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CASE STUDY - TOP 20 FINANCIAL INSTITUTION

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
WWW.XSNET.COM | EXPERTLY SIMPLIFIED IT MAINTENANCETM
The Problem – Overview: 2
The Solution: 3
RFP and TPM Provider Capabilities Assessment: 3
On-Boarding: 4
Test Incidents 4
The Results: 5
Cost Savings and Improved Level of Service: 5
High Level of Service Delivery and Customer Satisfaction Opens Up
Other Avenues for Support and Customer Savings: 5
Infrastructure Technology Asset Disposition (ITAD) Services: 6

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THE PROBLEM – OVERVIEW:
The customer is a top 20 financial institution that has over 500 Cisco 6509 chassis based switches that had
passed Cisco’s end of support (EOS) milestone. While Cisco agreed to provide support for these products on a
“special” EOS SMARTnet™ stock keeping unit (SKU), the following problems hampered the client:
» Cisco’s list price for the customer requested SLA was over $25K per device, equaling to a list price of $12.5M.
The same SLA was approximately 13K per device only two years earlier.
» Cisco’s terms for the “special” EOS SMARTnet™ SKUs are a limited version of SMARTnet™’s full capabilities
» The client researched their incident history and determined they had only two incidents that were software
/ IOS related in the two years prior to opting to issue a request for proposal (RFP) for third party support for
their installed base of 6509s
It was apparent to the client that the OEM was exponentially driving up the cost of support on incredibly stable
products that could remain in their network infrastructure for a substantially longer time. OEMs shorten product
lifecycles in order to satisfy shareholder and revenue demands which in turn pressures customers into product
replacements by forcing obsolescence through early end of support and other milestones. Additionally, OEMs
rapidly increase price over time on maintenance while providing support on these mature and stable products
becomes exponentially less costly to deliver.
The client had never given thought to utilizing third party maintenance (TPM). After consulting with XSi, the
client realized the extent and capabilities of XSi’s offerings after reviewing analyst reports. They determined that
going with an alternative support provider was the best solution for their 500 plus Catalyst 6500s.

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THE SOLUTION:
RFP and TPM Provider Capabilities Assessment:
As previously stated, the financial institution made the determination to issue an RFP for the support of the 6500s and
to assess the various the providers that could meet their stringent SLA requirements with an extensive installed base
across numerous locations in the US and UK. The various partners were evaluated for the following capabilities:
» Technical assistance center (TAC) capabilities
» Quicker response time to get a tier II or tier III engineer assigned to an incident (requirement of 30 minutes or less to
have tier II or tier III engineer assigned within 30 minutes 24x7x365)
» Portal capabilities to include incident handling, asset records (including all 6500 internal and external components
and SLA), as well as incident and asset reporting
» Logistics / depot capabilities to provide 24x7x365 onsite parts to over 60 locations in the US and UK
» Onsite field engineers to perform the parts replacement and work with the provider’s TAC (XSi) and financial
institution’s operations center to ensure replacements / repair are complete and the assets are functioning
as required
» Immediate dispatch of requested parts or units for replacement. The OEM does not start the SLA for hardware
replacement until their TAC has performed root cause analysis and determined the failure. The requirement of the
customer was to have the parts shipped as soon as they requested replacement.

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THE SOLUTION:
On-Boarding:
After being awarded the opportunity, the financial institution and XSi performed extensive on-boarding to ensure the
following components were properly deployed and handled:
Weekly call to track the progress of:
Test Incidents:
Subsequent to the on-boarding, the financial institution opened a number of test incidents to ensure their stringent and
substantive sparing and logistics capabilities were being fulfilled as required.
Acquisition, testing and
sparing of all 6500s and
their internal and external
components
Communication to
financial institution
operations personnel and
on-boarding calls on-
boarding document reviews
(e.g. how to open incidents,
escalate incidents and other
particulars about working
with XSi)
Review procedures
for consumption and
replenishment of spares,
sparing confirmation, and
confirm root cause analysis
“relaxed model bypass”
are deployed
Update customer asset
records configuration
items to indicate XSi as
service provider

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In a large and mission critical infrastructure such as
this financial institution, XSi and the customer mutually
understand that there are numerous benefits to integrating
TPM support with OEM support. The immediate benefits
are substantial cost savings and being able to extend the life
of products along with improved levels of service on those
product sets.
Cost Savings and Improved Level of Service:
The customer was able to realize savings of more than 65
percent compared to their previous charges from the OEM.
XSi based these savings from the 2011 SMARTnet™ pricing
of approximately $13K per device versus the approximately
$25K per device cost increase that Cisco had charged in
the middle of 2012. The client achieved 30 minute average
response times with access to tier II and tier III TAC resources
and immediate processing of hardware replacements without
having to go through root cause analysis.
High Level of Service Delivery and Customer
Satisfaction Opens Up Other Avenues for Support
and Customer Savings:
The high level of service delivery and customer satisfaction
has led the customer to looking at other components
product families of their very large infrastructure that would
be candidates for alternative support providers.
Cost Savings by not having to Replace Products Early:
Replacing assets before they need to be replaced has
numerous costs beyond the acquisition cost of the new
products. By getting a superior support offering at an
outstanding price point, the customer realized the following
benefits:
» Reduced support costs
» No acquisition costs of replacement products
» No regression lab testing of new products prior to
deployment
» No deployment costs
» No testing necessary in live environment once new
products are deployed
» No updating of all asset, contract, and network
management systems
» No decommissioning and ITAD costs for replaced assets
THE RESULTS:

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INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNOLOGY ASSET DISPOSITION (ITAD) SERVICES:
The client provided some of the inventory from decommissioned assets that they had stored at their
current ITAD partner. After engaging with XSi for the catalyst 6500 support, they realized they could reduce
relationships and work with XSi for both support and ITAD services.
XSi is a true maintenance lifecycle support and methodology provider. When you decommission your
assets, XSi can engage a professional analyst to provide a price quote, erasure services, packing, removal,
and destruction or resale of your de-commissioned assets. We have certifications in place to guarantee that
your data or configurations are erased properly. With XSi, you have a true lifecycle support partner.

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XS International, Inc. | info@xsnet.com
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