Replacement and disposition

A position is not the unit in it

A closet switch, one member of a stack and a power-supply bay are positions. The hardware fitted there is a unit with its own serial and its own asset record. When hardware fails you change the unit, and the position carries on: its ports, links, name and management address stay where they are, and Cenovel keeps polling the same address.

Replace records exactly that. It takes the new unit (a spare from storage, or a serial you enter or scan), fits it in the position, and makes you decide what happens to the unit that came out. The old unit keeps its own record and history; nothing is overwritten.

Three fates for the old unit

You must choose one. “Leave it deployed” is refused: two units cannot hold one position.

Spare in a storeroom

The unit moves to the storeroom you choose with an in-stock status, ready to be the next spare. A place that is not a storeroom is refused.

RMA to the vendor

The unit goes on the RMA board with an in-repair status and a vendor case. You can say what is wrong with it and add the vendor’s case number.

Disposal

The unit is set to pending disposal. If it was bought with E-Rate funds, Cenovel needs the reason and your confirmation that its disposal meets the E-Rate rules, for example that it is past its useful life or is being traded in.

What stays, what moves, what closes

• Stays with the position: name, ports, links, closet, management address and polling. In a stack, the other members, the stack’s address and its polling carry on.
• Moves: the incoming unit takes the position and the old unit’s name. A spare leaves its storeroom; a typed serial gets a new record. If the model differs, you confirm the change; a unit of a different kind (an access point for a switch) is refused.
• Closes: open outages on the old unit close as replaced, with the event “Replaced by serial on date”. In a stack, only that member’s outages close; the others stay open.
• Is recorded: a replacement entry (old serial, new serial, position, fate), a “replaced” event on the switch timeline and an audit entry. The E-Rate export lists each chain on its Replaced units sheet.
• Waits for you: if Cenovel had verified the old switch’s identity, the new unit’s identity is confirmed as an explicit step on its page, and the old pinned identity is retired. Post-work checks run after that.

Try it: replace a failed switch

WM-SW-02 at Willow Middle has stopped answering Cenovel. Fit a spare, choose the old unit’s fate, and read what Cenovel reports. The refusals are the product’s own wording.

When Replace refuses, nothing changes

Replace runs as one transaction. A refusal or a failure part-way leaves every record as it was, and the message says why.

• The unit is checked out to someone: check it in first.
• The serial you typed is the old unit’s, or already belongs to another unit. One device keeps one record.
• The serial belongs to a deleted record: restore that record if it is the same unit.
• The closet or the unit changed while the dialog was open: reopen Replace.
• The new model is a different kind of equipment, or a model change was not confirmed.
• Someone without edit permission tries it.
• A double submit is recorded once.

When Cenovel notices the swap first

Sometimes the switch is changed before anyone opens Replace. When Find devices reads a known position and sees a different serial, Cenovel raises one Confirm replacement prompt for that position; seeing it again only updates when it was last seen. Confirm replacement opens Replace with the serial filled in. Not a replacement asks why (for example, the read was wrong), and that serial will not prompt again there.

When the vendor sends a replacement

For a unit already on the RMA board, Transfer asset tag gives the record the replacement’s serial. The record keeps its tag, name, position, ports and history. The unit that went back keeps a record of its own with an RMA Archived status, its funding copied and the vendor case linked. Its outages close as replaced, and a verified identity waits for the same Confirm identity step.

Removing equipment from a closet sheet

Removing a unit on a closet sheet asks the same question: where does it go? A removal without a fate is refused, and a unit that was paid for keeps its record rather than being deleted.