As a general rule, third-party maintenance providers are notpermitted to provide software patches or updates, as they areintellectual property of the manufacturer (There are a few notableexceptions in which we can legally acquire software, so consult youraccount executive if there’s a specific system or product lineyou’re curious about).
Since software updates are proprietary, third-party support may notmake sense in all situations, particularly those in which complianceor internal policy dictate that you have ongoing access to thenewest OS versions. However, most organizations choose TPM despitethis limitation for the following reasons:
The OS is stable.
By the time the initial manufacturer warranty expires, a storage, server, or networking platform is usually at least 4-5 years, meaning the OS has stabilized. This is because the vast majority of bugs are found and resolved within the first 2-3 years of a platform’s release (the same can arguably be said for any meaningful updates the OEM releases for a platform as well). This is why many customers upgrade once or twice a year in the first few years of ownership but slow that pace dramatically as the system gets older.The customer is not adding any new applications.
When it comes to shared storage, one software-related concern may be that you bring on an application that doesn’t play well with your semi-outdated OS iteration. This is an unlikely scenario in the first place, but most of our customers have a fairly static purpose for any storage that is 3+ years old and they’re simply trying to extend its useful life by a few years. Updates are available until your OEM support contract expires.
As a customer, you can protect yourself to a certain extent by downloading any patches or updates that are available prior to going off OEM support, even if you choose to apply them at a later time. For the most part, our customers who do this never choose to apply the update, but they see it as a precautionary best practice.The OEM has moved on.
The OEM overcharges for maintenance renewals because they want to push customers to prematurely refresh to the latest, more expensive generation. In many cases, the OEM has shifted its engineering focus away from the legacy platform you are using in favor of the new product line it wants you to buy. As a result, updates for legacy product lines are few and far between.The cost savings are enormous.
We understand there is usually some perceived level of riskassociated with losing the ability to update software. However,ReluTech supports hundreds of customers and thousands of systems,and we have never encountered a situation in which a customer cannotoperate a system because a software update was unavailable. Weencourage our potential customers to compare our renewal prices tothe OEM prices, consider how much risk is really involved, andperform a basic risk-reward analysis to decide for themselves if TPMis a wise decision. More often than not, we believe it is.