2008/12/8 Peggy Andrews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > We are soon at the end of a decommissioning project (very, very sad). > Our hardware maintenance contract (z800, Shark, and ATL/VTS) expires > 2/1/09, but we may not be able to decommission until a few months after that. > > Does anyone have ideas on "ballpark" figures on costs associated with > hardware failures without a contract? - i.e. a disk drive failure, vs. a tape > drive failure, vs. any z800 failure - and on-site call rates??
In my limited and not too current experience, uncontracted service calls can be *very* expensive. With a contract you are covered for parts as well as labour, and either one can go up really fast if you are paying time and materials. IIRC on our old MP3000, the time & materials to replace a single drive was well over $5000, where the maintenance contract was iirc, $1000/month or so. Sounds like a no brainer to not take the contract in that case, but you have to look at the actual failure rate for your device, and whether the parts are easily available to non-contract customers. You also need to consider the residual value when you do ship the hardware out the door, and whether it will be significantly lower if it's been off maintenance. On the other, other hand, the vendor has you over a barrel to some extent, so if you want a short maintenance agreement you will pay for it, particularly if there's nothing in the pipeline for the vendor. Tony H. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
