Cisco Smart Net Support Levels
SMARTnet is available in different service level agreements (SLA) from 8x5xNBD through to 24x7x2. The 8 x 5 and 24 x 7 define the number of hours each day (8 being working hours) and how many days a week that Cisco will provide hardware replacement cover. Confusingly all SMARTnet contracts provides 24 x 7 access to the Cisco TAC, the NBD (Next Business Day) and 2 (hour) support level refer to the time after fault identification during which Cisco will ship replacement parts.
Historically SMARTnet was sold using a single category or level to cover a group of Cisco products, there were 18 categories with telephones and low end routers and switches being in category 1. This was called packaged SMARTnet.
Cisco changed this to provide a nearly one to one contract part number to individual device, which resulted in a large number of SMARTnet part numbers to provide for every level of cover.
This documents attempts to simplify this by listing each product by SMARTnet level, however our SMARTnet Calculator simplifies the choice and provides instant price comparisons