Product Bulletin Template

Product Bulletin: Premium AutoSupport Enhances Customer Productivity - Available on NOW

Revision History

Summary of Changes

September 2007

Initial Version

This Product Bulletin informs NetApp sales and NetApp partners about new or changed Network Appliance™ products or services.

Summary
What's New?
Sales Tools
Customer-Ready Tools
System Requirements
Product Information
Regulatory Compliance
Warranty and Service
Additional Information

1. Summary

This product bulletin announces the introduction of Premium AutoSupport version 1.0 on NOW™ (NetApp on the Web). Premium AutoSupport improves the supportability of NetApp systems by improving customer self-service support for problem diagnostics, configuration, and event and change management. Premium AutoSupport helps customers and NetApp Services to be proactive in finding issues and their root causes.

Premium AutoSupport is a new and exciting suite of Web services for NetApp SupportEdge Premium customers. Premium AutoSupport is an extension of the My AutoSupport dashboard that offers customers the ability to:

• Visualize their NetApp environment at the company or device level

• View a timeline history of AutoSupport events and alerts

• Compare and differentiate two configurations

• Generate an upgrade plan from one Data ONTAP® release to another

Premium AutoSupport is a NOW based Web application, so there is nothing for the customer to install. The customer can access Premium AutoSupport from his or her browser over the Internet. The customer is only required to have AutoSupport enabled on his or her NetApp controller and sending data back to NetApp Support.

Premium AutoSupport represents a major value addition to the SupportEdge Premium service. With SupportConsole at end of availability (EOA), there is a great need to provide an alternative value proposition for proactive and reactive support automation. Premium AutoSupport 1.0 addresses this need. NetApp has collected detailed customer configuration and system data through AutoSupport over the years. This data has mainly been used internally by Support and various NetApp groups for customer support and data mining purposes. Premium AutoSupport advances AutoSupport to the next level by providing proactive support information from our AutoSupport repository directly to our customers (and eventually to our partners).

Premium AutoSupport helps prevent cases by enabling our customers to be proactive in finding and fixing configuration-related issues. Industry studies show that 30% to 40% of service issues are configuration related; for example, incorrectly configured system parameters, effects from an upgrade that was not properly planned, running out-of-date software, using a noncertified solution stack, undersizing a system, or not following or reading product documentation. Internal NetApp Support statistics show that over 30% of incoming cases are configuration related. Premium AutoSupport allows customers to proactively identify and fix these issues and maintain a high-availability state for their NetApp environment.

Customer and NetApp Benefits

SupportEdge Premium customers now have access to new tools to improve their ability to take care of and improve the day-to-day operational efficiency of their NetApp systems. Customers can use Premium AutoSupport for configuration and change management of their NetApp controllers. Premium AutoSupport allows customers to understand what has changed in their system over a time period, compare a system against a standard corporate template or a NetApp best practice template (available in version 2.0), and visualize these changes in a graphical and intuitive manner 24x7 using a browser.

NetApp Support now has access to a tool to help solve configuration-related issues by looking at events and configuration parameter changes over time. Premium AutoSupport also provides NetApp Support with a detailed graphical layout view of the NetApp storage device, which will be a vast improvement over deciphering configuration information from text-based AutoSupport logs.

2. What’s New?

This is the first release of Premium AutoSupport.

3. Sales Tools (Sales Guides, Training Presentations, SE Presentations)

Premium AutoSupport is bundled as a component of SupportEdge Premium service and is not sold separately. Premium AutoSupport is available at no charge for any NetApp storage controllers that have SupportEdge Premium service entitlement and AutoSupport enabled. SupportEdge Premium customers can also access Premium AutoSupport for their non-SupportEdge Premium entitled devices until October 31, 2007, on a try-and-buy basis.

The internal TOI for Premium AutoSupport is located at
http://ngs-web.corp.netapp.com/service_readiness/product_ready/new_services/Service_Offerings_Pipeline/ServiceAutomation/SA.htm#TOI_TRAINING.

4. Customer-Ready Tools (Customer Presentations, Datasheets)

Premium AutoSupport information, including a customer-facing presentation, a FAQ, and a white paper, is available at http://now.netapp.com/NOW/knowledge/docs/olio/autosupport/. A Flash demo will be available at a later date.

5. System Requirements

Premium AutoSupport is accessible only through the NOW site. To access Premium AutoSupport:

1)       Go to https://now.netapp.com/eservice/SupportHome.jsp.
2)       Enter your NOW login information.
3)       Click the My AutoSupport link.

Premium AutoSupport is certified for Microsoft® IE 5 and 6, Firefox, and Apple® Safari™ browsers.

6. Product Information

Premium AutoSupport v1.0 is available on the NOW site as of September 10, 2007.

Premium AutoSupport v1.0 is targeted at NetApp direct customers and NetApp employees only. NetApp employees can access and use Premium AutoSupport for any customer device regardless of SupportEdge Premium entitlement. NetApp Authorized Support Partners’ (ASP) access to Premium AutoSupport to support their customers will not be enabled until a later release of Premium AutoSupport.

7. Regulatory Compliance

Premium AutoSupport is a NOW hosted Web application, so there is no regulatory compliance issue.

8. Warranty and Service

Do not apply, because Premium AutoSupport is not being sold as a standalone product.

9. Additional Information

http://now.netapp.com/NOW/knowledge/docs/olio/autosupport/

Contact Information:

Contact Ka Wai Leung (e-mail ka.leung@netapp.com, phone 408-822-1812) for further information.

© 2007 Network Appliance, Inc. All rights reserved. Specifications subject to change without notice. NetApp, the Network Appliance logo, and Data ONTAP are registered trademarks and Network Appliance and NOW are trademarks of Network Appliance, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Microsoft is a registered trademark and Safari is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.