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Data center hardware maintenance specialist Park Place Technologies released a resource for data center managers seeking to maximize or extend the value of hardware systems. The whitepaper, titled “Maximize the Value of Data Center Hardware Maintenance,” identifies four types of business value that third-party hardware maintenance supports: cost reduction, cost avoidance, business agility and risk reduction.
When compared to OEM services, third party maintenance services can reduce IT costs by 30-60 percent, the company said. Park Place Technologies President and CEO Ed Kenty also noted by delaying capital expenses and minimizing downtime, data center managers can avoid incurring unnecessary costs. Kenty said the whitepaper is based on learnings from the company’s nearly 20 years of working with leading business organizations.
“Companies of all sizes, especially the mid market, are looking to extend the lifetime of their data center hardware while ensuring their critical business operations are not interrupted,” he said. “The industry-leading best practices we have developed while keeping America’s top businesses’ data center hardware running are included in this paper.”
Also included in the document is a discussion of the advantages of TPM services can provide to promote business agility and reduce risk through flexible service agreements and superior personalized technical support. Written for technical decision makers (TDMs) and IT managers, the paper describes the business value of TPM services and compares the value to that of OEMs. The paper describes how organizations can maximize the value of their hardware maintenance services and illustrates the method by introducing Park Place Technologies services.
A related 2009 survey by IT research firm Gartner solicited customer opinions about computer hardware reliability and the need for TPM services. Survey results indicated that customers are reconsidering the value of hardware maintenance and in some cases, the need for third-party hardware maintenance at all. These attitudes about reliability and the need for maintenance support (or the lack of it) include data center hardware such as servers and external storage devices. In each of these categories, at least one in five of the study’s 427 respondents felt that these devices do not fail.
“The desire to control costs and limit various types of risk is involved. But, when stakeholders decide that there is-or is not-a need for data center contract maintenance services, they assess (sometimes intuitively) the business value that these services can provide,” the paper stated. “[This report] identifies the many types of business value of data center maintenance services, value that goes beyond contract cost savings and risk management.”