According to Gartner, maintenance costs represent about 15 to 25% of total enterprise IT costs each year. IT departments are constantly being challenged to decrease capital and operational costs and to increase ROI.
There are numerous ways to decrease support costs. Most strategies to reduce support costs involve the management of growth to reduce wasted capital spend. Purchase the correct class of equipment to ensure optimal use of ports, bandwidth, throughput etc. Larger switches, routers and firewalls that deliver excess capacity cost a lot more to support.
This article is about Juniper support ROI. Specifically how Juniper customers can ensure they are getting their money’s worth when it comes to Juniper Care (J-Care) support services.
The first step: Create CSC account
If you have purchased Juniper support you need to create an online user account in the Juniper Customer Care Centre (CSC)
Setting up a CSC account will allow you access to numerous Juniper support tools that will ensure that you know what equipment is covered, what the level of support, the timeframe of coverage, access to software support (patches and upgrades) and technical support from trained Juniper engineers.
Https://tools.juniper.net/entitlement/setupAccountInfo.do
The CSC Home Page
Once you are set up the Juniper CSC you will want to access a number of the valuable tools at: https://www.juniper.net/customers/support/
Product Entitlement
The first tool you should look at would be the Product Entitlement Tool (PET) http://tools.juniper.net/SerialNumberEntitlementSearch/
The PET will generate a report showing all of the products you have under contact with expiry dates and support level (NextDay, SameDay, software etc.).
After logging on to the CSC All you require is either your product serial number or your support contract number. When talking to Juniper support it is important to have your support contract information to ensure you get the level of support that you paid for.
Registering Products with JCARE
After checking to make sure your equipment is properly registered you can add any equipment that was missed in the product registration page.
http://tools.juniper.net/subreg/
Update your install base
This is probably one of the most important areas of support that is rarely kept up to date.
You must maintain and update any changes to your install base (address and line cards/modules) to ensure that Juniper knows where to ship replacement gear to and to ensure that the local Juniper parts depot has the correct inventories of spares located in the correct geography to ensure 4 hour or net day delivery.
When you purchase support for a Juniper product, Lanworks will register the serial number and send you the contract number. Once this is done it is up to the customer to add any further information about the product configuration or support site address changes.
For instance, let’s say you purchase SameDay (4 hour hardware replacement) for a new switch in Winnipeg. Lanworks will register your switch by serial number and address so that the local parts depot for Winnipeg will ensure stock of that product. If you have also purchase a redundant power supply and a 10GE uplink module then you can associate these parts to the serial number and the parts depot will also stock that gear to endure they meet the 4 hour or NBD replacement SLO.
You can update information using the tool at the ULR below:
https://www.juniper.net/customers/support/tools/updateinstallbase/index.jsp
In the next Juniper Support blog we will discuss how to access and escalate Juniper Technical Assistance.
For now I have included important contact and case escalation information. The reps at JCare will not only help you with technical assistance but they will also assist you at every step to set up your CSC account and they will help you to properly register your equipment.
Global Support
Phone: 1-888-314-5822 (toll free, US & Canada)
If outside US or Canada, use a country number listed from one of the regional tabs above.
Web: Case Manager
Email: We do not support opening new cases via email.
Please call one of our Support phone numbers or create a case via Case Manager.
Case Types
| Customer Care | Juniper Technical Assistance Center (JTAC) |
Create a Customer Care case for the following types of non-technical issues:
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Create a Technical Support case for the following types of technical issues:
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When opening a case, be prepared to provide the following:
- Serial number
- Definition of the problem in detail
- Priority Level and impact of the problem
- Indication of the activity that was being performed when the problem occurred
- Software version
- Configuration data
Priority Levels & Escalations
For complete details on our priority levels and escalation guidelines, please refer to the JTAC User Guide or your respective J-Care Technical Services End-User Agreement (EUSA). If you need to escalate a case now, call your support number and ask for the Duty Manager; for more information, see KB17701.
Escalation Guidelines
Juniper Networks offers systematic escalation management to customers with current service agreements. This ensures that the appropriate resources within Juniper Networks are utilized to resolve outstanding technical problems as efficiently as possible.
Response Times
Our systematic escalation process is intended to notify and brief various levels of management throughout the life cycle of the technical issue. Escalation timeframes are measured on a 24x7x365 basis.
| Owner | Priority 1, Critical | Priority 2, High | Priority 3, Medium | Priority 4, Low |
| Manager, Technical Support | 1 hour | 12 hours | 15 days | 30 days |
| Director, Customer Service | 2 hours | 24 hours | ||
| Vice President, Customer Service | 4 hours | 96 hours | ||
| Vice President, Engineering and Sales | 4 hours |
Mobile Phone Users
Please contact your mobile service provider should you be unable to call Juniper Global Support. Service providers will occasionally block their mobile users from dialing toll free numbers. If you are unable to dial Juniper from your mobile, we recommend you call from a land line phone.
Related Topics
- JTAC User Guide
- JTAC Fact Sheet
- Inspections & Reinstatements
- Customer Care End User Service Agreement
- RMA Procedures
- Product Warranty
- Juniper Worldwide Offices
- How To Buy
- Report a Security Vulnerability
