Lifecycle

Equipment that outlives the procurement cycle

A TEMPEST workplace or a substation link is installed for a decade or two, not for a refresh cycle. That changes what a supplier has to commit to – and it is a fair question to ask before you buy, not after.

Ask about a specific product

Through the life of an installation

Five phases, and who carries what

Specification
We look at the environment before the product: how close an adversary can get, what the existing infrastructure speaks, what the tender requires. Getting the certification level and the interfaces right here is what prevents an expensive discovery after delivery.
Delivery and installation
Equipment ships with the documentation needed to install it correctly. Certified equipment only delivers its level if the installation respects it – filtered power, separated cabling, fibre where a conductor would otherwise cross the zone boundary.
Operation
Support goes to an engineer, not a ticket queue. Development, test and production sit in the same building, so a question about an interface reaches someone who has had that unit on the bench.
Change and re-certification
A certified product is certified in one configuration. When something has to change, we say what it does to the approval before the change is made – not after.
End of life
Long-lived installations need a plan rather than a surprise. We give notice, state what remains available, and describe the upgrade path where one exists.

What we commit to

Stated per product, not promised in general

Blanket commitments are easy to publish and hard to keep. Support periods and spare parts availability are agreed per product family, because a card module and a complete video conference system do not have the same realistic horizon.

What is general is the approach: we tell you the actual figure for the product you are buying, in writing, as part of the quote. Ask about a specific product and you get a specific answer.

What to ask

Four questions worth putting in the tender

Support period. How long will faults be diagnosed and repaired, from delivery?
Spare parts. For how long, and what happens when a component goes out of production?
Configuration control. Who decides when the tested configuration changes, and how is the approval re-established?
End-of-life notice. How much warning, and is a last-time-buy offered?

These belong in the requirement specification, not in a conversation after award. Procurement support