Using SupportAssist Enterprise for Switch phone home

Hi There,

I'm new to SupportAssist Enterprise.

I have some S5000 series switches that i am going to connect to my new SupportAssist Enterprise vSphere appliance, so that the switches will 'phone home' to Dell (via the appliance) and create a case if there is a hardware issue. I am assuming that all of this is possible? For now, we are just going to have the switches phoning home. 

I have the appliance set up and am logged in, but what is all of this TechDirect integration about - is this a requirement? Surely you don't need TechDirect for any of this, or am i missing something? I have used SupportAssist previously on windows systems for Dell storage to phone home, and TechDirect was not required, so I'm confused here.

Thanks in advance.