When everything runs smoother, everyone is happy.
That's what Broadcom Mainframe Software believes when it comes to helping current customers through any type of critical upgrade, maintenance, or unpredictable market events. Whether related to our own products or not, we help mainframe users succeed with free expert change planning - proactively engaging to provide quality assurance and to help eliminate unexpected issues or downtime during the process.
When upgrading hardware, software, operating systems, security patches, or backup installations, the goal is always for all to go smoothly. But anyone who's spent any time with technology knows that's not always how things work. We change that. How? By helping you plan for every situation, sharing best-practice considerations, and providing white-glove support so you can avoid unnecessary headaches or outages along the way.
This service uses our own senior-level Support Engineers to collaborate and work side-by-side with customers on due diligence, prerequisite planning, and any other issues that might be overlooked. The payoff from this support is especially sweet when it comes to enjoying your nights and weekends, when maintenance events usually take place.
To ensure the most favorable outcome, all it takes is a little notice. Two weeks ideally. Together with our senior engineers, we can help you map out the new environment, validate it, and assess any potential frictions. And yes, this is all free of charge to existing Broadcom customers, whether the event involves our software or not. Really.
Many of us like to gamble for fun, but when it comes to your mainframe and business, this is no time to roll the dice. Of the customers who haven't yet taken advantage of our free assistance planning, half encounter issues. That's a 50/50 chance of something going wrong by going it alone. In contrast, 99% of customers who use Expert Change Planning encounter no issues whatsoever... and if they do, the issue is usually resolved in minutes, not days.
If you're someone who hasn't used Expert Change Planning yet, here are two recent examples of how the service (or lack thereof) affected two customer rollouts.
A large US bank recently notified us of an upcoming maintenance event. They asked for our help in reviewing the prerequisites, validating their existing plan, and adding to it with some of the new issues that our senior engineers uncovered. Long story short, the weekend passed without incident, and afterwards the customer sent us a "thank you" for our contributions.
On the flip side, a large organization from California recently upgraded two of our products. They notified us of the event, but declined to take advantage of our free validation, implementation, and planning service. "It's only two products, we got this," we were told. By mid-day Saturday, that was no longer the case. With our techs on the phone helping to troubleshoot, it was determined that seven touchpoints had been overlooked and were now causing major issues.
To bring the system back online in time for their Monday morning deadline, the company had to rollback the upgrade and try again later, which they successfully did with our help. "We should have accepted your help for this seemingly routine upgrade," the customer admitted afterwards.
It goes without saying that our customers are leaders in their field and fully capable of planning themselves. However, when given a second pair of eyes, especially those of a Broadcom expert, these customers are in a much better position to prepare for an issue they might have overlooked.
Of course, "failure to plan is planning to fail." As you might expect, Expert Change Planning takes that planning up a notch with second opinions to help you spot any incompatibilities or shortcomings.
Look, we get it. People procrastinate upgrades. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" has a powerful allure. Maybe people just tend to forget about upgrades until the day of because they have bigger fish to fry. Maybe they don't have the time or resources needed to plan for and implement their next maintenance event. Or maybe they just don't know what they don't know.
While other mainframe vendors may offer similar support, there are big differences. Yes, every competent company will show up to help, even on nights and weekends. But only Broadcom helps you plan in advance at no extra cost even if it doesn't relate to our products. There's great value in that. It changes the "misery loves company" aspect of a vendor who will sit through a tense weekend with you to one where the weekend report calls for clear skies ahead. Don't worry, we'll still keep you company during the week. We'll just make it so you can spend the nights and weekends with your family or friends.
Because we genuinely care about our customers, we would love it if every one of our customers took advantage of Expert Change Planning. In the interest of full disclosure, that simple step would help all of us get better sleep and satisfaction during system-wide upgrades. That goes for Broadcomers as much as the business we support. Planning ahead - and together - is in everyone's best interest. It saves time, saves headaches, saves outages, saves problems, and saves money. And, let's face it, it saves sleep and your weekends, even during presumably low priority or seemingly routine changes.
On behalf of everyone hoping for worry-free nights and weekends, we hope you'll consider using our Expert Change Planning program service for your next change event. Perhaps you can even make some fun plans while you're at it.
To learn more about Expert Change Planning or to get started, please visit https://www.mainframe.broadcom.com/beyond-code-expert-change-plan.