IBM Software Support provides assistance with
product defects, answering FAQs, and performing rediscovery.
About this task
For products that are available on premise, see the IBM Support Portal
(www.ibm.com/support) to find
fixes, product documentation, support contacts, and more.
Also, stay current with fixes, flashes, and other updates by getting daily or weekly
announcements through email, custom web pages, and RSS feeds. Sign up on the My
Notifications
page
(www.ibm.com/software/support/einfo.html).
After trying to find your answer or solution by using other self-help options such as technotes,
you can contact IBM Software Support. Before
you contact IBM Software Support, your company must have an
active IBM software subscription and support contract, and you
must be authorized to submit problems to IBM. The type of
software subscription and support contract that you need depends on the type of product you have.
For information about the types of available support, see the IBM Support
Guide
.
Complete the following steps to contact IBM Software Support with a problem:
-
Define the problem, gather background information, and determine the severity of the problem.
To determine the severity level, you need to understand and assess the business impact of the
problem you are reporting. Use the following criteria:
| Severity |
Business impact |
| 1 |
Critical business impact: You are unable to use the program, resulting in a
critical impact on operations. This condition requires an immediate solution. |
| 2 |
Significant business impact: The program is usable but is severely
limited. |
| 3 |
Some business impact: The program is usable with less significant features
(not critical to operations) unavailable. |
| 4 |
Minimal business impact: The problem causes little impact on operations, or a
reasonable circumvention to the problem has been implemented. |
For more information, including examples of each severity level, see the
Getting IBM support
topic in the
IBM Software Support Handbook.
-
Gather diagnostic information.
In the IBM Support site, search for the keyword
mustgather, along with your product and version name, to see whether there
are specific files or other diagnostic information to gather, for example:
- What software versions were you running when the problem occurred?
- Do you have logs, traces, and messages that are related to the problem symptoms? IBM Software Support is likely to ask for this information.
- Can the problem be re-created? If so, what steps led to the failure?
- Have any changes been made to the system (for example, hardware, operating system, networking
software, and so on)?
- Are you currently using a workaround for this problem? If so, please be prepared to explain it
when you report the problem.
-
Submit the problem to IBM Support.
- IBM Support Assistant (ISA)
- Go to the Software support site to use the IBM Support Assistant
(www.ibm.com/software/support/isa/).
- Online
- Go to the IBM Support Portal
(www.ibm.com/software/support/).
You can open, update, and view all your Service Requests from the Service Request portlet on the
Service Request page.
- Phone
- For the phone number to call in your country, see the Directory of worldwide contacts
web page
(www.ibm.com/planetwide/).
If the problem that you submit is for a software defect or for missing or inaccurate
documentation, IBM Support creates an
Authorized Program Analysis Report (APAR). The APAR describes the problem in detail. Whenever
possible, IBM Support provides a workaround
that you can implement until the APAR is resolved and a fix is delivered. IBM publishes resolved APARs on the IBM Support website daily so that other users who experience the
same problem can benefit from the same resolution.