Many people are under the belief that EOS is simply a scare tactic to get
customers to buy new hardware.
IBM does offer a "Hardware Service Extension". It is not simply the same
as regular service with a higher price charge. Many people will interpret
Hardware Service Extension to mean whatever they want it to mean.
But what is in the small print?
1 - Service is based on parts availability. Oh, you lost hard drive model
xyz? Sorry, we no longer have that in stock.
2 - New CVEs about security vulnerability will not be addressed. Normally
these are fixed with Firmware updates. While one might think they'd all be
discovered by now (again thinking it means whatever they want it to mean)
there has been recent updates in the firmware for just such things.
3 - Service is based on availability of skilled resources. Sorry, we no
longer have anyone in your branch trained on that old model, but thanks for
the maintenance check anyway.
4 - New issues are not covered. For example, some hardware in the industry
goes totally berserk after x hundred hours of runtime unless you put on a
certain patch. If they discover something like this, you're on your own.
Such runtime issues are really out there and I'm not talking about some
hidden gotcha feature some people put out there to ensure you're paying
maintenance.
You can see some of this at:
https://www.itjungle.com/2025/01/27/a-year-from-now-most-power9-systems-bite-the-rust/
On Tue, Jan 28, 2025 at 9:11 AM Rob Berendt <robertowenberendt@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Although it was out there, if you knew where to look, IBM just published
the traditional EOS for Power 9 products.
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/announcements/services-withdrawal-discontinuance-service-select-power-systems-products-replacements-available
midrange.com
