Avaya MSP - The Policy on Avaya Maintenance Software Permissions

Avaya's servicing strategy is to provide Service Agreements for those products manufactured and/or sold by Avaya. Customers have expressed a desire to participate in maintaining their equipment and Avaya Authorized Partners have requested maintenance capabilities to service their end user customers.

Use of the Maintenance Software Permissions (MSPs), Avaya’s proprietary Right-to-Use maintenance software, gives the customer the maintenance capabilities they need to respond to some alarms, and aids in trouble isolation procedures. Authorized Partners, through the use of the DADMIN login, can maintain their customer's switches and respond to more of their customers’ troubles.

For all Definity and Communication Manager Systems CM4.0 and earlier MSPs can only be activated with purchase of a Service Agreement. As Avaya transitions to a more software centric strategy, MSPs will be provided with the purchase and license activation on Communication Manager 5.0 and subsequent releases. This strategy change will provide customers with more flexibility in maintaining their systems. Although this change makes it easier for the customer to utilize MSPs, they still remain Avaya’s proprietary Right-to-Use software. This means, MSPs are not transferable or assignable, are governed by all license and Right-to Use language, and cannot be utilized by an Unauthorized Service Provider or Third Party. Avaya reserves the right to audit these conditions at any time as outlined in the product and customer agreements.

Avaya can add more value to the Service Agreement by enhancing the customer level password with MSPs for all Definity and Communication Manager Systems CM4.0 and earlier.. During the Warranty period, MSPs can be licensed if there is a pending Service Agreement. For CM5.0 and subsequent releases MSPs are available with the purchase and license of the software and can be activated by the customer or BusinessPartner with activation of the customer license file.

Next see how the new Avaya T&M policy may affect you: http://packetbase.blogspot.com/2010/05/avaya-t-policy-change-starting-712010.html

Avaya T&M Policy Change starting 7/1/2010

Effective July 1, 2010, customers, Partners and Partner customers who do not have a contractual relationship with Avaya on a product requiring support, will no longer have access to Per Incident Technical Support Services.

Avaya Global Support Services is updating the existing Maintenance Per Incident (Time & Materials) policies. Avaya will continue to provide T/M support to Avaya Maintenance Agreement customers, Partners and Partner customers who have a minimum Avaya Maintenance contract covering the product requiring support. In addition Per Incident services such as on-site support and out-of-hours support will be available to Avaya Maintenance customers and Partner customers with a minimum Avaya contractual relationship for the product requiring support.

With that said, you have a couple options to consider for support:

1. Leverage the experience and expertise of an authorized Avaya BusinessPartner to help you get through your current support issues. More info at: http://www.avayaurgentsupport.com/.
2. Learn what the options are and your minimum requirements to become current on Avaya Maintenance at: http://www.avayamaintenance.com/.

Remember, without any level of Avaya Maintenance agreement in place, you will no longer be able to get any type of support from Avaya directly. This also means third party service organizations will no longer have access to critical support capabilities on your systems called MSP (maintenance software permissions) required to properly maintain Avaya solutions.

Although these changes may be an adjustment for some legacy Avaya customers, it is really the "norm" when compared to the rest of the industry.  Avaya has delayed these types of policies to ease customers through.

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