AKIBIA'S PRACTICAL GUIDE TO ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Low Risk Support Alternatives for Cisco End of Life Equipment
Corporations universally have been reducing corporate IT budgets as a way to preserve profitability in these difficult economic times. CIO’s and especially IT Managers are experiencing increasing demands for improving the reliability of their network infrastructure services while maintaining their current services levels and without increasing expenses. Network outages are simply not an option. Finding solutions that are low risk is their key guideline when it comes to maintaining their network.
IT Network Managers are reducing their IT expenses primarily by extending the life of their current networking infrastructure, delaying purchases of new equipment, and reducing maintenance service levels. With Cisco networking equipment being ubiquitous, let’s take a closer look at Cisco environments.
IT managers are continuing to obtain the maximum business value from their equipment, even though that equipment has reached, or is soon to reach, the end-of-life (EOL) phase of Cisco’s product life cycle. Today corporate IT networks are a mixture of both current and older equipment and depending on the reference, EOL or End-of-Service-Life (EOS) networking equipment accounts for 25% - 50% of today’s corporate IT network infrastructures.
When network equipment reaches EOL, SMARTnet support costs increase, new Cisco IOS software releases for the device stop, and spare parts from Cisco dramatically increase in lead time or are not available. In short, the business value many IT Network Managers receive from their SMARTnet agreement dramatically decreases for EOL equipment.
One way that IT Network Managers are reducing their SMARTnet expenses is by reducing maintenance support levels and assuming more internal risk, in spite of the increasing need to maintain their mission critical networks 24x7.
So what can IT Networking Managers do to continue to economically support their network infrastructure while reducing their network maintenance expenses? Is there a solution to up-level their support level back to what their business requirements demand and continue to obtain the maximum value from their IT network? The short answer is yes - with third-party Cisco support from independent support providers.
The option of third-party support on Cisco enables IT Network Managers to restore their services levels to meet their original service level requirements, and to economically support current systems, as well as continue to maximize their business investment from EOL devices. There is often perceived risk in moving away from OEM maintenance, when in fact it offers a low risk, high value, cost-effective alternative – enabling companies to extend the life of their current, still reliable Cisco systems and realize savings, oftentimes up to 50%.
Share your experiences about Cisco SMARTnet or contact Akibia for a complimentary network infrastructure assessment today and learn how you can realize savings.
