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Opinion: Refurbished Kit?

Kevin Brennan
Level 1
Level 1

Hello all,

I was wondering if anyone would like to give an opinion on using refurbished Cisco kit in production? (As opposed to using it in training labs!)

I'm being faced with the situation that my budget is being cut for some projects - I still need to deliver the scope of the projects, but at a reduced cost. I have a choice to either scale back the hardware/software infrastructure required or to look at refurbished kit.

Where would I stand with respect to support? The resellers seem to mostly give a 90 day, or at most a year warranty. I have no issues with buying an appropriate SmartNET contract and IOS for the devices, but will Cisco permit this?

Does anybody use refurbished devices? Any experience with the refurbishing companies? (in Europe)

Thank you in advance.

Kevin

5 Replies 5

John Blakley
VIP Alumni
VIP Alumni

The company that I worked at previously bought refurbs all of the time (some from vendors and others from ebay). We had no problems with them, and the good thing about Cisco products are they're workhorses. I don't think I've actually had one die on me in 10 years.

And I believe that you can buy Smartnet on anything.

HTH,

John

HTH, John *** Please rate all useful posts ***

hobbe
Level 7
Level 7

Cisco themselves sell refurbished kits.

I do not know what discounts it is but I know that they sell them.

So if you buy refurbished from cisco warrants and support is available for you to buy.

I think that everyone who is a cisco partner can sell that to you.

However if you buy refurbished from ebay or such then I think that it will be hard to get support and new ios for them.

My personal oppinion is that you do not know what the equipment have been through before, you do not know if the equipment might have sheded years of the mtbf in an overheated server room, or if it is in min condition and never used.

so for labwork and such it is fine, I would hesitate more to buy that for use in a production environment.

personal experience.

we sent in a switch for repairs and got a refurbished back.

a couple of months later we sent 2 switches for repairs and sure enough one was the refurbished one.

That does not mean that refurbished is bad, it might just have been a fluke.

but I think the odds are stacked against it beeing older equipment and shipped many times.

Thank you for your replies.

I just found this document:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/prod_warranty0900aecd801c35a3.pdf

It is fairly clear with respect to the stance taken by Cisco. (IE - You are on your own if you don't buy through a channel)

Cheers

Kevin

Good to know Kevin :) Thanks for posting what you found!

Thanks,

John

HTH, John *** Please rate all useful posts ***

For one of my projects I need switch generic expansion modules (GEM) for some Nexus's 5596 in our production network.We are looking for the GEM N55-M16-P RF.We have Smartnet for current network components like switches. Our preferred suppliers can't obtain this part anymore.We found others who offer this part with regular reseller guarantee.
I like to know what support from CISCO we may expect when adding a refurbished GEM (Secondary Market Product) from a reseller that isn’t a Cisco partner.

  1. Will the switch chassi remain its smartnet service that the expansion is being added to.
  2. Does the expansion module inherit smartnet service from its switch chassi or will it be excluded from smartnet service,
  3. If so, what do you need to take it in smartnet service?
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