Can anyone comment on Cisco 6509E Smartnet "chassis" coverage? In the past,
"chassis" has always meant, not just the passive chassis itself, but all of
the components including supervisor cards, line cards, power supplies, fan
trays, etc. Now it appears that Cisco is requiring Smartnet coverage on
line cards in addition to the chassis.
My understanding is that Smartnet functioned much like insurance policies,
where Cisco collected maintenance contract fees year after year, but the
devices were generally so reliable that the collected Smartnet fees always
far exceeded the dollar amount required to replace failed components.
I'd say hardware replacement is only a small benefit of smartnet, or I
would have found it more economical to just stock spares a long time ago.
You also received technical support in addition to software updates.
In fact, IMHO, the greatest benefit is the access to Cisco development
resources for both defect resolution and software updates. In fact, I see
little value in continued smartnet past last date of software development,
and that typically is my cancellation date well before end of life.
Besides, between that date and EOL, chances are stocking spares is dirt
cheap and you little other benefit...
I have found that SmartNet is good for only "software" updates in
certain gear. 3rd party maintenance is MUCH cheaper when regarding to
"6500" gear as it is NOT a distributed architecture as the 12000 series.
That is the way I understood it in the past but:
I recently priced a new 10G blade for our 6509 and was quoted Smartnet for it.
I asked about if it was covered under the chassis Smartnet and was told that line cards were not covered.
I do know that I have replaced the supervisor card before under the Smartnet contract on the chassis.
My understanding now is that the chassis, supervisor card, fan trays, and power supplies are covered by the chassis Smarnet.
Any line cards added need to be covered with their own Smartnet contract.
If anyone knows better, please let us (me in particular) know.
I work in the K-12 educational market and right now the Smarnet on the chassis runs about 30% of what the chassis costs (bare chassis without sup, fans, and power supplies).
If the sup, fan trays and powers supplies are not covered then that is a steep price to pay for a bare chassis. I could buy another chassis and put on the shelf and it would be cheaper since the chassis itself would have to be abused badly to need replacing.
If the chassis, supervisor, fans, and power supplies are covered under the chassis contract then the pricing on the chassis contract makes sense.
This is also the way I have understood "chassis" Smartnet in the past, that
is that line cards have always been covered, and in my career, Cisco has
always replaced (RMA'd) failed line cards of any kind no questions asked.
This seems to be a new Cisco policy, quoting Smartnet for line cards.
Does anyone know if companies like Arista, which advocate "merchant
silicon" for their Ethernet switches, have a one price support contract for
the "whole ball of wax" if a component fails in their switches?