How technical questions are handled by IBM Support
Technical question support allows you to obtain assistance from IBM for product-specific, task-oriented questions regarding the installation and operation of currently supported IBM software and hardware. IBM Z products requires a special IBM Z offering that includes support for Q&A. To provide comprehensive answers to your technical questions, Support may refer you to product documentation or publications (including Redbooks), and may additionally assist you in the following areas:
Short-duration problems or questions involving:
- Usage (how-to), installation, or configuration problems or questions regarding documented functions, often tailored from product documentation to the context of the customer's specific environment or configuration.
- Product compatibility and interoperability
- The interpretation of publications
- The availability of existing configuration or code samples
- General questions on maintenance philosophy
- Instruction or guidance on how to collect specific diagnostic data unrelated to a suspected IBM defect.
- Searches for IBM content that contain answers to problems or questions.
IBM Enterprise Support Offerings are not structured to address everything. The following are examples of areas that are beyond the scope of a support case, but within the scope of an additional paid engagement (for example with Technology Lifecycle Services or Expert Labs):
- Assisting with recovering a system from a failure not caused by a defect in IBM hardware or software.
- Recovering a database, or data recovery.
- Answering extensive configuration questions, assisting through a full configuration change, or reviewing a migration or upgrade plan.
- Performing an overall system health-check.
- Reviewing a list of hardware or software maintenance for personalized recommendations.
- Writing, troubleshooting, or customizing non-IBM code.
- Consulting
- Interpreting or triaging customer or third party generated defect scanning reports.
- In-depth assistance and advice in designing a solution
- Analyzing performance.
- Overall performance or tuning request.
- Complete review of a workload policy
- Capacity analysis tuning or recommendations
Most of these types of situations require some form of Developer Support or IBM Services offering. For
futher information about these services, please refer to IBM Support Offerings or contact your IBM Representatives who can help direct you to resources who can discuss your needs.