommend (on-site same/next day, self swap of boards/parts sent from vendor, etc.)? Will these vendors cover non-Sun hardware as well (e.g. added memory and tape drives)? Are hardware and software contracts usually from the same vendor? I would appreciate any information about this. Please e-mail me and I will summarize if this hasn't been discussed before. Thank you. -- John (System Administrator, P-CAD/CADAM Boston R&D Office) -- John Grow | uucp: (uunet!pcad!john) Personal CAD Systems/CADAM | 1 Technology Park Drive | Westford, MA 01886 |