IT is a sea of change, and it only grows. Organisations are a landscape of various vendors, platforms, and products. Given everyone’s ongoing responsibilities, staying current on each vendor’s roadmap and how it relates to your current equipment becomes virtually impossible. All equipment has a shelf life and too often we see a phenomenon we call “panic refresh.” This is where a customer realises their current equipment is becoming End of Life or End of Support and they simply buy whatever is being sold as a replacement.

The easiest solution to this is to use a good IT Asset Management tool that will regularly perform reviews for you. For a Cisco Estate we recommend Acela.

There are a few things that makes this a potential problem. Just because a product is marked as a replacement option doesn’t make it the best use of your budget. Have you examined the current landscape? Are they other vendors in the market who have evolved and overtaken your incumbent? Does your incumbent have other product line ups which could be cheaper and even provide a better experience?

The ‘panic refresh’ doesn’t allow you to consider any of these factors. Why?

Because conducting your own End of Life assessment is not a convenience that most IT staff have the time for. It often falls behind on the list of responsibilities and is easy to ignore. However, the importance of them cannot be understated.

End of Life assessments is a service we regularly perform for our customers. Here, we’ll examine the steps that go into a well-executed assessment.

When we perform an End of Life assessment for a customer, we accelerate the journey and provide multi-vendor expertise. We start off by reviewing all the inventory details and shortlisting market options. Instead of just listening to a vendor’s best version of their product, our hands-on experience means we know the real-world pros and cons of the different options.

We can also build out bespoke training programs to remove that uncertainty of changing platforms or vendors. By the end of the assessment, you have the confidence in the direction you’re choosing.

If you’d like to read more about this fixed-cost service that we offer, please click here.