Total Lifecycle Support

When Your Project is on the Line, Trust Your Support Needs to Riverace

Sure, you can get some good help for free on the ACE users mailing list. Hey, we even provide some of it! Many of the people willing to help you in those free forums are very smart; however, they don't share your sense of urgency and they're not accountable to you. When you need correct answers quickly and bugs fixed correctly on your platforms, trust Riverace's support services. Why?

1. You don't have to learn all about ACE's internals. You can stay focused on your applications and system development, saving time and money.
2. Riverace provides assured response times according to a defined support agreement.  When you need an issue resolved, it will get done.
3. Expanded platform coverage.  Riverace's software lab has Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Sun and IBM equipment configured and running so we can address your platform-specific issues quickly and decisively.
4. Riverace will make sure that any source code fixes you require are properly integrated into ACE according to your selected service level. Riverace will also ensure that the fixes are carried forward in the main development version so you will not need to re-apply changes when you upgrade to a later release.
5. Buying support for a platform helps to ensure that it will continue to be supported and maintained. You won't be left stranded when it's time to upgrade.
6. Riverace is here to help you succeed, and that's all we're here for. When you submit an issue to us for resolution, we will work with you until the problem is resolved.

When you purchase ACE support services from Riverace Corporation, you get:

• Ability to call for support during our regular support hours (enterprise support level)
• Periodic "tricks and tips" newsletter about ACE programming
• Ability to email support issues or questions to us 24 hours a day
• Ability to submit support issues or questions on our support website 24 hours a day
• Prompt, courteous, efficient response to your problem
• If your issue involves the need to fix a bug, you'll get fixed source code (as defined by your service level)

Premier Support Plans and Prices

We offer two different service levels according to your needs:

• Developer Level when you are primarily working with the most recent ACE development version; you may be in active development or tracking new feature additions that your project requires
• Enterprise Level when you are preparing or maintaining a production environment and require stability and protection. ACE releases are supported for up to 5 years ensuring continued stability and safety for your environment.

Both levels feature support for the same comprehensive list of popular computing platforms (a combination of hardware, OS, and compilers). The differences between the service levels are in which type of ACE release you need support for and how quickly you need any bug fixes to be made available. This chart outlines the benefits and differences between the Developer, and Enterprise levels. The "Supported Versions" in Enterprise Level are the current and previous released versions of ACE, as well as any released version of ACE with a release date within five years from your support request. Released versions are ACE releases with 2 digits (e.g., 5.7) as well as Riverace-released fix kits, which have 2 digits and a letter (e.g. 5.6b). The current ACE Released versions supported under Enterprise Level support are:

• 5.5 (released March 5, 2006, including all Fix Kits)
• 5.6 (released September 3, 2007, including all Fix Kits)
• 5.7 (released June 23, 2009)

The most recent Beta version (usually those with 3 digits, 5.7.x) are supported under the Developer Level only.

ACE Support Service Benefits

	Developer	Enterprise
Unlimited support issues during your annual term
Nondisclosure provision to safely share your code
Questions answered quickly by an ACE specialist
Submit issues by email
Submit issues at ACE support website
Submit issues by telephone (toll-free in US)
Covers supported ACE versions
Covers current ACE development beta
Fixes available in next ACE beta
Fixes available in next ACE release
Fixes available in reported ACE version
Free access to all Fix Kits released by Riverace
Free attendance at all online ACE training events
Support your entire group for a whole year	$4,800 per platform	$7,200 per platform
... or 12 monthly credit card payments	$480 per platform	$720 per platform

We use the current list of support customers' platforms to decide when to drop specific OS/Hardware/Compiler combinations from our list of supported platforms. If a given platform support is in use by at least 1 Enterprise or Developer Level support customer we'll continue to support that platform. If usage falls below those levels, we may remove the platform from our supported platforms list.

ACE support is currently available on the following platforms. We add support for new platforms as needed - contact Steve Huston for more details.

Supported ACE Platforms

Operating System Hardware Compilers First ACE Version Supported Last ACE Version Supported Solaris® 9 SPARC Sun Forte C++ 7 g++ 3.4.6   5.5 Solaris® 10 SPARC Sun Studio 10 Sun Studio 12     HP-UX 11.23 (11iv2) PA-RISC aC++ A.03.85       Integrity aC++ A.06.05 and up     HP-UX 11.31 (11iv3) Integrity aC++ A.06.05 and up 5.6a   AIX 5.3 POWER XL C++ V7     AIX 6.1 POWER XL C++ V9 5.6b   Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 x86 g++ 3.2.3     Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 x86/64 g++ 3.4.4     Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 x86/64 g++ 4.1.2 Intel C++ 11.0 5.6b   Windows XP, 7 x86/64 Visual Studio .NET 2003 (VC7.1) (ending after ACE 5.7) Visual Studio 2005 (VC8) Visual Studio 2008 (VC9) (beginning with ACE 5.7, only compiler supported for Win 7) 5.8 (Win 7)

The ACE Annual Support service is governed by Riverace's ACE Support Terms and Conditions. Please contact Steve Huston by email at shuston@riverace.com, or by telephone at +1-508-541-9180 to discuss your group's support needs, to get a price quote, or to receive a copy of the terms and conditions for this service.

Quick Links

"By working with Riverace, we gain a consistent and quick process for finding/fixing bugs and also for usage questions. Without Riverace, we would be left to fend for ourselves, or rely on the user groups for answers. Even though we have the source, fixing a problem often requires knowing the intent behind the code, and that is not something you can learn by looking at the code.

"The biggest benefit for us is knowing that someone knowledgeable is there when needed, and can not only troubleshoot your issues but can give you direction as well. Time to market and customer satisfaction are improved due to having Riverace on our side."

Howard Finer, Sonus Networks