Patrick wrote:
"Mandatory" is a bit of a everyone wants to make a buck. We pushed back and did the hardware racking/cabling on our own with someone coming out to verify the cabling...saved some time/money. We purchased an array later and when the line-item was included we had it removed and did the install ourselves.
It's not all about making a buck, it's about making sure this very expensive product is set up correctly, as if it isn't then it could cause all sorts of issues down the line, and time customer will blame the product, and hp will have to support it etc.
Hp will make the money either way, every 3par is bidded, so if it comes through with install parts or not, hp will have already decided the margin on that deal and will reduce the overall cost by a percentage to bring it down to that amount, so whether the install parts are on there or not, hp will make the same money.
Like I said before, getting a San up and running is fairly easy, getting it set up right is another matter, there's many ways to have it configured, when youre buying a £150k product, paying £2k to make sure it's working as well as it was intended is a small price to pay, having it not working to it's full potential could cost thousands.......