Thu 16 Nov 2006
The basic warranties that hardware vendors provide in 2006 are inadequate for critical servers.
The standard HP warranty is a next business day response. Actual resolution may take many days depending on the nature of the problem and parts supply. HP use statistical methods to try and keep enough parts in the country so that basic warranties are serviced within days but there is no guarantee. If you are unlucky it could be weeks.
We strongly recommend that business critical servers have their warranties upgraded to the 6 hour call to repair service. HP will keep a complete set of spare parts for your server at hand. These parts are pooled between your server and two other servers. The only way that a part will be unavailable is if you are unlucky enough to have the same failure at the same time as one of your pooled servers - this is incredibly unlikely.
The warranty can be activated 24 hours a day and seven days a week. It is designed to have resolution of hardware failures within 6 hours of the original call for service.
At around $2500 to upgrade the standard warranty for three years I think it is great value.