Cisco Smartnet - Deeper Look From Tredent

March 12, 2011 - PRLog -- Newbury Park, CA - Cisco SMARTnet is a maintenance contract to cover Cisco hardware and software. It is supplied by Cisco, but generally sold by an authorized Cisco Reseller. Normally the contract period lasts for 1 year but Cisco will give discounts for longer contracts.

Cover Particulars for Cisco Hardware

Categories

Presently every item of Cisco Smartnet hardware is assigned a category number from 1 via to 18, the higher the category the greater the cost of the cover. So an 800 series router would be category 1, and a 3620 would be category 7. Sadly this pricing structure was invented prior to the arrival of Cisco 'phones and though these should be category .2 there is no such category so they fall in to category 1 router cost range.

Software Only or Hardware and Software Support

SMARTnet is sold in two forms, "software only" and "hardware and software", both offer software cover ie both entitle you to download software updates from Cisco, additionally the "hardware and software" version offers hardware replacement should Cisco agree that your hardware is broken.

SMARTnet Base and SMARTnet Onsite

Hardware and Software SMARTnet is also sold in two forms, SMARTnet Base and SMARTnet Onsite - both contain Advance Replacement of failed hardware, but with SMARTnet Base the replacement hardware is shipped via regular couriers and you should install it yourself, with SMARTnet Onsite, an Engineer will be dispatched to install the hardware. The Engineer might bring the hardware or it might arrive with a courier.

Advance Replacement

Advance Replacement is the Cisco term for replacement of failed hardware, it's referred to as advance replacement simply because the new hardware is shipped before the failed hardware is returned.

Daily Cover

SMARTnet hardware support is sold for two daily cover periods, this is the permitted time that you are entitled to report faults to Cisco, for the lowest level of cover this is defined as 8 hours a day, and 5 days a week, or 8x5. If this is insufficient for your requirements, the next accessible cover period is 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week.

Response Time

The Cisco SMARTnet Hardware contract defines the period of time by which Cisco will have shipped replacement hardware. Once the requirement for a replacement has been agreed Cisco will ship new hardware, of the exact or much better configuration that you have covered, inside an agreed time frame. The SMARTnet contract provides three levels of hardware response times NBD or Next Company Day, which can occasionally be referred to as SDS or Same Day Ship, indicates that you can expect your replacement hardware to arrive by the next working day. Need to that be too lengthy, two more choices are obtainable, 4 or 2 hours. Cisco will endeavor to offer the replacement hardware inside 2 or 4 hours depending on your contract. Obviously, there are particular requirements that want to be met just before Cisco will provide these levels of support, as not all geographic locations are eligible. This is merely down to the logistics of having an identical configuration of your hardware ready to go at a local shipping point.

Access to TAC

The Cisco TAC (Technical Help Center) is the award winning technical support answer supplied by Cisco. TAC centers are strategically located around the globe so as to supply a "follow the sun" support solution. This indicates that whatever time of day or night it is, you will be able to talk to a knowledgeable engineer at the Cisco TAC. Also, as this makes Cisco Support a 24 hour operation, Cisco will provide constant assistance to resolve your critical networking issues.