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This post was contributed by CentricsIT Account Executive Evan Arison. Evan is a data center solutions expert who specializes in third-party maintenance and cost optimization throughout the IT lifecycle. He works from the CentricsIT office in Charlotte, NC (USA).
EMC has recently released EOSL dates for a several assets that may be present in your environment. Among these include Celerra, Data Domain, Isilon, Symmetric VMAX, VPLEX, and XtremSF. What does this mean for you?
It means you have a choice to make: EMC or alternative support methods. Although you can receive technical support for infrastructure that has reached EOSL, it may not be cost-effective to extend the lifecycle of your assets. You will be charged a premium that increases year after year in order to force you toward a hardware refresh. After all, that is where original manufacturers like EMC make the majority of their money.
If you’re not ready for a refresh, don’t worry. You have options. CentricsIT can be your OEM alternative to not only avoid the cumbersome hassle of a refresh, but get the most out of your assets while providing the ability to reallocate your precious IT budget toward other projects. In a world where IT leaders are expected to do more with less, a cost saving initiative that can provide just as good if not better quality of service is a no brainer.
In comparison to EMC support, CentricsIT saves 40–70% annually on your operating expenses.
How do we save so much money?
Unlike the manufacturers, CentricsIT wants you to make the most “bang for your buck” and utilize your machines throughout their entire lifecycle, which lasts much longer than the 3–5 years of upfront maintenance typically provided at the time of your initial hardware purchase. If you’re utilizing EMC support for years 6, 7 and 8, the inflation of maintenance costs leaves you with no choice but to refresh. On the other hand, CentricsIT can provide you with this identical quality of engineer support, custom SLAs, and necessary parts sparing at a constant rate until you decide it’s the right decision for you and your company to refresh your infrastructure.
When it comes to the prices of spares between EMC and CentricsIT, it becomes a battle of new vs. refurbished. While stating the obvious, new equipment is obviously going to be more expensive to spare than legacy equipment. EMC typically receives their new spares from leasing, sizing errors, or warranty returns. Alternatively, refurbished equipment spared by CentricsIT is sourced from around the world, which not only allows us to ensure a constant stock of necessary parts to keep your data center up and running, but enables our sourcing professionals to find the best prices.
It is a common theory that the original manufacturers have their own W2 engineers all across the world and are more equipped than “the gray market” support providers. In fact, it is rare for a company to have direct engineers in every support location across the globe. Companies, including EMC, outsource to EMC specific engineers to have a more local presence at a reduced cost. These are the same resources used by third parties like CentricsIT. There have been circumstances where our clients have seen the same engineer report to cases under both EMC and CentricsIT maintenance support. Does Dell EMC have a lock on the largest portion of the storage market share? Yes. Do they hold a monopoly over the storage engineering expertise? No. Again, you are receiving the same quality of service at different prices.
Although often looked at as a secondary option, Gartner recently reported that 71% of the Fortune 100 Companies are utilizing third party maintenance in order to cut operating expenses, prolong the life of their equipment, and put the decision-making power back in their hands. Just because your EMC equipment has reached EOSL does not mean you are out of options. CentricsIT will help you make the best decision for your unique situation and ensure you are minimizing wasted spend where possible.
Please see below the specific models of EMC equipment that have recently reached EOSL or are approaching EOSL dates:
- Celerra NX4 (past LDOS, 6-30-17)
- Data Domain DD140 (past LDOS, 6-30-17)
- Data Domain DD630 (past LDOS, 6-30-17)
- Data Domain DD610 (past LDOS, 6-30-17)
- Data Domain ES20 (past LODS, 6-30-17)
- Isilon 108NL (10-31-17)
- Isilon 36NL (10-31-17)
- Isilon 72NL (10-31-17)
- Isilon IQ32000x–SSD (12-31-17)
- Isilon IQ36000x (10-31-17)
- Isilon IQ5000s–SSD (12-31-17)
- Isilon IQ7200x (10-3-17)
- Symmetrix VMAX 10k (9-30-17)
- Symmetrix VMAX SE (9-30-17)
- Symmetrix VMAXe (9-30-17)
- VPLEX VS1 (past LDOS, 8-30-17)
- XtremSF PCIEHHS-3XXL (past LDOS, 8-24-17)
- XtremSF PCIEHHS-3XXM (past LDOS, 8-24-17)
If you have questions about your EMC maintenance options, you can email Evan directly here to start the conversation.
