Paid Sun Patches

Tue Feb 18 14:30:52 PST 2003

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> Some Sun patch advisories require a SunSolve contract... I'm
> just curious if there's any consensus 

Consensus?  I don't know about that.

> out there about whether
> it's worth the time, money and hassle to have a software contract,
> or if I'm really okay sticking with the free-access public patches.

If there is a consensus, I suspect it will be, "it depends".  If I 
have loads of Solaris boxes running mission-critical apps, if I'm 
using unusual drivers, hardware, or configurations, or if I'm really 
pushing the box, I'd almost certainly feel a software support contract 
was worthwhile.  

Also, if I worked at a place that had hard annual budgets, I'd insist
on a complete hardware and software support contract so I could budget
up front exactly how much money a machine would cost me over the 
course of a year.  Not much is worse than having a machine break and 
having no money to fix it.

If I just had a few Solaris boxes in non-mission critical, non-intensive
roles, I probably wouldn't bother to get support contracts for them
or feel I needed non-free SunSolve access.

It all depends.

> My operating environment is mostly light duty work behind a firewall. 
> (ie., no direct Internet facing services, and applications like low 
> volume mail hub, DNS secondary, etc.)

Do you consider these services enterprise-critical?  What will you do
if something serious or inexplicable comes up with one of these boxes?
If you can deal with these situations and can fade the downtime, then
you probably don't need an extensive support contract.  If you can't,
then I'd want an insurance policy of some sort.  What that needs to
be would depend... .

I believe this is the correct answer, even if it doesn't help you much.

Good luck,

-- 
Nick Christenson
npc at gangofone.com