You can get support for WebSphere Adapters in a variety
of ways and means.
Why and when to perform this task
IBM Software Support provides assistance with
product defects. 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 or UNIX operating systems), enroll in Passport
Advantage in one
of the following ways:
- Online: Go to
the Passport Advantage Web page (www.lotus.com/services/cwepassport.nsf/wdocs/passporthome)
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 (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 (www.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 (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.
Steps for this task
- 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 following criteria:
Severity |
Description |
Severity 1 |
Critical business impact: You are unable to
use the program, resulting in a critical impact on operations. This
condition requires an immediate solution. |
Severity 2 |
Significant business impact: The program is
usable but is severely limited. |
Severity 3 |
Some business impact: The program is usable
with less significant features (not critical to operations) unavailable. |
Severity 4 |
Minimal business impact: The problem causes
little impact on operations, or a reasonable circumvention to the
problem has been implemented. |
- Describe your problem and gather background information. When explaining a problem to IBM, be as specific as possible.
Include all relevant background information so that IBM Software
Support 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?
- Do you have logs, traces, and messages that are related to the
problem symptoms? IBM Software Support is likely to ask for this
information.
- Can the problem be recreated? If so, what steps led to the failure?
- Have any changes been made to the system? (For example, hardware,
operating system, networking software, and so on.)
- Are you currently using a workaround for this problem? If so,
please be prepared to explain it when you report the problem.
- Submit your problem to IBM Software Support. You can submit your problem in one of two ways:
- Online: Go to the Submit and track problems page on the
IBM Software Support site (www.ibm.com/software/support/probsub.html).
Enter your information into the appropriate problem submission tool.
- 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 (techsupport.services.ibm.com/guides/contacts.html) and
click the name of your geographic region.
Result
If the problem you submit is for a software defect or for
missing or inaccurate documentation, IBM Software Support will create
an Authorized Program Analysis Report (APAR). The APAR describes the problem in detail.
What to do next
Whenever possible, IBM Software Support will provide 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 resolutions.