Maintenance Contract
Let’s take a look at the following scenario:
You are an administrator for several servers. They can be mail server, database server, web server, you name it. One thing you know for sure all servers have high traffic and operate at average of 80% capacity. If one of them fails, you know the steering comittee won’t be happy to hear it.
Now if they are all fresh brand new, having less than two years in service, then there’s is a little you need to worry about. Most new equipments give their best output with minimum maintenance during the first years. After they run in service for three years or more, there you have something to think about. In above scenario, everything runs well for about three years. There’s need not to going home lately, you can sleep well and since you only need to do minimum maintenance, you can use most of your time for something more productive such as chat, play online game, browsing adult site or edit your site and hope it will attract more and more visitors. *Am I right?*
Then all of sudden, your database server suffers for hard disk failure. Fortunately its hard disks are configured in raid-5 array so it still can run but can you take the risk of losing the other hard disks? You need to replace the failed hard disk and you have to do it fast.
What are you gonna do? Call the nearest Seven Eleven and ask if they have a “72.6 GB HDD for bla bla bla series nah nah nah blade server”? Or browse Amazon and see if they have something helpful? This is not something you can buy any where any time.
You have to call the authorized dealer of your server and see if they have the replacement part. Most likely, they do not. They have to order it first which usually takes one up to two weeks. After that there is installation process which takes one up to three days. So in short, you may have to wait for about three weeks before your beloved server goes back normally
How can you prevent such as disaster? You can not -of course- prevent a hard disk from failure but you can create disaster recovery plan. You can cut the time needed to have the replacement part in your hand. You must notice that the older the hardware, the harder to get the spare part. If you have no problem with waiting then it’s fine, but if not then there’s an answer for your problem: maintenance contract. By signing maintenance contract -depend on your service level agreement-, your vendor holds the responsibility to make sure parts are available whenever you need them. Perhaps you still have to wait while they order it but you are in priority list, it won’t take too much time. You can forget your hardware failure as it is in someone’s else hands, the only thing you need to concern about is your data.
Yeah don’t get it wrong, a hardware maintenance contract covers the hardware only. What happens to your data is your own business. I may tell you the best way to make your data survives any disaster, but that will be another article.
It won’t hurt you to pay extra attention on detail before signing any contract. There are a few points you may want to know so your contract won’t be a wasting money. Read them here:
http://itdevcorner.blogspot.com/2007/09/hardware-maintenance-contract.html
Ricky, MCDBA and system analyst. Over 10 years experience in manufacturing and software development.
Tags: hardware, maintenance contract, service agreement, service level