EMC Isilon End of Life for IQ Series

EMC Isilon end of life is rapidly approaching for much of the earlier gear. Select products in the IQ series lost EMC support back in 2013 and two (the IQ10000x-SSD and IQ2250) were abandoned earlier, in 2009. Of course, 2015 saw end of service life come to IQ3000x, and IQ9000x, and the IQ-Accelerator-i—but now through 2017, EOSLs abound for the IQ series NAS installations. See here for specific products and EOSL dates.

What happens once EMC is no longer there to support an Isilon IQ you rely on? Does your company have a plan to maintain system support and business continuity?

These are tough questions—made all the tougher given the unknown impact of the on again, off again Dell takeover of EMC. Many CTOs and IT directors are at a loss for how they can leverage their substantial investments in these fully functional but supposedly obsolete systems.

Fortunately, we have answers.

Legacy System Support Good Enough for New Systems, Too

With tightening IT budgets and rapidly expanding storage and processing demands, companies big and small have become resistant to replacing legacy systems with new solutions. The price tag associated with the newer systems can put them out of reach, but failure of current installation is, as NASA says, not an option.

As the third party maintenance market has matured, several vendors have gained attention for offering premium-quality, enterprise-level support that rivals (and often beats) EMC’s service, but at a fraction of the price of the OEM contract. This has led many IT shops to switch to alternative maintenance as soon as the original support contract expires, and sometimes even before!

This is good news for Isilon IQ series owners who don’t want to compromise performance and reliability as they shift into the post-EOSL support world. Their Isilon IQ systems no longer have to die according to EMC’s end-of-life timeline, yet the network and storage admins won’t be flooded with problems keeping the aging systems operating at peak performance. Third party maintenance providers can fill the gap and even improve on the OEM’s outcomes.

The only issue remaining—which of the available third party maintenance providers should one choose?

Why Park Place?

Current and end of life EMC Isilon NAS installations will fare best under the protection of an Park Place Technologies contract for many reasons:

• Guaranteed SLAs. Park Place clients reduce support costs 40% to 70% but it doesn’t come at the expense of service quality. EMC-or-better SLAs are our standard.
• Superior technical knowledge. Park Place has the right people in the right places. Our experienced Level 3 engineers quickly and painlessly work through problems with EMC equipment.
• Personalized service. Each client gains a local, Level 3 account engineer who responds to every on-site call. From the initial systems analysis through the extra engineering time (included at no extra charge), this engineer becomes an important supplement to the in-house team—saving them time and frustration.