What are Cisco SmartNet (SNT) and Partner Support Service (PSS)?

What are Cisco SmartNet (SNT) and Partner Support Service (PSS)?

a.       Cisco SmartNet is the classic Cisco post-sales service which is sold as a product, and delivered from Cisco to end user directly. SmartNet includes 3 contents: 1. hardware RMA exchange. 2. Cisco TAC support. 3. Cisco IOS and other software update. All these 3 contents are delivered directly from Cisco to the end user. This means no matter which Cisco reseller / partner you bought the Cisco SmartNet from, you would get these services directly from Cisco. Obviously, such service model could only apply in white market. In order to use this support, the SmartNet service contract has to be registered on Cisco Service and Contract Center (SCCT) tool, under the end user’s Cisco.com (CCO) account.

b.       Cisco PSS services used to be called Cisco CSSP or Cisco CTS services before 2013. This service includes 3 identical contents as Cisco SmartNet services. The difference is that the PSS service contract owner has to get the support from the Cisco reseller / partner, and the Cisco reseller / partner gets the support from Cisco. This service model works both in white and grey market. Actually, in most projects of our grey market business, we book SmartNet service for our customers under other bigger customers’ name, and in our contract we still mark them as PSS services for legal integrity.

-          Generally, if Cisco official and direct support is necessary to your work, please go white market, and talk directly with your Cisco AM; if Cisco official and direct support is not necessary, and you have confidence in your own engineering team, the grey market could be an option.

What are the new Cisco SmartNet Total Care (SNTC) and Cisco Smart Care (SC) services?

a.       SNTC is a new version of the classic Cisco SNT service, and SC is a new version of the classic PSS service.

b.       The key difference between SNTC and SNT, and the SC and PSS is that the new version services (SNTC and SC) supports a field appliance being deployed in the end user’s environment as a collector for the information of all existing network equipment, in order to streamline the inventory management, Cisco service contract management, product alerts, new IOS alerts, etc. For SNTC, the collector is called Cisco Network Collector (CNC); for SC, the collector is called Smart Care appliance, and could be booked through Cisco Commerce Workspace (CCW), under product number “CAAPL-2010-SCS-K9”.

c.       The key of the Smart features in the SNTC and SC is Device Diagnostics, Install Base and Contract Management, and the Alerts, shown as below. The 3 contents of classic SNT and PSS services are defined as the “Foundational Technical Services”

d.       The disadvantage of the new SNTC and SC services are that for the “Smart” features, you have to register your CCO account on the SNTC or SC online portal. This means so far you still have to go white market for the full utilization of these smart features. Our team is testing the grey way of utilizing the SNTC and SC features, and we will release testing result ASAP.