Cisco hardware question

Brian Feeny bfeeny at mac.com
Thu Mar 4 21:05:09 UTC 2010


If you are getting Cisco hardware with configs on it or crashfiles, etc. Then no it is NOT new equipment.  Who are you buying from?  Are they a Gold partner on Cisco's partner locator?  If not, then I have seen some seedy things, and of course i have seen seedy things with Gold partners too, I am just pointing out that the ability to compete and make margin get more and more difficult the lower the partner is on the totem pole and so desperation can drive certain behavior.

In general from a cisco Gold partner you can expect as good as 35-40% or so on new equipment for a discount for regular deals.  Special pricing for special projects you may be able to get a bit better, and maybe 1% or so better for general products from CDW or a big box company like them.  If you are paying 50-60% off list for just individual items you order, then its likely not new and there is likely something shady going on, as no partner is going to get you some special discount pricing on a single 3845 for example.

All of your good gold partners are going to charge around the same give or take a few percent on material.  So find someone you can trust and just build a relationship.  If your paying new prices for used gear then yes you are getting ripped off.

I would be glad to recommend to you a reputable gold partner if you email me off list.


Brian


On Mar 4, 2010, at 3:48 PM, Kaveh . wrote:

> 
> Hello,
> 
> I apologize if this is an unusual topic but I would like to know what this expert community thinks about this issue:
> 
> We have noticed that a number of Cisco appliances we have recently purchased and paid (AS NEW), are being shipped as if they have been already used/refurbished. In other words, several times we have seen brand new Cisco hardware, out of the box, that has pre-existing configuration (Interfaces with Private IP addresses, static routes, etc …) and in some cases even non-system files, like ‘crashdump.txt’ or additional IOS images. Most importantly our latest purchase; 2 'new' ASAs, contain a series of files named: FSCK0000.REC, FSCK0001.REC, FSCK0002.REC, etc ... . Based on some research it seems like that these files are 'recovery files' signaling bad/failing hard disks in these appliances. 
> Anyone on thhis group has seen this before and if yes, are we supposed to blindly trust the vendor saying the hardware is new, safe and secure?
> 
> The only way I can explain this is that the hardware has been refurbished or previously configured for reasons unknown to me. I think if customers pays for new hardware, they should get new hardware, even if refurbished hardware may be covered by Smartnet.
> 
> Any thoughts or recommendations anyone? The last thing we want to do is to deploy faulty (or non secure) security appliances in production. :)
> 
> Thank you
> 
> Best regards
>  		 	   		  
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