This presentation introduces you to the new call home feature in IBM PureApplication System V2.0.

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This presentation introduces you to the new call home feature in IBM PureApplication®

System V2.0.

Page 1 of 19 PureAppV20_Call_Home.ppt

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This slide shows the agenda, which covers the process flow, user interface, command-line interface and disable function.

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Call home is a new feature that automatically generates a service ticket for problems that have a high severity. Both hardware and software can be the source of these events. So you can find issues with compute nodes, network, storage, system management software, or workload management software.

The appropriate log collection sets are automatically created, based on the component that generated the event. The logs can be automatically uploaded to the ticket to avoid any manual effort.

In addition, the system configuration, at the time of the error, is captured and delivered to the ticket as well.

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The goal of call home is to improve problem resolution efficiency and effectiveness, and to improve the customer experience. Information is collected quickly. And it is collected directly from systems, which promotes reliability, since there is less operator data entry and potential error. Also, it helps with consistency, since the data is in a common format.

Automated problem reporting can detect small problems before they escalate into more pervasive and disruptive issues. Also, the resolution time is less, since key parts of the process are automated. And there is less customer involvement, which provides a better overall experience.

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This slide shows the call home process flow. Each event that is tagged as a call home type of event is processed for duplication checking. It checks for an existing identical problem that is open, for the same originating component and the same error code. If there are no duplicates, then the system configuration and problem details are

collected. This information is added to the service ticket on the IBM support system. The ticket number is added to the problem record on PureApplication System. You can request closure of the problem in the problems panel in the console. A

comment is added to the ticket to request ticket closure. If you close the problem, then you can't reopen it. If you decide there is still a problem, then you have to create a new ticket using the normal service request channel.

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To configure call home, use the system settings menu on the system console. You need to provide several categories of information, including the type of support desired and company and system information. There is an edit icon next to each category so you can change the configuration information.

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This slide shows the first section of configuration data, called ‘Service and support level’. You can click the next button at the bottom to page through the sections. Or, you can click the tabs at the top to go directly to any configuration section. In ‘Service and support level’, you identify the level of service for the system. The first option provides automatic collection of logs and also automatic service ticket generation. When the collection set is created, it is automatically uploaded to the ticket. The second option collects the logs and opens the ticket, but it does not include the logs in the ticket. So you can review the logs and remove any sensitive information before the upload. The last option is the default and the behavior that is provided in previous releases. You must manually collect the logs and open the ticket.

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On tab ‘Company contact’, you enter the contact information so that IBM can contact you about the service request. You enter information such as company name, contact name, phone number, email address, and mailing address. The customer number isn't listed because you are already registered with your system machine type, model, and serial. So, this information is stored on the tab ‘System information’ and is used to locate your customer information in the IBM systems.

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On tab ‘System information’, you enter the information for the PureApplication System. It can be in a different facility than your company contact, so you enter contact

information for the system location. You enter telephone number, street address, and specific system location information such as building and floor.

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On tab ‘Connection’, you have several options for connecting to the IBM support

system. You can connect directly to the internet. Or, if you require a proxy, then you can set up both HTTP and FTP. You can use the same settings for both proxies; or you can set up unique information for each. And you can optionally include authentication information.

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After you add all the configuration information, then you can test the connection to verify that it works with the connection information that you provided. And you can create a test service ticket to guarantee that the system can automatically generate tickets for detected problems. Create the test ticket to prove that the ticket can be created and to notify the IBM support team that you want to use the call home feature.

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From the System menu, you can access the problems page. It shows a list of all the problems that are detected in the system. For each problem listed, a service ticket is opened automatically. There is a column containing the service ticket and you can click the ticket number to go to the web console for the IBM ticket system.

In the actions column, you can delete the problem, close the problem, open the events page to see the associated event, or open the detail page for the problem. To open the detail page, you can also click the problem text for the problem that you want to view. The severity of the ticket is shown on this view. Warning events result in severity 3 problems and error events result in severity 2 problems. The same severity is assigned to the IBM service ticket.

Service tickets that are created outside of the system cannot be associated with problem records. This view only shows the tickets that were auto-generated by the system.

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This slide shows the problem details panel. This particular problem is an issue with the temperature of a chassis switch and it is in closed status. You can expand sections to see more detail for the problem, ticket history, notes, and files. To expand a section, use the plus icon next to that section or use the ‘expand all’ icon at the top. At the upper right, you can select options to delete the problem, close the problem, or view the associated event.

You can add notes that are attached to this problem; but they are not attached to the ticket. These notes are for your use only. You can click the button at the top to add any number of notes to the problem.

You can also add more files and collection sets to the problem record. There are buttons at the top for these actions.

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In the problem details section, you can see additional information about the problem, such as the message key, error codes, and component identifiers.

In the ticket history section, you see information about ticket creation, collection sets, and uploaded files.

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In the notes section, you see all of the notes that are attached to the problem. The notes are local notes only; they are not uploaded to the ticket.

In the files section, you see all of the collection sets and other supporting files that are attached to the problem. In the action column, there are icons to upload to the ticket, download to your computer, and delete. If you create a collection set manually, add it to the problem, and then later delete it, it is only deleted from the problem details. It still shows in the troubleshooting page. If the collection set was automatically created as part of the call home event and then you delete it, then it is deleted from the system. In this case, it won’t show on the troubleshooting page or the problem details.

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You can use the command-line interface to use the call home feature. This slide shows some of the commands available. See the product documentation for more details.

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There are flags on the events that determine when call home problems are created. However, you can disable call home for specific events, when you know that those events can safely be ignored. You can disable call home by specifying the message key for the associated event. Then, you use the command-line interface to invoke the

command. See the product documentation for more details about the event rules REST API.

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In this presentation, you reviewed the call home feature, which includes the call home process, the user interface, and the command-line interface.

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