Survey - Do you self maintain your Avaya system?

[rejackson]

I came into this job 2 years ago with a strong computer and network background and zero telephone experience. My company was getting an Avaya 8700 system with a little pile of G700/8300s scattered around, and they wanted to self maintain the system; totally self maintain. NO support contracts with anyone....buy spares and do it yourself.

I have learned a lot since then. A lot about phones and phone systems, and a lot about companies that make it as hard as possible for you to maintain your own property; the telephone system that you bought from them. I'm not talking about software licensing in general. I'm talking about the right to busy and unbusy a circuit or clear an error. Avaya restricts what you can do and the BPs try to convince you that you are too stupid to do it.

I have read Mikey's excellent post on How to Self Maintain your Avaya system and I know about the Maintenance Service Permissions where you have to pay additional money for the right to maintain the system that you already bought. I am working on getting MSPs now.

But I still get surprised by things like when Avaya dialed into my systems and turned off my access to the Reset system 4 command! In our current state I have to reset the media gateways to get a system in LSP mode to re-register with the 8700. What it comes down to is that the owner of the system doesn't have the rights to run it other than adds/moves/deletes; and that is NOT enough to keep it running. The BP knew we did not want maintenance and never mentioned that we could not do it without at least buying the MSPs.

SO..that's the diatribe....now,

Who maintains their own system? Only end users please, no BPs. Give me the details like;

How big is your system?

What level of support did you buy? MSPs?, + hardware?,+ Software?, full support but you only call when you have to? Anything else that I don't know about?

What level of support do you do? daily, software/firmware updates, board swap, install new systems?

How much resistance do you get from Avaya and BPs when you want to add hardware or new G700/8300 LSP locations?

 

[taggart]

Hi There,

Sorry, I am a BP but I had to reply.

I assume you are a US company and bought your system from a US BP as I have heard very little about MSP's and dont use them?. Here in the UK as a BP myself if the customer buys an Avaya system from us it is their property, not ours, therefore I would not restrict them from having access to the dadmin login which should give you access to all commands required to maintain your own system if they so wished, in any case if you are stuck and require a BP's assitance without taking maintenance they could charge you on a time and materials basis for help $$$.

Here's what I would do:

1. Take a backup of the S8700 Translations.
2. Ask your BP to give you a copy of all the associated license .LIC and password .PWD files (S8700 and LSP's).
3. Get a copy of ACM and re-blow the software on all processors.
4. Set your own dadmin passwords.
5. reload the translations.
6. Unplug the remote access modem.
7. Stick two fingers up at the BP and Avaya.

I understand that all sounds too simple but with the right skills and training (or willing BP) it could be achieved.

 

[mikeydidit]

I think you are in a better position that most or at least myself, with your computer and networking background. In today’s Avaya world it’s a must to have a strong knowledge in networking and it’s my personal downfall.

It is necessary to have some sort of maintenance contract in place for the MSP’s period. Avaya considers that part of a proprietary software and you must pay for the right to use it. That being said I have a maintenance assist program through my local BP. I think I have a good relationship with them and have worked with these people for years now. Most of the people that work for my local BP are former AT&T/Lucent/Avaya employees, some of which even worked on my old equipment before my G3R V1.

Avaya is spending a lot less time on helping their customers than ever before. Partly because they can charge you if they consider it a “customer’s responsibility”, like firmware downloads and installing patches. I helped someone the other day here on TT that said Avaya gave then the DST patch on the website but would charge them around $4000.00 (I believe was the price) to install it for them?? That’s crazy. They want the maintenance money for doing nothing. Hell of a racket.

So in my case, even with my very limited networking knowledge, we will self maintain after our 1 year warranty on the servers expires this October. Worse case scenario I call my BP and have them step me through finding my problems, at a fraction of the price from Avaya. I pick up a lot here everyday from others that have problems and follow them to see what was resolved and how. I know for a fact the knowledge base here is 10 times better than calling the dreaded 1-800-242-2121 tier 0 hotline.

Our system is a pair of S8710 servers running CM 3.0, with 9 EPN cabinets, Intuity Audix 5.1. We are running around 5900 stations. We take care of all MAC’s Software, firmware, installing EPN’s, boards, any hardware failures and all scheduled maintenance task. (Intuity reboots, clean replace filters, UPS battery replacements, ect.)

Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.
Thomas A. Edison

For the best response to a question, read thread690-1323977

 

[rjblanch]

I am in Australia and apart from "major and catastrophic" failures, we do it all ourselves. As mikeydidit stated, we do all of the MAC's, hardware faults and all firmware upgrades and patches. We have even done an AES version upgrade, as Avaya BP screwed up the initial install. Even when we do have someone come in to fix/install/upgrade things, 75% of the time, they have the manual with them to read it step by step.

I do wish to ask anyone out there, what do you have to do to become a BP or a "part time maintainer"? What I guess I am asking is, can anyone offer their services as a first level help point to people who dont want to pay a BP or Avaya large amounts of money, but dont have the knowledge or want to do it themselves?

I guess if there were a group of people who weren't BP's but were "qualified" to fix things, that would help out a lot of smaller operators who dont have the money for the maintenance.

Regards

 

[m4ilm4n]

I run a small setup (an 8300 with an LSP for about 120 stations) and have self-maintenance; i.e. I do pretty much everything up to patches/upgrades. We have a good relationship with the BP who did the install, and as a result I have a T&M service agreement with them - anytime I get over my head, I just call 'em and they jump in. Works for me....

 

[storman113]

Avaya and the BP's have competition for maintenance contracts and monitoring. Let me know if you wish to know who we use.

 

[llkrj58]

I do my own maintenance but I have a slight advantage. I am retired from AT&T/Lucent/Avaya and my job was installing these systems while I worked for them so I do have an intimate knowledge of them. After retiring I worked for a BP for three more years, then I left there and now work for one company.

We have four G3r's each one of them with 14+ cabinets, each EPN contains two port networks and we are critical reliability running a large call center using BSR. We also have four Intuitys (not networked) and and two Sun Enterprise CMS servers, they are mirrored with one online and one standby. We will probably begin upgrading to S8720's this year.

 

[srmega41]

For me, I am all in favor of self-maintaining. I spent 11 years working on Nortel, and about 5 years ago I went to a self maintained approach. AT that time I had 80+ option 11's, and an 81C. We had two techs plus myself, and we did all the installs, upgrade and support in house. We bought about 4-6 Option 11's a year, and they were just drop-shipped to our dock, and we did the rest. I only had to call Nortel for support twice in five years, and both times it was bug related.

That being said, I now find myself in an Avaya world, where I know the theory, but the Avaya speak is still a little new. I plan to become self maintained as soon as possible. Here I have 4 G3R's, and we are getting ready to add three G350's/S8700's systems and migrate towards VoIP. I do have some networking experience, and got my CCNA a few years back. We have a three person staff (myself included), and we have a total of 31 facilities.

As for permissions, we have a "Core only" maintenance agreement with our BP, and have full access to our system. When we selected our BP, I was very up front and direct so they knew and understood my intentions. They have been great in helping get me up to speed (since Avaya training is so hard to figure out when it comes to a training path), and provide assistance when needed.

My thoughts are that being self maintained makes you more responsive to your customers, and better able to adapt and react when issues arise. You obviously need the people on staff that can support your environment, but when I did it at my old job, we saved a ton, even after hiring two new technicians.

Just my $.02

Scott M.

 

[sostek]

Back in 2001 I was working for an agency that had a G3iV6 System 75. At the time we were paying outrageous fees for hardware support.

As luck would have it, we found out that another agency was getting rid of their Definity system. The cards between systems are pretty much the same, with the exception of processor. So now we had this Definity with 500 stations, quite a few trunks, etc. Also got 200 7406D phones. In other words, all the same items we were using in our shop.

We rolled that system down South Main St to our office and then tucked it into a closet. Harvested parts as we needed them but the best part was telling Avaya to drop our 300 phones, and all port cards off maintenance. We told them to simply cover the CPU and power supply. That dropped our bill by about $3,000 a month.

I also had the craft and sa passwords for our system so that wasn't a problem. I actually found the high level admin passwords on the web and sure enough, AT&T/Lucent/Avaya never bothered to change them.

 

[Toni269]

Are you self-maintainers able to obtain software/firmware downloads? How did you make out on DST? I had a ton of things to update and had some hard times getting the DST updates as some were only available on CD from Avaya SSO (that I knew of). I don't know how to get ahold of the software without at least the Maintenance Assist option.

 

[mikeydidit]

You are right Toni. You need at least the maintenance assist. Thats the minimum. But you also go from about (in my case vs. full maintenance) $11,000 a month to $3,000 a month for maintenance.

Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.
Thomas A. Edison

For the best response to a question, read faq690-6594

 

[rejackson]

I don't have any maintenance yet (I am working on the MSPs) and I have rights to download any software and firmware updates that relate to my registered systems. The sold-to registration appears to be the key to that. Go to support.avaya.com and click on downloads and register using your sold-to number/s. Then it lets you download anything related to that/those systems. The key is that the BP needs to register the system with Avaya after it is installed.

 

[Toni269]

Oh that's great to know rejackson! So you just have to have legit RTU license not maintenance to get the upgrades. For once something actually makes sense and sounds fair!