Re: [SAGE] to buy or not to buy service contracts

[John Clear <jac@panix.com>]

On Fri, Jan 10, 2003 at 11:07:51AM -0500, Jenn Sturm wrote:
>[$50K service contract on $100K used Origin 2000/32p]
> 
> How does your shop run things? Do you buy the big service contracts? Or 
> do you take the gamble and keep reserve funds around?

On the small stuff that we have alot of (mostly Sun Ultra 60s) we
don't have service contracts, just cannibalize other machines, or
remove failed parts and leave the machine going (bad cpu on a two
cpu machine, just remove the cpu).

On our bigger stuff (SunFire [248]80, SunFire 4800) we have service
contracts since we don't have enough to cannibalize other systems,
and they are fast enough to be missed if they are down.  When we
lose Ultra60s, we just take them out of the cluster until we repair
them and no one notices.

On a 32p Origin 2000, I'd risk going without a service contract,
especially if you have people around familiar with the hardware.
Unless you lose a power supply or backplane, the machine will run
with a few cpu missing.  Getting a power supply T&M will be expensive,
but much less then $50k.

John