Ask Slashdot: Do You Trust When a Vendor Tells You To Buy New Parts?

Nerval's Lobster writes "Roughly 85 percent of IT managers polled by Forrester said they would hold onto networking infrastructure longer, but vendors retire products prematurely in an effort to force customers to upgrade. In a response that may seem familiar to anyone who's ever been pressured into buying a maintenance contract—either by an enterprise vendor or a major electronics retailer—over 80 percent of the 304 respondents said they don't like the misrepresented cost savings, new fees, and inflexible pricing models—but buy the products anyway. One of the survey's interesting points is that IT decision makers aren't willing to contradict the vendor. The uncertainty seems to come from the fact that the vendor may in fact be right—and a customer who contradicts what they're saying may end up shouldering the blame if the equipment goes south. It's the 'you never got fired for buying IBM' argument, applied to the networking space. The problem, of course, is that the vendor often works for its own agenda. Do you upgrade when the vendor (or reseller) suggests you do so? Or do you stick to your own way of doing things?"

Comments

Depends on the consequences of being wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

And, let's face it, whose money you're spending.

Re:Depends on the consequences of being wrong

[asmkm22]

In my experience, the only people who get rewarded for cost savings are the ones in management. They're the ones who get the bonuses and gratitude of the people who actually run the company. As a result, there is literally no upside to turning down a vendor-recommendation, yet plenty of potential blame if you do. That being said, if you really think an upgrade isn't needed, just submit official vendor recommendations, and maybe a section detailing the alternative, including stuff like expected costs savings versus risk of hardware failure for keeping the "older" stuff in place, etc.. Make sure you include hard numbers, when it comes to the cost of upgrading versus the cost and risks of not. If they decide to save the money and not upgrade, they did so will full-documented knowledge of any risks that come with it. Keep a copy of your recommendation, and their response, in your CYA file.

It's also worth noting that IT guys get something out of upgrading vendor stuff before absolutely necessary: experience with newer equipment. It's fun to be able to play with the latest and greatest, and also allows for a nice method of updating your skill set on a resume. You always want an exit strategy, so the last thing you need is to look for a new job with a resume filled with outdated vendor equipment. Unless it's something really rare or specialized, of course.

Related question

[Okian Warrior]

Here's a related question. Do you trust when a car manufacturer tells you to buy new parts?

Specifically, the maintenance schedule in the owner's packet that comes with a new car. For example, at 60,000 miles:

1) Replace engine coolant

2) Replace HEV inverter coolant

3) Replace manual transmission oil

4) Replace automatic transmission/CVT/eCVT fluid

5) Replace differential oil

6) Replace engine drive belts

7) Replace radiator cap

8) Replace transfer case oil

Are all these necessary, or is the dealer trying to squeeze more money from the owner? I've heard various mechanics coming down on both sides of this question. Does the differential oil really need periodic replacing? Do you need new drive belts if there's no visible damage?

(Also: Do you replace the engine oil and filter every 2000 miles, or is this just another way to squeeze money from the consumer?)

Re:Related question

[jklovanc]

All of those are relatively small cost items that break down over time and protect much higher value items. For example, if the engine coolant breaks down enough excessive corrosion can ruin an engine.That is very different than replacing a router with a new slightly faster router even though there is no current issue with speed.

Does the differential oil really need periodic replacing?

Yes, as a chemical it breaks down over time reducing efficiency and increasing wear. It also accumulates small metal particles which increase wear. The choice is to spend $50 replacing the differential oil at 60K miles or spend thousands to replace the differential sooner than necessary.

Do you need new drive belts if there's no visible damage?

According to this article, yes.

Re:Related question

[zlives]

no but i do replace the ether fluid every 10k packets, and I do see the improvement in packet-loss numbers

Re:Stop buying gear without lifetime warentee

[Anonymous Coward]

Lifetime warranty from Cisco doesn't mean for the lifetime of the piece of equipment. Quoth Cisco (from http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/general/warranty/English/LH2DEN__.html):

As long as the original End User continues to own or use the Product. In the event of discontinuance of product manufacture, Cisco warranty support is limited to five (5) years from the announcement of discontinuance.

Consumables vs New.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a related question. Do you trust when a car manufacturer tells you to buy new parts?

Specifically, the maintenance schedule in the owner's packet that comes with a new car. For example, at 60,000 miles:

1) Replace engine coolant

2) Replace HEV inverter coolant

3) Replace manual transmission oil

4) Replace automatic transmission/CVT/eCVT fluid

5) Replace differential oil

6) Replace engine drive belts

7) Replace radiator cap

8) Replace transfer case oil

Are all these necessary, or is the dealer trying to squeeze more money from the owner? I've heard various mechanics coming down on both sides of this question. Does the differential oil really need periodic replacing? Do you need new drive belts if there's no visible damage?

(Also: Do you replace the engine oil and filter every 2000 miles, or is this just another way to squeeze money from the consumer?)

You're talking about consumables. What the vendors are doing is the same as a car manufacturer telling you to buy a new car because it's out of date - regardless if it still works or not.

Ask for evidence ...

[gstoddart]

I'm sure most of us have dealt with sales reps over the years, and seen all sorts of claims of bigger/better/faster/cheaper, but they're often unsubstantiated by anything.

We had a scenario with a vendor a while back where functionality we were relying on wasn't going to be in their next version until a year after it was too late for us. (Add on component we'd been using for years.)

So, we basically forced them into extending support since the only reason we couldn't upgrade was because of their inability to deliver functionality we already had.

Then they spent the next year constantly asking us when we would be upgrading, and conveniently trying to forget about the signed contract they'd given us to extend support and telling us we were about to become unsupported.

You need to work with your vendor, but you sure as hell don't need to take what they tell you at face value without something to support it.

At the end of the day, most of the salesmen (because that's what your rep is) are more worried about their commission check than anything else, and will certainly mislead your or pressure you to do something which doesn't really benefit you.

Re:Use cases

[FireFury03]

If you don't want to upgrade every 2-3 years you could always:

  - You're a small shop with no money and the equipment is doing business critical work: Carry a spare and possibly arrange in redundant configurations

  - You're a small shop with no money and the equipment is doing nothing critical: Possibly carry a spare

  - You're a large shop with 'too much' money and the equipment is doing business critical work: Carry spare(s) and arrange in redundant configurations

  - You're a large shop with 'too much' money and the equipment is nothing critical: Carry spare

All too often:
  - You're a small/large shop with enough money and the equipment is doing critical work: Ignore advice to have a spare/redundant configuration, scream blue murder when it breaks. (And usually after a big outage like that, once its all up and running, they *still* ignore the advice to have spares).

Re:Stop buying gear without lifetime warentee

[aztracker1]

I'm honestly hoping to get 6-8 years out of the NAS box I built last year... I've got Raid-Z2 (double parity) and two hot-spares... When it's full, as long as I don't lose more than two drives in less than two days, I should be fine... now remembering which drives are which a few years from now should one go bad, that's a different story. 12 WD Green 3TB drives. 22TB of relatively safe storage... I do have backups for *really* critical stuff.. but would be a pain to lose the 4.5TB already on the thing.

That said, dropping $2K on hardware for storage more than once in half a decade sounds insane to me. I upgraded from my 4TB nas box that I filled up in about 2.5 years.

Re:Stop buying crap

[tibit]

Of course those Cisco boxes are almost useless unless you also purchase a Cisco support contract. At least you can download manuals and firmware from HP for free - no such thing from Cisco without paying them first!