We have bought a total of five filers from Scott with the transferable licenses, NFS, CIFS, and clustering. My understanding is that all these come from leases; the company that buys the hardware is not the company that will be using the hardware, so they require the transferable licenses. Netapp does (although with some grumbling I'm sure) transfer the licenses so that we now show up as the rightful owners of the hardware.
Not to turn this into a plug for UCE, but as an added bonus, Scott provides one year free hardware maintenance and will overnight any failed parts. This is important when you're working without NetApp support. We have been extremely pleased with the support we've received from Scott and he has consistently gone out of his way to help us.
Unfortunately, you still have to have a valid support agreement with NetApp to download the OS. You can access motherboard and disk firmware upgrades, as well as many utilities and tools, but the OS (and any additional features such as Secure Admin) require an active support agreement and a license for the protocol or feature you want to turn on.
Now, I understand that once a year, NetApp will offer amnesty to all those who have let their support agreements expire and you can avoid all those hefty re-certifying fees and just pay the hefty support agreement fees. On one filer, it may or may not be worth it, especially if you're just looking to use it for fun and education.
Geoff Hardin geoff.hardin@dalsemi.com This space is for rent in order to increase company revenue.
On Mon, 10 Mar 2003, Dan Bethe wrote:
especially regarding the transferability of software licenses. I keep reading these postings from Scott at Union Computer exchange and they don't look anything like what Network appliance specifically says in writing here:
I'm slightly confused, but I could believe it. The story I've gotten so far is that the above url contains a summary of the default license, but that some customers have been able to negotiate a custom license with Network Appliance, Inc. which enables them to transfer ownership of their software licenses along with their hardware. So it's just a one-off exception. This is anecdotal evidence I've gotten from one of the aftermarket Netapp dealers on this list. That is conceivably possible, although I have no personal evidence because I've never bought enough brand new monster gear to persuade a huge company to write me a custom license contrary to their proprietary interests. :)
I still don't know where one can get replacement or aftermarket media and documentation, nor how much a replacement set costs from Network Appliance, Inc. I am gathering that customers with identified licenses can freely download all the OS and accessory software from now.netapp.com, although it may just be upgrades.
Is anyone here able to provide independant proof or personal anecdotes to further clarify? Thanks!
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