Why do customers renew or purchase a
SupportLink Contract?
"There's an unmistakable personal touch to the whole SupportLink assistance."
-- Mark Schultz, Texas A&M University System
The A&M University System in Texas is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation, with a statewide network of nine universities, seven state agencies, and a comprehensive health science center. In 2002, the University System office in College Station first web-enabled its legacy mainframe system using DataDirect's Shadow technology to better provide shared HR, payroll, and financial services to all these organizations.
"Our system now supports 102,000 students," says Mark Schulz, Manager of Enterprise Software Initiatives. "We also support over 25,000 budgeted employees as well as anywhere from 5 to 7,000 student and part-time employees."
With that many individuals and vital organizations dependent on his system, and with Shadow playing the key role in providing access to indispensable mainframe resources, Mark can't risk taking chances with tech support. DataDirect's SupportLink Live gives him the assurance that — should anything go wrong — he'll receive top-notch and timely support. "It's good not being transferred to the other side of the world," he says. "There's an unmistakable personal touch to the whole SupportLink assistance."
While he reports that Shadow's rock-solid reliability has rarely occasioned a call for support in the past five years, Mark does recollect one time when the system went down. "We'd installed new software that caused some sort of conflict with Shadow," he recalls. "Our problem received the highest priority and was resolved that same day. While we rarely have issues, it's nice to know that when we do they will be dealt with on a timely basis and that we'll get the answers we need."
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