Maintenance ? 2

[SuperTanker]

Background: We have 15 locations with Merlin systems some Legend some Magix. Some are on a maintenance agreement with the legion of doom aka (expanets) and some with the empire aka (avaya)

We are working with a few local vendors to see if we remove the systems from maintenance and depot our own parts or have the vendor depot the parts how much we'll save.

I assume someone's done this before. What parts did you stock? Were you able to leverage any price point on the parts or SLA?

 

[BobbR]

Do any of your 15 systems have Intuity Audix voicemail (or even another brand)? If so, you will want to confirm that vendor(s) can actually provide support for these systems. My experience has been even Business Partners were not equipped to service Intuity. Some initially responded with "sure, we can do that," but when questioned, admitted they could not.

As far as the Legend/Magic systems: distance between locales and allowable down-time of any one of the systems while awaiting service/parts? Without a service agreement with a vendor, they will not be obliged to stock replacement modules for you, so you will have to guess the most likely to fail else stock one of each type, while paying attention to revision levels of some spares to ensure they will work in each system. Lots of variables to consider.

 

[ken07734]

If you look on-line you can find many places that sell these cards and parts for a very reasonable price, far less than having a service contract. I find that the newer companies that are started by technicians have a better understanding of support and usually will be there within 2-4 hours time or next business day depending on the problem. Support is the real issue, In my experience I have found that sales will often SELL you a comfort level until you realise different. I am sure if you shop around and ask for recommendations of customers you will find many vendors formed by technicians that will be able to service and support your equipment at GOOD rates.

 

[SuperTanker]

Thanks. Excellent advise.

We have two vendors we are very comfortable with servicing our switches. One does both definity & merlin, the other just merlin.

Bobbr you raised an issue about rev levels on merlins. Can you tell me a bit more about that, what problems I could expect? My mgt thinks we can simply keep an entire merlin on hand and swap out parts or the entire switch carrier & all.

The software revision is obviously a concern, but the hardware was something I didn't think was a problem in the Merlin world.

 

[BobbR]

SuperTanker: My experiences with hardware version problems occurred when upgrading the systems, once when going to R6.0 and some 008 ATL cards became flaky, intermittent strange noises introduced into system; at the time was under Avaya service and they replaced the modules with newer version to fix. Another was during an upgrade on a system from R6.1 to R7.0, networking and adding D1 and 016TRR modules; had one of each module (non-upgradable) which prevented system to function. In this case, due to unfortunate events, hardware was purchased from one vendor, installation from another; became a sticky situation convincing vendor to provide correct version module. Somehow it was my fault for not originally advising vendor of the module *version* required for my software level.

Ken has a valid point, you have a better chance of success in dealing with technicans than with salesmen, unless you have the wherewithall to specify and/or determine if a particular module will work prior to purchase. Particular caveat with abundance of unknown equipment on auction sites.

 

[ken07734]

any vendor that has been operating for over 2 years SHOULD normally view your hardware vintage and versions before suggesting the parts to upgrade. This of course is my opinion. and a rule of thumb I follow. A good source of issues to look at would be at the Avaya web site in the QCCPN files for Legend and Magix.

 

[kristiandg]

We've got this type of arrangement for our Definity systems (S8100's Actually).

We stock 2 of every station and trunk card as well as a Call Classifier. We also stock 1 processor. The system will run for 7 to 10 days without a license file, which gives us pleanty of time to have our supplier (vendor) have a new RFA generated.

With MAGIX/LEGEND its even easier because all these parts have been around FOREVER. Flash Upgrade Cards for the processors are available all over E-bay and some 2'ndary market suppliers. The processors and such are extremely inexpensive on the 2'ndary and make stocking your own supplies a no-brainer compaired to pricing from a Corporation.

That being said, it should be known that our knowlege level of our systems is quite significant and our Telecommunications Department is a VERY Hands-On shop. The more we can do in-house, the better (is the belief of upper management). There have been a couple of situations where we've contacted some of the most technically savvy people at our vendor's engineering department to work on problems. In every instance, we've found the solution ourselves within a couple of days and before the vendor's engineers have.

So, our confidence that we could truly support the organizations' 80-some sites was high enough to make the idea feasible.

The equipment wouldn't be too much of a hit, its whether you feel your department's skill level could handle a major outage with the prompt response you would demand from a vendor (whether that vendor actually delivers a prompt response or not is a whole other story).

Hope this helps...

Kris

 

[Ghostin]

I usually tell my customers that the only real advantage to a maintenance agreement is response time on down systems. We guarentee a 2-4 hour response depending on the equipment. Otherwise, like the other posts have said, stock a few parts and have a couple of reliable vendors to do the troubleshooting and programming and you will be fine.

 

[SuperTanker]

We calculate with our current maintenance agreement we could keep two complete merlin's on hand in lieu of a contract.

I appreciate everyone's advise. We're moving forward with a vendor who is local willing to work with us as an extension of our staff.