IBM POWER pSeries and iSeries Server Maintenance
Extend your hardware asset life cycle with a third-party maintenance strategy.
Overview
Curvature is recognized as the global top performer for independent third-party maintenance and support for servers within the data center.
As the largest independent IBM hardware maintenance and support provider in the world, Curvature takes support and responsiveness to a whole new level. Curvature is able to provide savings of 50% or more on IBM POWER. By extending the life of your IBM POWER hardware, Curvature helps reduce the total cost of ownership to generate a larger return on your IT investments.
Our mission is to enable IT freedom to our customers by removing pain points and identifying areas to improve both quality and efficiency throughout our relationship.
- Extend the lifespan of your equipment and postpone technology refresh
- Contract and vendor consolidation with flexible contract terms, meaning you can mix and match service levels within a single location
- Products supported as long as parts are available
- Faster call-to-dispatch times
- Reduce hardware costs by 50% or more (lowering OpEx)
- Enhanced service contract, service incident and IT asset management via Curvature’s proprietary, cloud-based SaaS application, singlePoint®
- Expert guidance throughout IT asset lifecycle
- Microcode/firmware support guidance and consultation
- Expert Field Engineering teams, including Level 3 CE teams for triage
Standard Features
- Onsite labor
- Onsite parts replacement
- Remote and onsite troubleshooting
- Call-home Monitoring
Optional Features
- Dedicated spares onsite
- Dedicated labor onsite
- Defective media retention
- Software support
- Hardware upgrades with installation services
- Asset disposition
Enhanced Software Support Solutions
Level 3 telephone support through strategic alliances with organizations specializing on these platforms, some of which own the source code.
Curvature can provide enhanced support solutions for the following operating systems’ software:
- IBM: AIX, OS/400 (System i)
- Basic and advanced support options available
Eliminate the need to go back to the manufacturer for a software support agreement and review your options beforehand.
Why Curvature
Meet Curvature- 800+ badged field engineers (less than 5% contracted labor)
- Global central engineering team provides development, training, and Level 3 support
- Wholly owned spare parts inventory (non-shared logistics) located around the globe in 100+ service centers
- Continual hands-on technical training conducted in our labs on live gear
- Comprehensive development methodology to define support capabilities for all roadmap products, prior to support commitment
Customer Resources
ClearView℠
Identify support risks and make maintenance strategy recommendations with ClearView
singlePoint®
Track service activity and make contract management simple.
Remote Enterprise Monitoring (REM)
Decrease IT involvement by using Curvature’s automated event management system to process hardware notifications and fixes.Recognized by Gartner as a “Top Performer” in Data Center Third-Party Maintenance.
Do you have qualified engineers to support/work on IBM mainframes and POWER systems?
Yes. Our field engineers have numerous years of IBM mainframe and POWER experience. Some of our engineers have joined Curvature with previous manufacturer training and experience. Our Level 3 CE team has a combined over 150 years of experience working on IBM mainframes and POWER systems. They provide backline support to our field engineering teams globally. Our CE team also provides hands-on training to our field operations teams in our Prior Lake, MN office. This training is able to be delivered by leveraging our $5 million investment in our live mainframe and POWER environment.
Where are your spare parts kept?
Curvature currently has over 100 brick-and-mortar service centers around the globe. Within these offices, our field engineers have the ability to bring known good, tested, parts out to site. FEs typically have access to live running systems which they can utilize to ensure that the highest quality spares are brought onsite for incident remediation. All high-failure and non-redundant spare parts are kept in the local offices. Low-failure/redundant parts (such as MRUs) are kept in the regional offices. The majority of all spare zSeries parts come directly from the IBM Parts Order Center. In most cases, spare parts are new, serviceable used, or refurbished/re-certified. Curvature mimics IBM's parts handling and usage practices intended for hardware repair.
Is call-home included in support?
Yes. Depending on your environment and security concerns, we have the ability to deploy different versions of our proprietary REM call-home tool. Most client environments are suitable for our REM 2.0 solution, which requires that a small appliance reside on the zSeries HMC network. The value-add of this solution is how it provides outbound service data to senior-level support teams. The service data contains current MCL levels and configuration details (such as model number, serial number, and error details), which aids in quickly diagnosing hardware problems. In addition to error alerts, the support team will receive "predictive failure" and "degraded mode" messages. The appliance can be configured to communicate directly to internet or through a proxy with authentication. If additional security is required, the appliance can be configured to encrypt outbound data.
Does your company have access to firmware (MCLs)?
Yes. IBM process dictates that we order MCLs from IBM's TSMO on behalf of the client. IBM TSMO will provide the code updates on physical removable media. IBM does charge TPMs for each MCL order. The cost of one order per year per serial number is built into our MMC. Additional orders will be the client's responsibility to fund. The CE team executes the ordering with IBM. Once received by the local office, the MCLs are installed and activated by the local Curvature trained field engineering team.
Does your company have access to firmware?
No. TPM can provide firmware, MicroCode, or Machine Code. Only the manufacturer can provide firmware through a hardware maintenance agreement. There are other options available to IBM clients looking to move hardware over to TPM that are still in need of firmware.
Is z/OS or software support included?
No. We recommend clients keep any type of software (SWMA), z/OS, and software Xcel in place with IBM. We offer Level 3 telephone support via a strategic partner.
IBM POWER Server Maintenance At-A-Glance
Related Services
- Discovery
- Assessment
- Design
- Implementation
- IMAC
- Remote Hands
- Migration
- Disposition