WebSphere Adapter for JDBC

Contacting IBM Software Support

IBM® Software Support provides support for WebSphere® Adapters either online or by phone. Gathering information about the problem before you contact IBM Software Support can 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

  1. Describe your problem and gather background information. When explaining a problem to a support specialist, be as specific as possible. Include all relevant background information so that the 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.
  2. Determine the business impact of your problem. When you report a problem, 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 reporting
    Severity 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.
  3. 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 product support Web pages daily, so that other users who experience the same problem can benefit from the same resolution.

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Last updated: Tue 12 Dec 2006 03:32:40

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