You can get a SmartNet contract on whatever piece(s) of gear you like. For example, I have a contract on my 2509, which costs just under $300 per year, as I recall. Depending on the specific router you wish to cover, it may be more or less expensive (E.g. your 7513 will be a bit more per year, your 675 a bit less). You can buy the contract directly from Cisco, or from your reseller/VAR. Cisco doesn't care that it's a lab, or that you aren't a major ISP or business. The contract gets you technical support, the same as the major customers. However, when you open a case, it would be courteous to let them know that your problem or issue lies within a lab environment, not a production system. Not that I've noticed any difference in how quickly the TAC is of assistance, but if the engineer knows it's your practice lab, he is usually more free with troubleshooting advice and debug ideas. I've noticed also that the late-night (for west coast US) support teams in Australia put me on speakerphone for group discussions/brainstorms a lot, but it could be that they're just entertained by my thoughts when I've had a few pints in the lab before calling. Oh, and even though my contract only officially covers the 2509 router, TAC has helped on configuring or understanding anything I've called about -- although I'm certain they wouldn't replace a bad Cat5k power supply under that contract. Having gotten a partially-used SmartNet with one of my first lab router purchases (too long ago to contemplate), I wouldn't do without it, now. Being able to download and test various versions and feature packs of IOS is awesome, and well worth the entrance fee. And, although the majority of the online documentation is available free (I cut my teeth on a MS TechNet CD), it's the TAC that really makes it worthwhile to have a contract. I notice I'm a bit windy, tonight. If you've gotten this far, the short answers were: "Yes, you can have a contract for any home routers still officially supported. You can do it as an individual. Yes, I've done this." -jon- --- nrf wrote: > I am curious to know whether you can get a smartnet contract for a > bunch of home-lab routers. Do you need to have an official company > name, or can you just make an arrangement as an individual through > Cisco. Has anybody ever done this? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=12764&t=12764 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
