Support for Enterprise Application Runtimes

Learn how to get notifications, support, and information about support lifecycle policies for Enterprise Application Runtimes. IBM Support is staffed by both IBM and Red Hat® personnel, so you can get support for your entitled IBM and Red Hat products.

Signing up for notifications about Enterprise Application Runtimes

You can be informed of critical IBM software support updates by using the My Notifications subscription service. For more information, see Stay up to date with My Notifications on the IBM website.

To subscribe to products of your choice, see My Notifications.

Opening a support case with IBM

Before you contact IBM Support, see the IBM Support Guide and the Getting Started Guide for IBM Support.

To open a support ticket, you must have an active entitlement for Enterprise Application Runtimes. If you do not have an active entitlement, see install-ordering.html for a list of offerings.

Before you open a support case, if you are running in a cluster, collect MustGather data about your cluster.

To open a support case with IBM, follow these steps.

  1. Go to the IBM Support site Opens in a new tab.
  2. From the menu bar on the header, click Open a case.
  3. Log in with your IBMid and password.
  4. Enter a meaningful Case Title that summarizes your problem.
  5. Select IBM as the Product Manufacturer.
  6. Select Enterprise Application Runtimes as the Product for which you need assistance from the support team.
  7. Select the appropriate Severity of the problem. For more information about problem severity, see IBM Enterprise Support Severity Definitions.

    Note: The case severity is based on the business impact of the problem. If you set the case severity as 1, you must be available 24 hours a day to work with IBM Support on the issue.
  8. Select the Account that has the entitlement for Enterprise Application Runtimes.
  9. Provide a detailed Case Description of your problem. A detailed description can help support understand your problem more accurately and thus provide quicker solutions or answers. The following information is crucial:
    • Enterprise Application Runtimes product version
    • Installation platform (VMware, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), IBM Cloud®)
    • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform version
    • Steps to reproduce the issue
  10. Collect information about your cluster. For more information about how to gather the necessary information, see Collecting support information about the cluster Opens in a new tab.
  11. Upload the tar.gz file with the results of the diagnostic scan that you ran in the previous step in one of the following ways:
  12. Select the language preferences.
  13. Click Submit a case.
Note: Open a case for each problem that you need assistance with. Do not add new issues to an existing case for which you are already engaged with the support team. Clearly and completely define the issue to reduce confusion for the support team.

Understanding support lifecycle policies

Enterprise Application Runtimes has a modified IBM Continuous Delivery (CD) Lifecycle Policy.

The numbering scheme for the version of Enterprise Application Runtimes is based on the semantic version specification that is defined at the Semantic Versioning website.

The version numbers take the form major.minor.patch, where:
MAJOR
Number changes occur when significant changes are introduced between releases, including incompatible changes.
MINOR
Number changes indicate a new release.
PATCH
Number changes for fix updates.
The IBM support options for Enterprise Application Runtimes are as follows:
  • IBM Standard support. For more information, see IBM Software Subscription & Support Overview.
  • IBM Advanced support provides enhanced priority care that extends IBM Standard support. You must maintain IBM Standard support for your IBM Advanced support eligibility. For more information, see IBM Advanced Support.
  • IBM Extended support provides support beyond the standard product lifecycle as an extension of IBM Standard support. You must maintain IBM Standard support for your IBM Extended support eligibility. Red Hat Extended Update Support (EUS) or Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS) Term 1 can be included with IBM Standard support or IBM Sustained support. For more information, see IBM Extended Support.
  • IBM Sustained support provides end of life support that supplants IBM Standard support. For more information, see IBM Sustained Support
Support options for the included Red Hat products are as follows:
  • Red Hat Standard support. Red Hat Standard support for Red Hat products provided with Enterprise Application Runtimes included in IBM Standard support.
  • Red Hat Premium support. Red Hat Premium support provides baseline support with 24/7 support engagement for high-severity issues. IBM Standard and IBM Sustained support for Enterprise Application Runtimes include Red Hat Premium support for the included Red Hat products.
  • Red Hat Extended Update Support (EUS). IBM Standard and IBM Sustained support for Enterprise Application Runtimes do not include Red Hat Extended Update Support (EUS) for the included Red Hat products.
  • Red Hat Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS). IBM Standard and IBM Sustained support for Enterprise Application Runtimes do not include Red Hat Extended Update Support (EUS) for the included Red Hat products.
IBM Extended Support does not include either Red Hat Extended Update Support (EUS) or Red Hat Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS). Red Hat EUS or ELS support that is not included can be purchased directly from Red Hat. Access your additional support purchased from Red Hat by contacting IBM Support. To learn more about support lifecycle of Red Hat products, see Red Hat Life Cycle and Update Policies. To learn more about entitled support and included Red Hat products, see Licensing for IBM Enterprise Application Runtimes .

Enterprise Application Runtimes uses a modified continuous delivery lifecycle policy. Enterprise Application Runtimes is composed of several bundled products (programs) and components. The bundled products and components can be used separately from one another, except where otherwise stated by the license. Individual versions or releases of the bundled products continue to follow their own individual upstream support lifecycles.

For more information, see the Enterprise Application Runtimes support lifecycle.

For more information about IBM software lifecycle policies, see IBM Software Lifecycle Policies.

Viewing support lifecycle policies for bundled products and components

To view the support lifecycle policies for the bundled products and components in Enterprise Application Runtimes, click the corresponding links in the following table.

Table 1. Viewing support lifecycle policies for bundled products and components

For each bundled product or component, a link to the corresponding support lifecycle page is provided

Product or component Support lifecycle policy
IBM Transformation Advisor IBM Transformation Advisor software support lifecycle
Modernized Runtime Extension for Java™ Product lifecycles for WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment
IBM Mono2Micro IBM Mono2Micro software support lifecycle
WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment Product lifecycles for WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment
WebSphere Application Server Liberty Core Product lifecycles for WebSphere Application Server Liberty Core
WebSphere Application Server Product lifecycles for WebSphere Application Server