Review network dates in the new UI
Choose a client, open Manage > Hardware and inspect the network asset’s details. Review the recorded purchase/expiry dates and their source before applying an override. See Manually editing hardware assets for manual date edits.
For replacement planning, review the client’s hardware Replacement settings and its inherited or overridden values. The Due soon threshold is a number of days; maximum replacement age is measured in years. Do not enter a years value into a days field.
A vendor’s lifetime warranty terms are model-, region- and contract-specific. Check the applicable OEM terms rather than treating the ten-year example below as a universal warranty limit. A reporting date or internal replacement policy does not alter the vendor’s coverage agreement.
Some network vendors offer "lifetime warranties" on certain hardware assets. However, the realities of these warranties often fall short of business needs. This article explains why these warranties might not be sufficient and how you can manage and edit the expiry dates for your network hardware assets in Lifecycle Manager.
Challenges with Network Lifetime Warranties
While "lifetime warranties" may sound ideal, they often come with limitations that make them less practical for business environments:
- Firmware Updates Exclusion: These warranties frequently exclude firmware updates, which are crucial for maintaining security and performance.
- Unacceptable SLA Turnaround: Service Level Agreement (SLA) turnaround times can be excessively long, leading to significant downtime.
- Definition of "Lifetime": The term "lifetime" often refers to the equipment's useful life, not its actual operational life. The applicable vendor, model, region and contract terms determine how long coverage lasts; there is no universal ten-year cutoff.
Due to these limitations, Lifecycle Manager’s reporting engine intentionally ignores the expiry dates of "lifetime warranties." Instead, it focuses on genuine service contracts when applied to your hardware assets.
Managing Warranty Expiry Dates
To ensure accurate reporting as overdue or expired, you can adjust the settings for network hardware expiry dates in two ways:
- Set Hardware Replacement Settings
- In-app Edit (Manual Edit)
1. Set Hardware Replacement settings
By configuring your hardware replacement settings, you can set a longer due soon threshold for your network hardware. Here’s how:
- Navigate to Hardware Replacement Settings: Follow the instructions in the "How to set hardware replacement values" article.
- Adjust the Due Soon Threshold: Set the Due soon threshold to a appropriate number of days for network-type hardware assets, ensuring they are appropriately flagged for replacement or renewal.
2. In-app edit (manual edit)
For more granular control, you can manually set purchase or expiry dates for individual hardware assets:
- Access the Hardware Asset: Navigate to a specific hardware asset within Lifecycle Manager.
- Edit Purchase or Expiry Date: Manually adjust the purchase or expiry date to reflect the actual service contract or your internal management policies.
