Third-Party Maintenance (TPM): A complete guide for business IT

Third-Party Maintenance is establishing itself as a robust support solution that extends IT hardware lifecycles, supports sustainability initiatives and saves costs. Indeed, Gartner estimates organizations can save up to 70% with Third-Party Maintenance. But what is Third-Party Maintenance, exactly? And when is it time to call a TPM provider?

Discover what third-party maintenance (TPM) means for IT teams, what services providers offer, and its core benefits and costs to help you make an informed decision for your hardware maintenance strategy.

 

What is Third-Party Maintenance (TPM)?

Third-Party Maintenance refers to support and maintenance services for a product performed by a company independent of the asset’s brand.

Understanding third-party maintenance starts with understanding how IT equipment support can change as equipment moves through its lifecycle. While the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) typically provides support when equipment is new, its maintenance services may become more limited or eventually end as equipment ages and approaches or passes its End of Service Life (EOSL) date.

Let’s take a closer look at the IT equipment lifecycle and how support can change at each stage.

• Warranty and initial support: Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are normally the primary providers of technical support and maintenance.

• Post-warranty support: Once the original warranty ends, manufacturers often offer support contract extensions or renewals, although at elevated prices.

• End of Life: When an OEM announces that a product has reached its EOL date, standard manufacturer support, updates and parts availability begin to phase out. Businesses should begin planning for alternative maintenance solutions.

• End of Service Life/Support: After EOSL, manufacturer support and updates cease entirely. It is here that Third-Party IT Maintenance becomes a strong alternative solution for businesses seeking IT hardware support services. TPM helps businesses to continue operating and maintaining existing equipment beyond the OEM’s standard support period, allowing them to extend the useful life of functional IT infrastructure.

Check out our TPM vs OEM support guide to compare the two strategies head to head on a range of key factors, from coverage to costs.

 

Which services are typically included in third-party maintenance?

The following are the main services that Third-Party Maintenance providers offer:

1. Hardware Maintenance

Comprehensive maintenance and support services for IT hardware components. Such support covers:

• proactive monitoring
• Break/fix support and troubleshooting
• resolution of hardware issues

2. 24/7 Technical Support

Round-the-clock technical support services to address IT issues and emergencies at any time, day or night. Services include:

• Access to expert engineers and IT support staff
• Timely on-site and remote assistance
• Guidance to resolve critical issues and minimize downtime

3. Remote Monitoring and Management

Remote monitoring and management (RMM) services proactively monitor the health, performance and availability of IT infrastructure components. RMM services include:

• Real-time monitoring of hardware metrics
• Proactive alerting
• Remote troubleshooting to identify and resolve issues before impact

4. On-Site Support and Field Services

On-site support and field services for hardware installations, repairs, and maintenance activities that cannot be performed remotely. TPM providers send trained engineers to customer sites, wherever they are based, to execute tasks such as:

• Identifying and address hardware issues
• Performing upgrades
• Unpacking and installing new equipment

Check out our Smart Hands service page to find out more about our onsite services and technical assistance.

5. Inventory Management and Spare Parts Logistics

Management of spare parts inventory and logistics ensures rapid availability of replacement components when needed. This includes:

• Inventory forecasting
• Stock replenishment
• Efficient distribution of spare parts
• Minimising downtime
• Maintaining IT service levels

The Evernex SPaaS™ (Spare as a Service) program ensures rapid access to hardware parts, even to parts no longer manufactured. Browse available parts and equipment in our e-shop.

6. Customized Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Tailored service level agreements (SLAs) are customized to meet the specific requirements and budget availability of customers. This includes:

• Defining response times
• Resolution targets
• Service availability guarantees

These agreements offer flexible contract terms that change as your IT environment evolves and help you avoid overspending on services your business do not require.

7. End-of-Life (EOL) and End-of-Service (EOS) Support

Continued support and maintenance services to maintain the resilience, performance and security of hardware that have reached their:

• end-of-life (EOL)
• end-of-service-life (EOSL)

After the EOSL date, the manufacturer ends support completely. Post-EOSL maintenance focuses on:

• Extending the life of legacy systems
• Providing workarounds in place of OEM security updates
• Sourcing compatible spare parts

8. Consulting and Advisory Services

Expert consulting services to help customers maximize the value and efficiency of their IT systems. Advice can include strategies to:

• optimize their IT infrastructure
• streamline operations
• plan for future growth
• save money

Such services include:

• Assessments
• Recommendations
• Strategic guidance

Contact Evernex for advice on hardware refresh cycles, technology upgrades and IT best practices.

9. Compliance and Regulatory Support

Assistance with compliance and regulatory requirements related to IT infrastructure, data security, and industry standards. This includes:

• Adherence to regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA and PCI DSS
• Industry certifications through maintenance and security practices

10. Asset Management and Lifecycle Services

Management of IT assets throughout their lifecycle. This means from procurement and deployment to retirement and disposal services (also known as IT Asset Disposition). These services include:

• Asset collection
• Disassembling
• Data destruction

See our infographic below for a quick recap of what third-party maintenance offers:

10 Services TPM providers offer – cheat sheet

Service 1	Hardware maintenance
Service 2	24/7 technical support
Service 3	Remote monitoring and management
Service 4	On-site support and field services
Service 5	Inventory management and spare parts logistics
Service 6	Customized SLAs
Service 7	End-of-Life and End-of-Service-Life support
Service 8	Consulting and advisory services
Service 9	Compliance and regulatory support
Service 10	Asset management and lifecycle services

What are the top third-party maintenance benefits?

Here are seven of the main advantages of TPM over OEMs for businesses looking to support their IT infrastructure:

Reason 1: Cost reduction

Third-party hardware maintenance typically offers cost savings of up to 70% compared to traditional OEM support.

As they don’t make huge investments into hardware R&D like OEMs do, TPM providers are able to provide support at much lower costs.

This makes it an attractive option for organizations looking to reduce their IT expenses.

OEM sales teams are also encouraged to sell new equipment rather than extend the life of existing hardware. Consequently, manufacturers often increase the cost of support contract renewals to drive hardware refreshes over maintenace.

In contrast, Third-Party Maintenance and support companies have no vested interest in pushing businesses to replace their IT. Instead, they provide reasonably-priced support to help businesses extend the lifecycles of their infrastructure.

Reason 2: Single Point of Contact

Generally, a third-party service provider is a single point of contact for all your support, maintenance and spare requests, including for multi-vendor environment. TPM engineers are capable of servicing and providing hardware maintenance for all major providers including IBM,  HP,  Dell,  EMC,  Cisco,  and Juniper. This eliminates the lack of visibility and accountability that can occur when dealing with multiple OEM service providers, which only support their own branded assets.

Consolidating contracts into a SPOC helps to reduce administrative burden, as well as the costs implied by juggling several maintenance agreements.

Reason 3: Flexible SLAs

TPM providers offer transparent, customizable service-level agreements. This means simplified contract terms, services adapted to your infrastructure needs and your budget, and no hidden costs or complex pricing structures vendor lock-in.

Businesses can pick and choose their SLA features, with common options in TPM SLAs including the following:

• 4 hr up to next-business-day response times
• 5- or 7-days per week coverage
• Unlimited service calls
• 24/7/365 technical support helpdesk
• Remote monitoring

Reason 4: Experienced technicians and quality support

The technical assistance and personalized service of TPM providers are of extremely high quality, with trained engineers and onsite, multi-lingual support.

Third-party service providers maintain global networks of locally-available technicians experienced in dealing with multi-vendor support, including legacy systems. They develop in-depth expertise through extensive, ongoing training and real-world experience servicing both traditional and AI-ready data centers and infrastructures.

Reason 5: Capacity to extend hardware lifetime

TPM services help extend the useful life of IT hardware through:

• Proactive maintenance
• Timely repairs
• Access to replacement parts

This allows organizations to maximize the return on their hardware investment, avoid refresh-related downtime and ensure system stability.

Reason 6: Spare parts and legacy equipment availability

As well as supporting legacy servers and other hardware through repairs and maintenance, TPM providers also facilitate access to a wide range of replacement spare parts for discontinued assets.

For example, Evernex has over 3.4 million certified refurbished parts in stock across over 330 locations around the world, offering delivery in under 72 hours.

Certified refurbished parts undergo rigorous testing procedures to ensure that they will continue to perform according to their original specs. This helps safeguard the availability and reliability of mission-critical and older equipment, minimizing unexpected downtime and avoiding unnecessary refreshes and disruptions.

Reason 7: Greater IT sustainability

TPM providers contribute to businesses’ environmental objectives by:

• Extending hardware lifecycles

Keeping functional servers, storage and networking equipment in service for longer, while repairing or replacing individual components rather than entire systems. This can delay unnecessary refreshes and reduce electronic waste.

• Reducing demand for new hardware

Extending the useful life of existing equipment and keeping assets in the market can reduce the need for new manufacturing and the associated carbon emissions and use of raw materials. Find out how much carbon your business can save through hardware lifecycle extension with Evernex’s data-backed carbon footprint calculator.

• Supporting circular IT strategies

Where appropriate, TPM providers can reuse or refurbish spare parts, helping organizations make better use of existing hardware resources and keep them in the circular economy.

By extending hardware lifecycles, TPM can help organizations align cost-efficiency objectives with sustainability goals, reducing their carbon emissions, minimizing their overall environmental footprints and supporting compliance with increasingly stringent environmental regulations.

Reason 8: Scalable, repeatable procedures

Evernex’s TPM services are globally available and consistent, whether in Japan or the UK. Consistent processes and consolidated agreements mean that businesses can trust their distributed or international infrastructures without a contract for each country where they have equipment.

TPM providers should be certified according to international standards, such as ISO 9001 and ISO 4001, and comply with local and regional directives, such as WEEE (waste from electrical and electronic equipment) for IT disposal.

Which brands does Third-Party Maintenance support?

Third-party maintenance offers comprehensive maintenance and support services for many hardware brands and models. While support capabilities vary by provider, many organizations use TPM to extend the life of servers, storage, networking equipment, and tape libraries long after OEM support has ended.

Evernex supports a wide range of IT hardware brands, including the following:

Brand	Examples of Evernex-supported product lines	Explore Further
Dell	PowerEdge servers, PowerVault, Unity, Isilon (now PowerScale), EqualLogic, Compellent and networking	Dell / EMC Third-Party Maintenance
HPE	ProLiant, BladeSystem, Synergy, Apollo, MSA, StoreOnce	HPE Third-Party Maintenance
IBM	Power Systems, PureFlex systems, FlashSystem, Storage, xSeries	IBM Third-Party Maintenance
Cisco	UCS servers, Catalyst, Nexus, MDS, ISR and ASR networking	Cisco Third-Party Maintenance
NetApp	AFF, FAS and E-Series storage systems	NetApp Third-Party Maintenance
Lenovo	ThinkSystem servers and storage, ThinkAgile servers	Lenovo Third-Party Maintenance
Oracle	SPARC servers, Oracle Server X-Series and storage	Sun / Oracle Third-Party Maintenance
Fujitsu	Primergy, Eternus, Primepower	Fujitsu Third-Party Maintenance

 

What type of companies use third-party maintenance services?

Companies across a wide range of industries use third-party maintenance (TPM) to maintain, support, and extend the useful life of their IT infrastructure. These include telecommunications providers, healthcare organisations, manufacturers, and companies operating large-scale edge infrastructure.

Any organization that relies on data center hardware can consider TPM as an alternative to OEM maintenance, regardless of its industry or size. The suitability of TPM depends on the organization’s infrastructure, support requirements, and business objectives.

TPM can be particularly valuable for organizations seeking to reduce IT maintenance costs, extend the life of legacy hardware, or simplify support across multi-vendor environments. It can also help businesses maintain reliable infrastructure beyond OEM support timelines, depending on their equipment and service requirements.

Looking to reduce IT maintenance costs without compromising on hardware support? Discover how third-party maintenance can support your organisation’s IT infrastructure.

How to get started with Third-Party Maintenance

While the specifics of the process will depend on your provider, Third-Party Maintenance generally follows these key steps:

Step	Description
1. Audit and inventory	The business provides details of its data center environment and hardware estate. The service provider assesses the equipment, condition, locations, configurations, and existing support coverage.
2. SLA negotiation	The client and the vendor agree on response and resolution times, service coverage, escalation procedures, parts availability, and exclusions.
3. Cost estimation	Based on the SLA terms, the TPM provider decides on a cost and price model.
4. Onboarding	The business and vendor collaborate to establish the required information, including asset data, documentation, contacts, processes, access requirements, and escalation paths.
5. On-demand support	The business reports incidents to the service provider through a single point of contact. The provider then coordinates troubleshooting, parts, engineers, and resolution.
6. Service management and reporting	The vendor tracks incidents, SLAs, KPIs, escalations, and service performance, providing regular reporting and service reviews.
7. Optimization	The provider identifies opportunities to reduce risk and cost, while maximizing performance.
8. SLA adaptation	The business and TPM vendor periodically review operational requirements and adapt coverage, response times, assets, or pricing accordingly.

 

What is a TPM provider?

A TPM provider is an independent service vendor specialized in delivering IT hardware maintenance and support services.

These providers offer their services for a wide range of IT hardware, such as:

• Servers
• Storage systems
• Networking equipment
• Peripherals

TPM vendors normally provide customized Service-Level Agreements to suit their client’s specific infrastructure requirements, while offering a range of onsite technical support services, from troubleshooting to part replacements.

Considerations when choosing a TPM provider

Now you know what third-party maintenance is and what it includes, the next step is knowing which provider is best for your company. Choosing the right TPM vendor is a crucial step to ensure an organization gets the most out of its contract.

Key capabilities to look for when selecting a TPM provider include:

• Required experience, expertise and services for your IT infrastructure
• Adherence to agreed conditions, including response times
• Global presence and onsite engineers, even for remote locations
• Certifications including ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 27001
• Compliance with directives such as WEEE and R2v3
• Offers flexible support options
• Multi-vendor expertise
• Large spare parts stock for repairs and maintenance

When comparing service providers, make sure to check for strong industry recognition demonstrating high-quality, consistent service.

How much does TPM cost?

The cost of Third-Party Maintenance services varies. It depends on factors such as:

• the scope of coverage
• the level of service required
• the size of the IT infrastructure

TPM offers financial savings compared to OEM maintenance contracts. This makes it a cost-effective solution for organizations of all sizes.

Check out our TPM cost guide for more information.

 

Contact Evernex today to learn more about our Third-Party Maintenance solutions and how they can benefit your business.

FAQ about Third-party IT maintenance