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Hardware Replacement Schedule and
Maintenance Options

Hardware Replacement Schedule

The schedule for replacement of servers in the Server Farm is:

  • Sun SPARC and Opteron servers: every 5 years.
  • IBM xSeries, Dell servers: every 4 years.
    •

The Systems Support group tracks the age of servers, and works with customers to keep them informed, for budget purposes, of the scheduling of server replacement.

This replacement schedule is intended to reduce maintenance costs and failures for servers. As servers age:

  • Maintenance costs increase.
  • The mean time between failures decreases.
  • Workload for systems administrators increases.

See the Maintenance Options chart for warranty information for different server types.

Maintenance Options

There are three maintenance options for servers in the CIT machine rooms. The plans vary depending on the type of server and operating system. Plans with more coverage and faster response times have higher costs.

  7 x 24
4 hour response
7 days a week, 24 hours a day		 5 x 9
8AM to 5PM, Mon-Fri
4 hour response
No weekends, no holidays		 Time and Materials2
Best effort
Next business day
IBM/Intel
4 year warranty		 4 years at purchase.
 
After 4 years moves to yearly maintenance renewal.
 		 4 years at purchase.
 
After 4 years moves to yearly maintenance renewal.
 		 Warranty3 with purchase.
 
After warranty ends, defaults to Time & Materials.
Dell/Intel
4 year warranty		 4 years at purchase.
 
After 4 years moves to Time & Materials if server is not replaced.
 		 4 years at purchase.
 
After 4 years moves to Time & Materials if server is not replaced.
 		 Warranty3 with purchase.
 
After warranty ends, defaults to Time & Materials.
SUN/Solaris
1—3 year warranty
(depends on server)		 1 year uplift4 when machine arrives. Then yearly maintenance renewal.
 
 		 1 year uplift4 when machine arrives. Then yearly maintenance renewal.
 
 		 Warranty3 with purchase.
 
After warranty ends, defaults to Time & Materials.
    Notes:
    1. Yearly maintenance renewal contract dates:
      • IBM: 8/1—7/31
      • Sun: 11/1—10/31
    2. Time and Materials costs are journaled to the customer.
    3. Warranty: Next business day/best effort.
    4. Uplift: After the machine arrives, Systems Administration Manager will add the machine to the yearly maintenance renewal contract .