An organization’s IT is the center of business management and growth, and it provides the foundation to support your client’s needs. A proactive approach to support is the best way to extract the most value out of your IT investments. The evolution of IBM support models reflect the technological advancements and growth of our industry, and the recommitment of IBM to provide the best support services possible to IT teams regardless of the equipment in their data center.

Added Support Argument

As the nomenclature of IBM’s support models tends to change, this review aims to clarify the various types of IBM support on IBM equipment, and the key benefits for each support level. The argument for added support is a simple one. As IT environments become highly integrated with virtualized and cloud-based solutions, the complexity of managing them skyrockets. Maintaining reliability and peak efficiency at a decent price can be challenging. IBM provides comprehensive support solutions for IBM on-prem software, IBM storage and Power, and IBM appliances. In this article we’ll focus on the following support levels; Customized Technical Support (CTS), Enterprise Support Option (ESO), and Preferred Care.

CTS provides your in-house technical team with accessible resources and direct numbers to IBM product experts located in the US. An add-on to standard Base support services, with CTS you essentially bring in an IBM Specialist or TSM (Technical Solutions Manager) onto your team. With this option you receive help on issue prevention, account management, and problem resolution for external Storage, Power Systems and System x servers. Your TSM will coordinate problem management with your IT team for any Severity 1 hardware problems and can expand upon the solution if the issue escalates in severity. Enterprise Support Option (ESO) is an add-on to CTS and gives you a wider range of support objectives as well as price flexibility. Preferred Care is a level up from ESO, and is the base for IBM’s premium offerings.

ESO for System Storage and Power Systems

Software Maintenance: preventive maintenance for software updates and patches; assertive problem resolution with direct access to IBM support professionals.

Hardware Warranty and Maintenance: repair/replace parts, onsite service to fix defects and debug.

ESO for On-Premises Software

Preferred Care for On-Premises Software

ESO for IBM Appliances

Preferred Care for IBM Appliances

A word about the IBM Technical Support Appliance. TSA automates and analyses your inventory of both IBM and non-IBM systems. Using advanced analytics, it gathers and breaks down support-coverage status. The tool then makes support recommendation reports for your IT and CTS team.

IBM is constantly striving to meet their customer’s needs. They acknowledge our ever-changing, fast-paced industry by continuing to evolve and enhance their support models to meet the demands of the time. There are many maintenance solutions to consider for your data center, and IBM should be first on the list.