Crash Kit for SX 2000

[BIGLUCY]

Big Lucy needs to put together a crash kit for SX2000
I am thinking of:
1 each:
DNI Line Card
Conference Card(63 circuits)
CSM II
Control Resource III Card
Universal T1 Card
FIM Carrier Card
Hard Disk Drive
Main Controller III E
ONS Line Card
Peripheral Controller I
Power Converter
Did I miss any thing to bring a system back up?
As Always
Thanks in advance for your help
BL

 

[paterson]

Looks fairly good to me. The main thing is getting a system back up with basic functionality.

I would recommend having 2 Hard Disk Drives if you have a redundant system. It is good practice to replace both if you have trouble with one as the other may be close behind. Also a good practice is to replace them after two to three years if you have a maintenance agreement with your customer.

Has anyone had any trouble with the RSD drive? I personally haven't, but if others have you may want to have one of those on hand as well.

 

[MitelInMyBlood]

Never any trouble with an RSD drive, but I have had a power supply fan go bad in a DSU node and also lost a peripheral/DSU Resource card (9400-200-301-NA). This is the card that fits above the FIM card in a DSU can. The Message Links use this board (not to be confused with the PCM/circuit links). Failure shows up as the apparent total loss of 1 or more card slots in the DSU can. You plug in a formatter card and program the links. The card lights up (has power) but the machine never sees it and never loads it.

Mitel actually has a formula for how many of each "spare" you should have. I don't have it in front of me, but it is based on the number of deployed systems that you are servicing. Basically they recommend literally 1 of everything for each 10 systems, but after the first 10 it's kind of logrithmic from there.

Yes, I would also recommend stocking 2 spare disk drives. As far as the advisability of replacing both drives in a redundant system, that would probably depend on the age of the system. Anything more than 5½ years of continuous service (near or beyond 50,000 hrs run time on the drive) I would absolutely replace them both and immediately order 2 more spares for stock. In a redundant system there is no need to proactively replace them before they fail. Modern disk drives also have a much higher MTBF rating than we had with the old SG (and S/VS) drives.

Keep 2 Universal formatters on hand. You can reflash the firmware into these to "make" whatever flavor formatter you need.

 

[paterson]

Thanks for the sage advice!

 

[BIGLUCY]

Thanks for all of the good advise I have 12 sites from Hawaii to the east coast wanted a kit to be on site I'm in So. Calif. and take care of them remotely I have on site techs that would change the cards out for me
Again Thanks,BL

 

[MitelInMyBlood]

I never worry too much about the customer who chose a non-redundant system. They knew the potential perils going in and they freely chose the cheap option. In so choosing they essentially said, "I can do without my phones". Similarly, the "time and material" customer concerns me not. We'll get to them when we get to them.

On the other hand, Most Mitel gear is pretty darn reliable and the only moving parts are the disk drives. No matter where you or the customer is, FedEx can be there overnight and over a weekend you can always put something on a plane and have it met at the counter.

Going back 10 years I honestly cannot rember the last unplanned outage that wasn't either a hard drive crash or the result of lightning or "self-inflicted" by something the user did. The odds of losing a MCIII main controller or a peripheral switch controller or even a PIC card or a power supply are slim. Ground it, put it on clean power with a good UPS in a clean, temp-stable location and the dang thing will almost run forever.

On systems in hospitals or public safety (police, fire, ambulance, etc), they first need to be (must be) control-redundant on either DC power or generator-backed commercial UPS systems. On-site I would keep 1 spare hard drive, 1 spare DNIC card, 1 spare trunk card (or pre-programmed PRI card) unless my shop was in the same community or within 100 miles.

In your case, located on 1 coast and trying to support systems across the USA I'd probably hit the secondary market and buy an entire system (or two). A couple of complete main control cabinets and a couple of per cabinets, couple of DSU nodes, some phones, etc. That's by far the cheapest way to lay in a thorough supply of spares, altho the drives would be of questionable age. Still anything that'll spin up is better than something that won't. Just watch the secondary mkt stuff as some of it is older Mfg. Disc items.