Finding HP XP24000 Support You’ll Love

End of HP XP24000 support is coming next year on September 30, 2016. Data center managers and others relying on this storage hardware have about 18 months to search out a reliable replacement for maintenance and service.

With so many providers vying for your business, how can you identify the best partner for your ongoing HP XP24000 (a.k.a. HP XP 24K) support needs? Following are some key things to look for.

Top 4 Features of World-Class HP XP Storage Support

The following four elements should lie at the foundation of any StorageWorks HP XP24000 support contract:

1. 1. 24/7 remote monitoring with daily diagnostics. Services like Park Place Pulse, our version of 24/7 remote monitoring, are essential in enabling your maintenance provider keep tabs on the XP24000. Ensure that daily diagnostics on the connection are included, and that support response is fully integrated into the solution.

• 100% component coverage with conveniently located, certified spare parts. Should you have a hardware failure, you’ll want to know that you’re completely covered. Just as important, you’ll want the spares your support company uses to be OEM-certified. Park Place makes sure that such high-quality spares are always readily available—on site for mission critical systems and in nearby depots for other equipment. Make sure that any provider you consider does the same.
• Hassle-free telephone and online support. HP Care Pack customers may not be aware of what’s available in telephone and online support from select providers. While the majority of companies—HP included—continue to use severity level assessments and escalation procedures to restrict access to top engineers, a few providers like Park Place empower clients to speak immediately with Level 3 support. Forgoing the escalation procedure greatly speeds time to resolution and reduces client frustration, so look for this benefit in your support contract.
• Expert engineering resources. No matter what the contract includes, the quality of support will depend largely on the engineers who will be performing maintenance tasks and responding to trouble calls. With great engineers, you’ll get the assistance you need quickly. With less stellar resources, you may wait through hours or days of trial and error until your problem is solved. Don’t put your environment at risk. Look for companies with a strong track record in HP support and ask questions about their engineering talent.

Additional Third Party Maintenance Benefits to Seek

We feel confident that you’ll like HP XP24000 support that meets the criteria outlined above. But will you truly love it? Maybe not. To take the maintenance service to the next level, be on the lookout for contracts that include:

• An experienced, local engineer assigned to the account. Working with the same engineer over time is a significant advantage. All the better if the relationship kicks off with an up-front systems analysis and continues with quarterly check-ins to review trouble calls, as Park Place service does.
• Extra engineering time for issues beyond break/fix. Why seek out support only when systems go down? Expert HP engineers can be of value when reconfiguring equipment, strategizing backup processes, determining when upgrades may be warranted, planning a move, migrating data, etc. Park Place puts our talented engineers at your disposal for just such tasks.
• Broad support capabilities for warrantied, OEM-supported, and post-EOSL equipment. The support solution you’ll love most is the simplest. Select a provider with extensive multi-vendor maintenance capabilities, so you can cover the majority of your equipment under a single contract. And if you have equipment that remains under OEM warranty or contract, you should check out Park Palace “One Contract / One Contact” program, which puts even these systems under our care. If there’s a problem, you call us and we’ll manage the case with the OEM.

Are we done wooing you to Park Place version of HP XP24000 maintenance? Not quite. The last arrow in our quiver is affordability. Notwithstanding all the benefits we’ve enumerated here, Park Place support contracts are priced 40% to 70% below HP’s. That makes an immediate switch mighty tempting.