Standard Service Package

Standard Service Package comes with all Aspen Systems 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 Systems cluster. Aspen Systems 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.

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.

• Delivered Distribution: Standard Service covers fault correction and minor revision O.S. upgrades to the Aspen Systems delivered configuration. Standard software upgrades available to your distribution would be covered by the Standard Service package. If your cluster was delivered with RedHat 6.5, and you later wish to upgrade to RedHat 7.1, 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 Systems 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 Systems will support and upgrade these utilities as they were delivered for the life of your cluster.
• Delivered Applications: Aspen Systems 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 Systems 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 Systems Standard Service plan.
• Hardware Support: Aspen Systems 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 Systems provides replacement parts during your warranty. Advance replacement parts must be returned to Aspen Systems within 15 days of the action, or you will be billed for the part.
• Shipping: Aspen Systems 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 Systems engineering, entire nodes or peripheral units may be returned to Aspen Systems 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 Systems, 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 Systems 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 Systems 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: Via phone (800) 992-9242 (U.S. and Canada), or e-mail support@aspsys.com. Responses will only be given during normal support hours.
• Case Tracking: All Aspen Systems 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 Systems 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 Systems Standard Service package, and may result in additional charges under this plan.