For us, if it's mission critical (primary servers, SAN storage array, etc), it's on 4 hour service contracts. Everything else (hardware wise) has spares (warm spares, if possible).
I'm rapidly moving 75% of my machines virtual, which lowers the number of pieces of hardware needed to be kept on warranty, but still maintaining enough for high availability. The thing that I don't keep enough of is network devices. Our primary and secondary sites have redundant network connections, complete with clustered routers, firewalls, switches, and load balancers, but my end-user sites have "cold standbys", which is a kind way of saying "mothballed, old unconfigured hardware". That's something I want to work on when the budget improves. --Matt On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Nick Silkey <n...@silkey.org> wrote: > SMS. Tre cheap, IMHO. $work uses them for SPARC, Tru, and big honkin IBM tape > libraries. FWIW, we buy x86 Dell gear but do _not_ opt for SMS over Dell > service contracts. > > sysmaint.com I think. > > Were 7x24 since we don't want n+1 of those architectures in the datacenter! > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Aug 12, 2010, at 7:25 PM, "Robinson, Greg" > <greg.robin...@dsto.defence.gov.au> wrote: > >> UNCLASSIFIED >> >> Hi all, >> >> Wanted some input on the maintenance contract vs. hot/luke warm/cold >> spares debate. What does your $work do, and is it value for money? >> >> If you run with spares, how much of your valuable sysadmin time is taken >> up when you have to fix something, presuming that your newer hardware is >> "slightly" different than your dead hardware and all the driver >> ramifications that that entails. >> >> If you do have maintenance contracts, do you have something like >> critical systems on 24x7 support and others on, say, 9x5 support, to try >> and reduce costs? >> >> Interested in all possible scenarios. >> >> Thankx, >> >> Greg. >> >> IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Department of Defence >> and is subject to the jurisdiction of section 70 of the Crimes Act 1914. >> If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact >> the sender and delete the email. >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Tech mailing list >> Tech@lopsa.org >> http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech >> This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators >> http://lopsa.org/ > > _______________________________________________ > Tech mailing list > Tech@lopsa.org > http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ > -- LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST? COOKIE MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process. _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list Tech@lopsa.org http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
