If you can find a stable Ontap release to stick to, just pick up a set of spares. One of each head, shelf, cards and several of each disk type.

Plenty of used and new hardware can be picked up for cheap on Ebay and elsewhere.

I've been running a couple large c-mode clusters this way for well over a year, and it has worked out fine. The key is finding a stable OS rev that you can stick with.

On Oct 9, 2013, at 10:19 PM, Fletcher Cocquyt <fcocquyt@stanford.edu> wrote:

We have two 3270 clusters (active/standby) coming off 3 yr warranty support (10 trays of DS4243 + 5 trays of MK14 each)

Our software ELA is also expiring - resulting in the Netapp support renewal quote being over 2 times last year's total (and budget) - they want ~$160K

I'm looking for advice on support options.

I've already got a quote from Zeriva for the HW support (we just need the parts, we can handle the replacement ourselves)

What other creative ideas might help lower the support renewal?

thanks,

Fletcher

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