On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 22:27, Graap, Kenneth
<Kenneth.Graap@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Would any of you who are using a Third-party (Not IBM) for your system
hardware and software maintenance, care to share your experiences?
You can only have SWMA from IBM. We have a few customers that opted to
use Itris for third party maintenance.
In one case, Itris fucked their customers machine up completely (an
old model 720) by replacing the system board and CPU, but not without
first scrapping the entire ASP 1 - for no discernible reason. Customer
had to get a new machine password, which Itris didn't care about - we
had to invest a lot of time to get it.
Also, a Restore from backups was started by Itris, but not completed.
The entire IFS was missing. Around this point, i was brought in with
the software issue "host server won't start". Yeah. Spent the rest of
the day getting the system back into working order.
For simple issues, they work. Replacing hard drives or tape drives.
But that's not what you buy third party maintenance for - you buy it
to have them repair the _bad_ stuff. Any moron with a screw driver and
at least one functioning eye and basic reading skills can replace a
hard drive. Properly replacing a system board without clearing ASP 1
requires at least a moderate degree of experience (or a lot of luck).
Our IBM maintenance is increasing 54% this year and we would like to
consider some alternatives...
Buy new machines. Lease them for 3 years, afterwards maintenance goes
up in extreme levels.
Don't buy third party maintenance.
Disclaimer: I work for an IBM BP and we sell IBM HWMA and SWMA.
midrange.com
