T3 Video Request, Support somewhere between Community and Enterprise?

Hey all, I love TrueNAS, we use it in a lot of places (I am a reseller and partner) and have the paid hardware systems as well. We use hosted TN Command as well. For the back storage I help maintain 2PB plus of enterprise storage (Pure, NetApp, etc)

There are times were I have needed some support that was outside the realm of community, but we have ran the hardware on older servers because of various reasons (retiring applications etc etc).

Right now there doesn’t seem to be a good middle ground. I am curious if there is any intention or interest in something like an iXsystems supported community install. I would hope it would be closed off from the basic small systems, home users and labs, and I don’t know the best way for that to be done? Total number of drives? Box systems? But for someone like myself this would be very useful and a good way to get iX more into the enterprise line up to get the rest of the team and management to see the product better.

I would love to get a TrueNAS Tech Talk reply or debate on the subject, because I can see it being argued either way. If not, that’s okay too, I’ll continue to use and recommend iX where I can!

Thanks and happy Monday.

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Hey it’s an interesting idea and something I’ve thought about myself over the years.

What do you think it would look like in practice? How would it be different to purchasing an iXsystems supported appliance? What would be the benefits i.e why would people choose this option?

I have my own thoughts just curious to hear yours.

Are you talking about a separate forum category for ixsystem hardware? Netgate/pfsense has a separate forum category for their hardware/software.

nope, I’m talking about email / phone call support from iX on non iX hardware

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I don’t how to price it to be honest, per drive or per TB raw with a minimum 1PB. I am not sure, but I know we would pay 12-20k a year for the 2 issues a year we might have for example. One was NFS 4.1 and userid mappings, and the next was a SMB edge case bug. I understand how it could quickly go sideways however.

I don’t work for iX or speak for them, but I don’t ever see this happening. It would be like Ford Tech Hotline trying to help with Chevrolet…

Not sure I completely agree with that. Nextcloud have created a rather successful company based on pretty much this exact model. Free version available to download but if you want/need support then :moneybag:.

It’s also worth mentioning that although iX don’t offer this service (yet) there are companies that do such as https://klarasystems.com/

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I could see that, I think it would be closer to a toyota supra tech calling bmw z4 tech for a specialized issue. Or a aftermarket tech calling ford for some TSB troubleshooting. but who knows, the chance is slim due the nature of it, but make some hcl lists and support matrix I would pay just to have to that…

I hadn’t heard of them, thank you. I shall research

The old Sun Microsystems sold both SPARC & x64 hardware, with or without Solaris, (or MS-Windows / Linux for x64), as part of their line up. They also had software only support contracts, including on foreign hardware, (aka HP Enterprise x64 servers). (Don’t know what Oracle does today…)

This subject of software only support on non-iX hardware, (or EOL iX hardware), has come up before. Various levels have been discussed, like:

  • 24x7
  • Business day only
  • E-Mail / Web ticket only

But, nothing has happened, yet.

PS - What I mean by foreign hardware, is just that Sun, (or iX), did not design and make it. Not foreign country.

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The only practical way I could see this working would be if iX provided essentially a parts list of components that either they use in their Enterprise systems or that they have separately verified works with their software. They could even have some complete systems they recommend with all parts listed. This would allow the people who don’t want to purchased Enterprise systems from iX (for whatever reason) but they could source the hardware themselves and still get a support contract with iX. iX have various flavours of support bronze, silver and gold so the customer could select the most appropriate one. Or perhaps they could also add an adhoc level of support where customers could pay per hour of support. Historically iX had a FreeNAS certified line which was only a step or two away from the above suggestion.