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IBM Support Assistant v4.0
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What is IBM Support Assistant (ISA)?

The IBM Support Assistant is part of a IBM Software Group cross-brand (Information Management®, Lotus®, Rational®, Tivoli®, WebSphere®) initiative, to improve customer self-help experience. It is a free local software serviceability workbench that helps you resolve questions and problems with IBM software products. It provides quick access to support-related information along with serviceability tools for problem determination. 

New release - Announcing the IBM Support Assistant V4.0.2!!

How can ISA help?

Get Started! Cross brand solution in one place.
You can find a copy of ISA on ibm.com. ISA uses the Eclipse technology to allow all IBM Software brands to add in necessary contents for their specific products. Once you've installed ISA, it will then guide you through configuration step for your network settings,  update preferences,  and help you add the IBM product that you are working with via the Product add-on.

Looking for information? Get it all in one place.
How often do you find yourself not being able to find that essential piece of information about an IBM product?

  • Search across all IBM documentation - With IBM Support Assistant, you will be able to get to the information you need quickly. ISA provides a quick access through its concurrent Search tool that spans across the bulk of IBM documentation and returns the results categorized by source for easy review.
  • Key product Information - ISA provides a product information feature that has key product information links that are essential to self-help. Simply, select a product add-on that you had configured, and this information will display.
  • Media Viewer (new since V4.0.1) - Discover free education and training materials available on the IBM Education Assistant and other sources. The IBM Support Assistant can act as a central education and skills enhancement resource to help you learn more about your IBM products.

Unable to solve your problem? Want it answered faster?
Looking for ways to solve your problem faster? Self-help or otherwise, ISA can help with the time to problem resolution and managing your PMRs!

  • Free Diagnostic Tools! Included in ISA is a new Tool workbench that provides you with the problem determination tools that IBM Support uses to resolve issues. Ongoing, different product teams will make more and more tools available for ISA's tools framework in order to enable you to perform problem determination on your desktop. Click Here for a list of available tools.  Install the tools quickly via Update --> Find New --> Tools Add-on.
  • Collect data that support needs! The Collect Data feature includes data collectors that provides the unique ability to collect specific information relating to a particular problem that you are having. Simply attach this file with your PMR report and submit!  For ISA V4, you can gather data from your local or remote machines!
  • Manage your service requests.  You can easily contact our support teams via the Manage Service feature provided by ISA.  This page provides a simple guide to take you through steps you can do to help our support team  Then, leverage the Service Request page to get to access a list of service request you’ve requested, as well as opening a new one.

Need help on IBM Support Assistant? IBM Support Assistant - support site has been launched. You can find information and latest update information here: http://www.ibm.com/software/awdtools/isa/support/

What's new for version 4.0?

IBM Support Assistant V4.0 has been released with a host of new features and enhancements, making this version the most comprehensive and flexible yet. Our one-stop-shop solution to research, analyze and resolve software issues is now better than ever before, and you can still download it at no charge!

  • Getting started is easier than ever!   The new welcome experience guides users through the initial customization,  migration wizards allow easy portability from the previous version and tutorials help you get the most out of the new application
  • Have data on remote system you need to gather? Leverage the Agent/Agent Manager to gather information from remote systems. Explore file systems, run automated data collectors and troubleshooting tools, and view the system inventory on remote systems
  • Organize your trouble shooting data in one location!  Leverage Case Management tools provided within ISA to store, document and share the information with other problem analysts or with IBM Support . 
  • Looking to customize ISA for your own internal use?  ISA now provides a mechanism that allows you to add your own search locations, control updates by hosting your own update site, get the latest product news and updates

All these new features augment the support features from previous versions such as multi-source search, symptom-specific data collectors, and online problem submission from the ease of a desktop application. As always, there are several problem determination tools to help you diagnose, analyze and resolve your issues.

IBM Support Assistant V4.0 provides support for over 250 of the most popular IBM products, and helps you research and diagnose various problems.
Download the IBM Support Assistant or attend a live demo to equip yourself with the resources and tools to resolve your problems quickly and easily!

For information on system requirements, supported platforms and help with the install, refer to the Installation Guide.

New in 4.0.1: Media viewer and bug fixes. More information here: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21314151

New in 4.0.2: Multiple language enabled.

Platforms Supported

ISA Workbench:  Microsoft® Windows® XP Pro SP1 / SP2 , Vista , Vista Business & Enterprise, Red Hat® Linux® 4.0, 5. SuSE Linux® Enterprise 10.0 FP 1 (w/ XGL)

ISA Agent/Agent Manager: Microsoft® Windows® XP Pro SP1 (Agent only),  Windows® Server 2003, Red Hat® Linux® 4.0 / 5.0 , SuSE Linux® Enterprise 9.0 or V10.  Solaris® V10.0 (no inventory reporting) , AIX® 5L V5.3 , V6.1


For the latest versions and additional information on the IBM Support Assistant tool, visit the official IBM Support Assistant website on IBM.com.

IBM Support Assistant documentation on CD

Download from CD

Step-by-Step Instructions to install & setup ISA V40

CD Publication Date: January 2009
© Copyright IBM Corporation 
2009