Connectivity

To make the service environment available, your system must have connectivity to IBM®.

Service Agent uses the Universal Connection to communicate with IBM. What connection method you choose depends on several factors:

• Your hardware, software, and network configuration. This includes whether you have a direct connection to the Internet, whether you use a modem, and whether you connect through a console, such as a Hardware Management Console.
• The level of security your company wants to maintain.
• Manually configuring Universal Connection to use VPN for Electronic Service Agent™ in IBM i 7.1 is not supported for sending inventory to IBM. IBM recommends using HTTP or HTTPS for sending inventory to IBM.

You can use the Universal Connection wizard to set up a connection to IBM. You can also configure a connection to IBM by using the Systems Network Architecture (SNA) or by using the Create Service Configuration (CRTSRVCFG) command.