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In this post: Learn about Cisco SMARTnet alternative contracts, including third-party maintenance
Your budget’s set. There’s no way around it—freeing up funds for future endeavors can be a tricky, and oftentimes arduous, process. Not only that, if you have been asked to find financial wiggle room within the maintenance portion of your OPEX budget, you know all too well that aging Cisco hardware can quickly become costly to maintain once warranties have expired. And of course, deciding to upgrade to new hardware annihilates any hope for immediate savings.
So, how are you supposed to cut the costs? Are there solid alternatives to Cisco SMARTnet?
Cisco SMARTnet Support: No Longer the Smart Choice
If your company is under maintenance with Cisco Support Services, then your SMARTnet maintenance contract has probably served you well – at least for the first three years of the hardware lifecycle. While we don’t need to tell you that most network engineers consider Cisco to be the industry standard, we do feel obligated to tell you that you are paying entirely too much for your Cisco maintenance contract. While Cisco urges you to “stay close” to them for support, they don’t have a monopoly on quality engineering talent. In fact, you can get the same level of service you’re used to without paying the Cisco premium.
Post-Warranty Costs Hemorrhaging your Budget?
Bundled with your initial hardware purchase, Cisco Support Services will offer you comprehensive maintenance for the first several years. However, once your warranty runs out or worse, your hardware reaches end-of-life, the next invoice from SMARTnet maintenance increases considerably if you need to keep running on existing systems. After a few years of charging you this higher price, Cisco Support Services will encourage you to purchase all new hardware, rather than continue to maintain your existing hardware.
But what if your existing Cisco equipment works well, and you don’t have a business reason to upgrade? Consider third-party maintenance as an excellent SMARTnet alternative.
Outsmarting Cisco SMARTnet: Alternative Options
Ultimately, if you prefer your existing infrastructure but would rather evaluate a Cisco SMARTnet alternative, it’s time to look at third-party maintenance (TPM).
At CentricsIT, we see IT support differently. Because we have a global market on refurbished hardware, CentricsIT maintains an in-house inventory of spares that rivals that of Cisco’s. Where we differ, however, is our billing philosophy. Over the years, we have found that the price of hardware actually trends downward over time; not upward as Cisco would have you believe. If hardware costs go down over time, why should client support costs increase?
That’s why we decided to flip Cisco’s support model on its head. As our costs go down, so do yours.
Not only that, the support and the hardware will be the same quality you are accustomed to receiving. Our highly-qualified engineers will deliver the same level of maintenance excellence that Cisco Support Services does – i.e. you will suffer no loss or degradation of service. Instead, because we define our SLAs more favorably for our clients, you’ll actually receive support more quickly than you’re used to when calling the TAC. (Ask one of our support specialists about how we define 4-hour response.)
To put it simply, we provide identical parts and the same high-quality maintenance that Cisco does, but we do it at a significantly lower price point.
It’s Time to Start a Smarter Conversation
Feel stuck in your SMARTnet maintenance contract? Talk to one of the support specialists at CentricsIT – we’ll customize a flexible plan that will free up your budget.
