280 PowerEdge servers, 5 years past EOSL — at one third of OEM maintenance cost.
How a DACH logistics group with 12,000 employees pushed back the refresh cycle on its two core data centers by six years — and redirected the freed budget into cloud migration for its subsidiaries.
We had two options: €2.1M for a refresh that would have ground our ITIL processes to a halt for twelve months — or a vendor-independent maintenance partner at one third the cost. After 18 months running with TechCare, it's a no-brainer.
01 · Situation
In early 2024, the last extendable OEM maintenance window expired for 280 Dell PowerEdge R740/R750 servers across two data centers (Frankfurt and Vienna). Dell offered a final extension at €596,000 per year — after which: refresh or formal End of Service Life. A full refresh would have cost €2.1M and tied up infrastructure capacity in parallel to the ongoing cloud migration of the subsidiaries.
02 · Approach
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Install base review · 2 weeks
Full hardware audit across both sites. Identification of EOSL dates per model. Risk classification per system (Tier 1–3).
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Fixed-price quote · 48 h
One contract, one fixed annual price, identical SLA tier (24×7 with 4 h response). Where Dell quoted €596k, TechCare offered €203k with an additional on-site component at the Vienna location.
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Takeover · 14 days
Onboarding with the internal Ops team. Set up of regional spare-parts depots in Frankfurt-South and Vienna-Liesing. First live test after 9 days.
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Quarterly review
Each quarter: tickets, MTTR, SLA compliance, lifecycle recommendations. Based on data, a staggered refresh plan from 2029 was derived for the oldest 60 systems — spread over three years rather than parallel.
03 · Outcome
After 18 months of operation: 99.8 % SLA compliance (target 99.5 %), average response time 2 h 40 min, no Tier-1 incident without recovery within contract bounds. The 6-year refresh deferral was formally documented at the supervisory board as a strategic TCO measure. Freed budget flowed into the cloud migration of two subsidiaries — a project that without this redirection would have been pushed back by two years.