IBM® Software
Support provides support for WebSphere® Adapters either online or by phone. Before
contacting IBM Software Support, you can take steps to dramatically increase
support responsiveness.
Before you begin
If you think your problem is defect-related, IBM Software Support
provides assistance. Before contacting IBM Software Support, your company must
have an active IBM software
maintenance contract, and you must be authorized to submit problems to IBM.
The type of software maintenance contract that you need depends on the type
of product you have:
- For IBM distributed
software products (including, but not limited to, Tivoli®, Lotus®, and Rational® products, as well as DB2® and WebSphere products
that run on Windows®, Linux®, or UNIX® operating systems), you must be enrolled
in Passport
Advantage®. You can enroll in one of the following ways:
- Online
- Go to the Passport
Advantage Web page (http://www-306.ibm.com/software/support/pa.html), and click How to Enroll.
- By phone
- For the phone number to call in your country, go to the contacts page
of the IBM Software
Support Handbook on the Web (http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/guides/contacts.html), and click the name of your geographic region.
- For IBM eServer™ software
products (including, but not limited to, DB2 and WebSphere products that run in zSeries®, pSeries®,
and iSeries™ environments),
you can purchase a software maintenance agreement by working directly with
an IBM sales
representative or an IBM Business Partner. For more information about support
for eServer software
products, go to the IBM Technical Support Advantage Web page (http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/techsupport.html).
If you are not sure what type of software maintenance contract
you need, call 1-800-IBMSERV (1-800-426-7378) in the United States or, from
other countries, go to the contacts page of the IBM Software Support Handbook on the Web
(http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/guides/contacts.html), and click the name of your geographic region for
phone numbers of people who provide support for your location.
About this task
The IBM Software Support Handbook contains detailed information about
the service and support of your IBM products. Read the handbook at
http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/guides/handbook.html.
To
contact IBM Software Support, use the following procedure:
How to perform this task
- Describe your problem and gather background information. When explaining a problem to an IBM support specialist, be as specific as
possible. Include all relevant background information so that IBM specialists
can help you solve the problem efficiently. To save time, know the answers
to these questions:
- What software versions were you running when the problem occurred? Include
the version of the operating system as well as related products.
- Has the problem happened before, or is this an isolated problem?
- What steps led to the failure?
- Can the problem be recreated? If so, what steps led to the failure?
- Have any changes been made to the system such as to the hardware, operating
system, networking software, and so on?
- Are you currently using a workaround for this problem? If so, be prepared
to explain it when you report the problem.
- Do you have logs, traces, and messages that are related to the problem
symptoms? IBM Software
Support is likely to ask for this information.
- Determine the business impact of your problem. When
you report a problem to IBM, you will be asked to supply a severity level. Therefore,
you need to understand and assess the business impact of the problem you are
reporting. Use the criteria described in the following table.
Table 1. Severity criteria for problem reportingSeverity |
Description |
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. |
- Submit your problem to IBM Software Support. You can
submit your problem in the following ways:
Result
If the problem you submit is for an unreported software defect or
for missing or inaccurate documentation, IBM Software Support creates an Authorized
Program Analysis Report (APAR). The APAR describes the problem in detail and tracks its
resolution.
What to do next
Whenever possible, IBM Software Support provides a workaround for you to
implement until the APAR is resolved and a fix is delivered. IBM publishes
resolved APARs on the IBM product support Web pages daily, so that other users
who experience the same problem can benefit from the same resolution.
Terms of use |
Last updated: Mon 30 Oct 2006 03:31:32
(c) Copyright IBM Corporation 2005, 2006.
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