Available Packages
Aspen Managed Services are offered in several standard packages, or can be customized to meet your specific requirements.
Standard Service
The Standard Service package comes with all Aspen clusters at no additional charge. Our Managed Services Standard Service package is based on the hardware and software configuration that you select when you fill out your Statement of Work (SOW) for your new Aspen cluster. Aspen will continue to support the software configuration we delivered to you for the life of your cluster, and the delivered hardware for the life of the support warranty selected.
- Delivered Distribution: Standard Service covers fault correction and minor revision O.S. upgrades to the Aspen delivered configuration. Standard software upgrades available to your distribution would be covered by the Standard Service package. If your cluster was delivered with RedHat 5.3, and you later wish to upgrade to RedHat 6.1, this is not covered by our Standard Service package, as it would require a full cluster rebuild.
- Delivered Utilities: Based on your Statement of Work selections, Aspen will configure such things as parallel file systems, schedulers, MPI implementations, RAID management utilities, or other management and support utilities as needed to fully support your cluster when it is delivered. Aspen will support and upgrade these utilities as they were delivered for the life of your cluster.
- Delivered Applications: Aspen will support the applications you select to be installed and configured at the time of the cluster build. For instance, if we built and configured VASP for use on your cluster, we will upgrade this package for you while you own your cluster. Having Aspen install a new application that was not part of the original cluster build would result in additional charges under the Standard Services plan, and some upgrades to packages might require a full distribution or other upgrade which would not be covered by the Aspen Standard Service plan.
- Hardware Support: Aspen provides Bronze (1 year), Silver (2 years), Gold (3 year), Platinum (4 year), and Diamond (5 year) hardware warranties. Based on the warranty option you select when you purchase your cluster, or any warranty extension you might apply later, Aspen provides replacement parts during your warranty. Advance replacement parts must be returned to Aspen within 10 days of the action, or you will be billed for the part.
- Shipping: Aspen pays for parts to be shipped both ways for the life of your warranty. All shipping under the Standard Service Plan is done as "standard ground" shipping for the carrier applicable to your area. Higher priority shipping under this plan is available but will result in additional expense. If deemed necessary by Aspen engineering, entire nodes or peripheral units may be returned to Aspen for repair at our expense as well.
- Local Interaction: Unless the On-site Hardware Maintenance add-on is selected, local site personnel must coordinate the shipment of return parts back to Aspen, and perform occasional hands-on tasks such as replacing hard drives or memory. All routine administration tasks are performed by customer personnel.
- Troubleshooting and performance tuning : Based on the configuration you approve when you fill out your cluster Statement of Work, Aspen will troubleshoot and attempt to correct execution and performance issues you might encounter that are associated with that configuration for the life of your cluster. In many such cases, Aspen may have identified specific issues that you may encounter with a specific configuration you desired before the SOW was approved or during benchmarking or remote testing. In these cases, continued performance tuning will not occur.
- Support Hours: Monday through Thursday, 8:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. Mountain Standard Time, or 8:30 A.M. To 5:00 P.M. Mountain Standard Time Friday.
- Contact Method: Phone: (800)992-9242 (U.S. and Canada), or 011-1-303-431-4606 or e-mail: support@aspsys.com. Responses will only be given during normal support hours.
- Case Tracking: All Aspen assistance will be assigned a ticket number, which we use to track our progress and your satisfaction with the work we do for you. Cluster administrators as well as end users we may work with are encouraged to apply for an Aspen Support Account, which will allow you access to our web services and the capability to track and respond to your tickets online at www.aspsys.com as well as via e-mail.
- Administrative Assistance: N/A. Administrative assistance, such as adding users, changing passwords, adjusting user disk quotas, performing data backups, or other day to day administrative tasks needed to manage your cluster are not included in the Aspen Standard Service package, and may result in additional charges under this plan.
Our Standard Service package exceeds many vendors support offerings, and many customers prefer our Standard Service package over any other HPC vendor offering they have worked with. Many clusters are installed and stabilized at particular revisions of distribution and utilities, and rarely need to be touched again. The Aspen Systems Standard Service package gives you and your HPC administrator peace of mind, and
experienced industry leading support when you need it.
Flex Service
The Aspen Systems Flex Service package includes all the services associated with our Standard Service offering, but adds the flexibility to have Aspen engineering upgrade all your software configurations as you require.
- Distribution: Aspen will upgrade your entire cluster distribution as required. If a commercial distribution is used, you will be responsible for any license upgrade costs that are not included with your original software licenses.
- Utilities: Aspen will upgrade your standard utilities as you request, as well as install and configure additional utilities such as compilers or MPI implementations as you require.
- Applications: Aspen will assist in installing and configuring additional applications and models as you require. If your new applications are commercially licensed, you will be responsible for the licensing cost of the new applications.
- Hardware Support: Aspen provides Bronze (1 year), Silver (2 years), Gold (3 year), Platinum (4 year), and Diamond (5 year) hardware warranties. Based on the warranty option you select when you purchase your cluster, or any warranty extension you might apply later, Aspen provides replacement parts during your warranty. Advance replacement parts must be returned to Aspen within 10 days of the action, or you will be billed for the part.
- Shipping: Aspen pays for parts to be shipped both ways for the life of your warranty. All shipping under the Flex Service Plan is done as "standard ground" shipping for the carrier applicable to your area. Higher priority shipping under this plan is available but will result in additional expense. If deemed necessary by Aspen engineering, entire nodes or peripheral units may be returned to Aspen for repair at our expense as well.
- Troubleshooting and performance tuning: Aspen will assist you in troubleshooting and the correction of execution and performance issues of any configurations installed by Aspen Systems.
- Support Hours: Monday through Thursday, 8:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. Mountain Standard Time, or 8:30 A.M. To 5:00 P.M. Mountain Standard Time Friday.
- Contact Method: Via phone (800)992-9242 (U.S. and Canada), or 011-1-303-431-4606, or e-mail support@aspsys.com. Responses will only be given during normal support hours.
- Case Tracking: All Aspen assistance will be assigned a ticket number, which we use to track our progress and your satisfaction with the work we do for you. Cluster administrators as well as end users we may work with are encouraged to apply for an Aspen Support Account, which will allow you access to our web services and the capability to track and respond to your tickets online at www.aspsys.com as well as via e-mail.
- Administrative Assistance: N/A. Administrative assistance, such as adding users, changing passwords, adjusting user disk quotas, performing data backups, or other day to day administrative tasks needed to manage your cluster are not included in the Aspen Flex Service package, and may result in additional charges under this plan.
Our Flex Service package appeals to those customers who have HPC administration skills in house, but add many users with multiple models and possibly conflicting requirements. Using the Flex Service package, your HPC administration staff can leverage Aspen engineering talent, experience, and labor to extend their own resources to satisfy more users and changing complex requirements.
Total Service
The Aspen Systems Total Service package includes all the services associated with our Flex Service offering and adds full administration of your cluster. This option is attractive to customers who do not have a full time HPC administrator or the expertise in-house to manage an HPC cluster. Aspen takes care of all of your clustering needs, including standard administrative tasks such as adding users or scheduling and monitoring data backups.
- Distribution: Aspen will upgrade your entire cluster distribution as required. If a commercial distribution is used, you will be responsible for any license upgrade costs that are not included with your original software licenses.
- Utilities: Aspen will upgrade your standard utilities as you request, as well as install and configure additional utilities such as compilers or MPI implementations as you require.
- Applications: Aspen will assist in installing and configuring additional applications and models as you require. If your new applications are commercially licensed, you will be responsible for the licensing cost of the new applications.
- Hardware Support: Aspen provides Bronze (1 year), Silver (2 years), Gold (3 year), Platinum (4 year), and Diamond (5 year) hardware warranties. Based on the warranty option you select when you purchase your cluster, or any warranty extension you might apply later, Aspen provides replacement parts during your warranty. Advance replacement parts must be returned to Aspen within 10 days of the action, or you will be billed for the part.
- Shipping: Aspen pays for parts to be shipped both ways for the life of your warranty. All shipping under the Total Service Plan is done as "standard ground" shipping for the carrier applicable to your area. Higher priority shipping under this plan is available but will result in additional expense. If deemed necessary by Aspen engineering, entire nodes or peripheral units may be returned to Aspen for repair at our expense as well.
- Troubleshooting and performance tuning: Aspen will assist you in troubleshooting and the correction of execution and performance issues of any configurations installed by Aspen Systems.
- Support Hours: Monday through Thursday, 8:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. Mountain Standard Time, or 8:30 A.M. To 5:00 P.M. Mountain Standard Time Friday.
- Contact Method: Via phone (800)992-9242 (U.S. and Canada), or 011-1-303-431-4606, or e-mail support@aspsys.com. Responses will only be given during normal support hours.
- Case Tracking: All Aspen assistance will be assigned a ticket number, which we use to track our progress and your satisfaction with the work we do for you. All end users are encouraged to apply for an Aspen Support Account, which will allow you access to our web services and the capability to track and respond to your tickets online at www.aspsys.com as well as via e-mail.
- Administrative Assistance: All administrative assistance, such as adding users, changing passwords, adjusting user disk quotas, performing data backups, or other day to day administrative tasks needed to manage your cluster are included in the Total Service package. End users simply open a ticket via the web interface, e-mail, or phone, and Aspen takes care of your issue.
When using our Total Service package, Aspen engineers support your end-users directly, and we provide tools to the customer designated management personnel to ascertain customer satisfaction and current case load. Many organizations find the Aspen Total Service package to be a cost effective and painless way to extend HPC capabilities into their organization.
The Total Service package is often used with On-site Hardware Maintenance to facilitate a total managed solution. On-site Hardware maintenance is simply one of the add-on packages that Aspen makes available to help you better manage your HPC resources. We will discuss these add-on services next.
