Explanation of ScholarPAC Service Benefits
Scholarpac is a way for Edu customers to buy and support software at
special prices and licensing terms. Since 1989, when ScholarPAC was
introduced, we have offered special support contracts. These contracts
require that the Solaris operating system be covered on contract before
any other products/benefits are available. This is to ensure that Sun
is able to support the combined software environment of the operating
system and other Sun software and their symbiotic relationship.
Therefore, the minimum ScholarPAC contract consists of the 1-100 Solaris
license tier. This entitles customers to buy support for other Sun
software, at the special prices in ScholarPAC, and obtain significant
discounts off the Spectrum [hardware support] offerings.
With the new free site licenses for Solaris, customers can make much wider
use of Solaris on their sites without necessarily incurring extra cost.
However, Sun encourages customers to consider the following points when
deciding whether to include support for a given copy of Solaris that is
in use:
If Solaris is covered by a support contract |
If Solaris is *not* covered by support contract |
Higher level discounts for Spectrum contracts
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Much smaller discounts available, as price has to cover Solaris support
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Phone support is included
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Phone support is per incident
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Revision updates, Maintenance Updates, bug fixes included
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Not available (revision updates may be offered through the web, but no guarantees that every version will be)
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Support for compilers, utilities and communications products available
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Per incident charge, if offered
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Access to SunSolve bug database
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No SunSolve access
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FAQ List
Q: How does a customer decide how many Solaris licenses to put on their
ScholarPAC contract?
A: Add up all mission critical (MIS) licenses, all key servers such as
mailservers/fileservers/authentication servers etc, add all learning
critical systems such as teaching labs/open access labs etc. This
represents the minimum number you should maintain. To this should be
added any other servers/desktops that you wish to run any other Sun
software for which support is required. You may include both SPARC
and Intel architectures. The minimum number of licenses is the
first tier consisting of up to 100 licenses. The number of licenses
supported must be at least equal to the number of systems on Sun
Spectrum contracts.
Q: If I have a support contract for Solaris, can I use the updates and
bug fixes for Solaris licenses that are not on contract?
A: Updates and bug fixes apply only to those systems under contract.
Sun requests that you will make a reasonable and honest determination
of the licenses that will therefore require a support contract.
Q: Can I expect that the Solaris release of the media from the website
will be the very latest version?
A: No, we will keep pace with each significant release, but very minor
updates to support specific hardware or new features may not be offered.
In addition, the Solaris packaging for the free release does not include
the Solaris supplementary disks and other SPARC platform specific
software that is often shipped as part of the support contract.
Q: Does this mean that if I do not include the Solaris license on my
professor's desktop that she cannot run the site licensed software?
A: No, but it does mean that she will be on her own for support and
bug fixes for all products.
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