When Mission Critical Isn't Critical Enough
Vendors loves to toss around the term "mission critical," as if every organization was NASA. Truth is, mission critical is in the eyes of the beholder. What's meaningless to you may be critical to me.
For those that truly care about data and uptime, Microsoft is offering the Dom Perignon of support -- a mission-critical add-on to the company's Premier program. When you pay the top shelf price, you expect top shelf service. In this case, you get a team of dedicated solutions engineers who promise to respond in a half hour (although, if 30 minutes of downtime is acceptable to a mission-critical system, how mission critical is it?). You'll also get 24x7 support.
Like an SLA, if Microsoft doesn't perform, you get some of your money back.
What is your impression of Microsoft support, or do you use another option. Talk about either at dbarney@redmondmag.com.
Posted by Doug Barney on August 11, 2010