HP To Charge For Updates And Service Packs

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Need a firmware update or service pack for your HP server? You'd better hope your support agreement is up to date. Thanks to elrabin for the heads up.

HP server customers are about to get an unwelcome surprise when they need to update firmware or apply a service pack. Effective later this month, those downloads, which often fix critical bugs, will require either a current warranty or an extended support agreement.
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A very stupid move by HP if they actually want to maintain, much less grow, their business.
 
This is common in the server arena, and it is really annoying. We have to spend >$60,000 per year in my test lab just to keep one of each system (HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, Cisco) under service contract to get software updates. Solaris is the most expensive per item, but Cisco is the most annoying. With Cisco, you can only download the patches for the switches which are under contract, and we only have one of each kind to test with our software and hardware.

It had been like this way back before the Internet, but many companies backed off and allowed free updates because Microsoft started it once the Internet became public. (Patches for Windows 3.1 were a pain, but they were free either by BBS or by internet. Windows 95 was the first to have a self patching mechanism.) Now it looks like the companies going out of business are going back to it. I don't expect HP to last 5 years from now, partly because of this decision. This decision will just accelerate their demise.
 
Not that my company is in the market anyway. But I look forward to asking the HP rep about this the next time they call.
 
Skripka said:
In fairness...HP service pack service is damn good. IME
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In fairness... any patch is basically fixing a mistake HP created. I know it's nearly impossible to create something that's completely bug free or vulnerable free, but it's there because of HP's fault, not your own.
 
So they are selling a faulty product (working products never need patching) and then charging to fix it one bug at a time.
 
Makes me feel more at rest that the server refresh we had in our Company was also a move to an all Dell Blades
 
*Checks HP Support Page* Whew! This doesn't seem to be applying to older servers at the moment. There is a box to check warranty/support status, but I can still download everything on the page. I have a small stack of DL360 G2/G3 1U servers (among other brands) that I use to tutor college kids on networking basics and Linux administration. I am amazed that they are still updating firmware and drivers on machines that are upwards of 12 years old in 2013, but couldn't provide a Vista driver for a 2 year old printer.
 
What is HP thinking, other than making a blatant grab for money?

Firmware and other software updates will leak through "free" channels, obscurely via SPxxxxx.exe google searches. What's the point?
 
pxc said:
What is HP thinking, other than making a blatant grab for money?

Firmware and other software updates will leak through "free" channels, obscurely via SPxxxxx.exe google searches. What's the point?
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So what do you tell your IT director when he asked how those service packs were installed when you didn't pay for them.

"O I just got them free off the internet"
 
I started a new job and they're an HP shop. I contacted HP chat support today to locate an update on their website and after they pointed me to the area on their site to download the update they told me I'd need to contact sales to get it. My first action item is to get management to re-think HP as the preferred vendor.
 
Well well well. I can think of a whole lot of clients that still need to pull the trigger on replacing their XP machines that we wont be looking to HP for.

Really stupid move here.
 
somecallmeTim said:
HP support used to be the best of the best.

Used to be.
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that is one of those things that it depends on what you have being serviced and that area. In my area in a business where we originally had a DEC alpha server running Open VMS and then replaced that with a Itanium server still running Open VMS. there were shit.

In all fairness when we started to lose drives in the Alpha it was an really old system and we were getting refurbished drives but still would take us weeks to get replacements for failed drives. Had a cpu fail in the system once and the guy that came out didn't know how to even work on the systems. I ended up having to figure it out to keep him from breaking it more trying to figure it out.

We upgraded to the Itanium. It kept having an issue with crashing and restarting. they kept replacing cpu 0 and not the voltage regulator connected to it. took over a year and 13 processers for them to replace the right part. Again person they always sent out didn't know how to work on Itanium servers or know how to find any of the logs in either OpenVMS or in the server's management system itself.

I was told at one point when I complained about them never fixing the server that if I want my server fixed within a reasonable amount of time that I need to buy a second server and keep it laying around to have a spare ready to take over for the one when it has issues till they can get around to fixing it. my support contract with them was for M - F 8am - 9pm 4 hour response. I was told that only means that they will call me back within 4 hours to say that they know I have an issue, they don't actually have to try to do anything in that 4 hour period and normally they never. always took a week or longer before anyone came out to work on anything. Once had a guy scheduled to come out and replace a part, didn't come out on that Monday, he called Tuesday saying he couldn't come out till thursday. never showed up then. I called them the following Monday at 4:30pm and the tech support guy started looking into the issue and put me on hold for awhile while he read up on the case and the notes. took him till a little after 5pm to realize that guy should have been there days ago, but then told me he couldn't send the guy out that night as my support ends at 9pm and in 4 hour it would be a few minutes after 9pm so it was too late for me to have somebody send out. Tried to schedule something for the following Friday as he didn't know if anyone would be able to come out around 5 before then (which we were trying to have our down time after hours as this was our customer database / billing system for a telephone company). had to yell at the guy to get somebody there first thing in the morning during office hours for me to shut the system down during the day as I was tired of their shit and wanted me shut fixed right then.

and these are their techs out of the Chicago area not some small area.

And every time I called there for either of our systems they could never find any record of the servers ever existed, or that we even had support on anything. I had to give them our support contract number and then they could find our name, serial numbers and all that useful stuff. but till then they couldn't search for our name or serial numbers or anything else to find it.

Dell on the other hand in my area. I contact them about an issue and a tech is onsite in a few hours.

But I know others that have the reverse, so it is always millage will verify type thing with the companies
 
You guys act as if other vendors aren't just waiting for the results of HP's study. If it works for HP then all other vendors will do the same, and many SMB deployments will be Supermicro or Tyan or whomever else makes server boards these days.
 
Ashbringer said:
In fairness... any patch is basically fixing a mistake HP created. I know it's nearly impossible to create something that's completely bug free or vulnerable free, but it's there because of HP's fault, not your own.
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Hmm I dont know about that. So you are saying even if a company wanted to enhance a product through patches and updates its because they made a mistake? Its not just a mistake its also could be a company is enhancing a product through future updates with new features. Goes both ways.
 
Thuleman said:
You guys act as if other vendors aren't just waiting for the results of HP's study. If it works for HP then all other vendors will do the same, and many SMB deployments will be Supermicro or Tyan or whomever else makes server boards these days.
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Geez...I haven't heard the name Tyan since the 90s.
 
One of my aunts is an Ohio government employee.
HP used to sell laptops and desktops at reduced rates through their business division through the state to state employees.
Really p@ssed my aunt off, bought a 3 year warranty on a laptop and the keys started popping off and the cooling fan stopped working about a year and a half in.
Tried to get it fixed, while it was still under warranty, and HP refused to honor their warranty because they sold their support division, so instead of fixing a $1500 laptop or even offering the money she paid for the warranty they offered her $100 off of a new HP laptop.
Yes, I recently bought a HP laptop for $200 (it was cheap), but those bastards are pretty shadey and hope I never have to deal with them myself.
 
I heard about this last week from my vendor, I started on a rant and he said " I just wanted to give you a heads up, I didn't mean to discourage you from purchasing HP" LOL.

I have been doing a lot of testing with SuperMicro servers over the past few years. I think I will be moving to them.
 
I have to believe the reason they are doing this is to make up for all the customers cancelling support contracts.

We used to pay an insane amount of money to keep all of our servers under contract. We found that we could create our own parts depot buy purchasing spare servers, drivers, memory, etc, and save about 250k a year. This is a growing trend across the country as more and more people are trying to save money.

I was told at one point when I complained about them never fixing the server that if I want my server fixed within a reasonable amount of time that I need to buy a second server and keep it laying around to have a spare ready to take over for the one when it has issues till they can get around to fixing it.
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While this is harsh, it's true. All production systems should be installed with as much redundancy as possible. I think they dicked you around a bit much, and I would never expect them to tell you that (great customer service!)...
 
450 said:
I suspect Dell's business is about to grow.
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My thoughts exactly.

We are an HP shop, well, not anymore.
I'll no longer recommend HP servers in our department. I just hope Dell doesn't do the same in the near future.
 
somecallmeTim said:
HP support used to be the best of the best.

Used to be.
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Hmm... time to release Casanova Frankenstein with his Psychodefraculator.

But in seriousness, I know that we were just getting ready to start looking at alternatives to the old IBM Bladecenters now that IBM sold out to Lenovo (nothing against Lenovo, per se, just that Lenovo is owned and manufactured by and in the People's Republic of China, and these are going into sensitive US Military systems, where we've had issues with the integrity of the supply chain when the PRC is part of the chain).

HP may not make the cut based on this, as it's already causing serious issues because of Cisco's licensing behavior and the difficulty of obtaining support and patches in regards to systems that don't connect to the Internet.
 
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