We service hardware vendor-independently — including past End of Service Life, with identical or better SLAs at typically 30–70 % lower cost. One contract across all OEMs instead of eight separate ones.

No. TechCare is an independent maintenance provider with no business relationship to the listed OEMs. Vendor-independent in the literal sense.

28 enterprise vendors with 140+ product lines: HPE, Dell EMC, IBM, Lenovo, Cisco, NetApp, Fujitsu, Oracle/Sun, Pure Storage, Hitachi, Quantum, Veritas, Juniper, Arista, Extreme, Brocade, F5, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Check Point, Supermicro, Nvidia, Huawei, Nutanix, APC, Eaton, Vertiv, Diebold. Server, storage, networking, backup, UPS, retail/POS.

We continue to maintain it as long as it makes technical and economic sense — typically 5–10 years past official End of Service Life. Each quarterly review gives a concrete lifecycle recommendation per system. Details: EOSL maintenance.

Within 48 hours of the install-base review. You send us your hardware inventory (CSV or email), we return a fixed-price quote. No commitment for the initial review.

You enter counts, average age, and OEM mix — we instantly show which share is likely post-warranty or EOSL and what TechCare maintenance would cost. Estimates are based on standard 5+5-year industry lifecycle data. For exact per-system figures we run the detailed audit within 48 h, free, no commitment.

Rule of thumb: as long as the system economically and functionally carries the load and no hard compliance gap opens, third-party maintenance is 30–70 % cheaper than replacement. We calculate this concretely in the lifecycle review per system from residual value, annual maintenance and performance headroom — the TCO comparison is ready within 14 days. More at EOSL maintenance and TCO calculator.

Yes, per vendor and hardware class we maintain benchmark-grade comparison data. HPE example: TechCare ProLiant maintenance averages 35–55 % below HPE Foundation Care at identical 4 h response. Vendor-specific battle cards at vendors, exact price ranges shown by sales in the first call.

Post-warranty starts the day after OEM factory warranty ends (typically 3 years after delivery) and ends at official End of Service Life (typically 5+5 years). In this phase OEM maintenance is optional (Foundation Care / SmartCare / SupportEdge) or covered by TPM. Details at post-warranty maintenance.

Standard term is 12 months, then automatic 12-month renewal. Notice period is 3 months in written form. 24- and 36-month contracts are available with additional volume discount on request. Wording is in our T&Cs.

Minimum term is 12 months. Per-contract minimum is roughly €5,000 annual maintenance volume — below that contract overhead becomes uneconomical. For smaller fleets we offer pay-per-incident models.

Standard is annual upfront invoicing over the full contract term. Quarterly or monthly invoicing available on request (small administrative surcharge). Payment terms are 14 days net. Per-system itemised — you see exactly what each piece of hardware costs, no bundle tricks.

None. Travel within DACH, standard parts, escalation and lifecycle reviews are included. For international sites, travel and parts logistics are defined per location in the contract. Surcharges only for explicitly flagged items: weekend/holiday work outside the SLA window, high-risk locations (marine, offshore). All transparent in the contract.

Included: annual maintenance fee per system (SLA tier + hardware class), standard spare parts, engineer travel within DACH, quarterly lifecycle review, on-call escalation. Not included: data-center power/cooling, software subscriptions (ONTAP, Smart Licensing etc.), hardware acquisition itself. Interactive TCO comparison at TCO calculator.

Three standard tiers: Parts Only (spares within 4 h), 5×9 NBD (Next Business Day, Mon–Fri 9–17), and 24×7×4 (round-the-clock, 4 h response). Custom SLAs (e.g. 24×7×2 or 4 h restore) on request. Selectable per system — you pay only the SLA each device actually needs.

Contractually defined penalties: per missed SLA event, credit equal to a pro-rated monthly maintenance fee for the affected system, escalating for repeated misses. Detailed SLA reports per quarter, with per-ticket response-time documentation. For BAIT/MaRisk-relevant fleets we deliver this in audit format.

Depending on region and availability. In DACH (home market) we have 500+ certified field engineers available — TechCare in-house plus our established DACH-wide engineering pool and spare-parts network. International sites are served via our global service-hub network across Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. All engineers are vendor-certified and work to our service protocol. You see no difference in operations — one contract, one escalation, one invoice.

We coordinate end-to-end: install-base review, contract-gap analysis (so there's no uncovered day between OEM end and TechCare start), staggered transition by asset class if desired. Typical migration: 30–60 days from first contact to service handover. Per-asset handover documented with a pre-migration health check.

Yes, this is often the starting point. Keep OEM contracts where they make economic sense (e.g. new hardware in factory warranty, tied software subscriptions like ONTAP or Smart Licensing) and put TechCare on everything post-warranty, EOSL or mixed-vendor. We coordinate.

Main depot Hahnstätten (Germany). Additional sites across DACH via our service partners; internationally connected via our global service-hub network. For critical fleets we set up site-specific on-site spare pools on request — particularly for 4 h SLAs at remote locations.

Quarterly in the standard contract, semi-annually for larger fleets on request. Each review includes: health score (disk/power/fan trend), EOSL distance, estimated remaining economic life, replacement-vs-TPM recommendation, compliance-risk flag. The customer portal shows the last 8 quarters per system. More at hardware lifecycle.

Yes. The pre-migration health check documents firmware version, patch level, disk inventory and power status per system. During contract duration we maintain the firmware roadmap per asset — where OEM subscriptions remain the source (Cisco IOS, NetApp ONTAP), we coordinate; where patches are public, we apply them.

Full audit trail per contract: SLA reports (quarterly), service tickets with response and restoration times, parts provenance with serial numbers, engineer sign-offs per intervention, patch/firmware status per system. Format on request BAIT/MaRisk or ISO 27001 compliant. Standard reports included.

Our maintenance process is designed against these frameworks: documented SLAs, verifiable service history, parts provenance, data processing agreements, sub-processor transparency. Auditors regularly accept third-party maintenance as long as the process is cleanly documented — we provide exactly that documentation. Per-framework mapping on request; overview at compliance audit.

Before each intervention: contractual access on a need-to-know basis, NDA, optional security clearance for the engineer (German Ü1/Ü2 available for critical-infrastructure fleets). Logical access: no standing permissions, every intervention ticketed. Physical access: escort by your team or documented key/badge handover per site policy.

Software subscriptions stay contractually with the OEM — we maintain only the hardware layer. Clean separation: NetApp ONTAP keeps running on your SupportEdge subscription, Cisco IOS via Smart Licensing, Oracle Solaris via Oracle. We handle disks, controllers, power supplies, mainboards, switches as hardware. On request we provide an explicit service-boundary list per vendor.

Primary language German (Hahnstätten team and all DACH field engineers). English available throughout — tickets, SLA reports and escalation channels are bilingual. Service-partner engineers in Switzerland and Austria speak the local language plus German. Other languages for international sites on request.

Four document classes: (a) service contract with documented SLAs, response windows and penalties, (b) DPA including sub-processor list with locations, (c) parts provenance per intervention, (d) engineer qualification and access records. We deliver each of those four points audit-ready. Framework-specific overview at compliance audit.

Partially, yes. Per maintenance contract we provide annual reports on avoided hardware disposal (kg, CO₂eq estimate) and refurbishment share of the parts used — usable for Scope-3 reporting and circular-economy KPIs under CSRD. Methodology overview at CO₂ impact.

Yes. German MaRisk AT 9 requires for outsourced services: written contract, clear task/responsibility separation, institution's right to instruct, audit rights, contingency plan and continuity assurance. Our standard maintenance contract and DPA cover all six; a dedicated MaRisk mapping sheet is provided per bank mandate on request.

Yes. Existing customers get a login at app.techcaresolutions.de and can create and track tickets, view all running contracts with asset lists and SLA tiers, and download quarterly SLA reports and maintenance records as PDF. Access is set up at contract onboarding — one login per contact person.

The same portal works as a partner portal for resellers, system integrators and distributors — with two additional features: first, current wholesale price lists per OEM, SLA tier and hardware class, so you can quote without checking back with us; second, white-label PDF export of SLA reports and maintenance records in your partner CI for forwarding to the end customer. Tickets can be opened on behalf of the end customer, all contracts are grouped by end customer.