IBM Software Support provides assistance with product defects.
Before you begin
To take advantage of unique Support features go to the IBM developerWorks WebSphere
Business Integration Zone Web
site and select WebSphere ESB.
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 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, refer to the IBM Technical support advantage Web site
- For IBMLink,
CATIA, Linux, S390,
iSeries, pSeries, zSeries and other support agreements, refer to the IBM Support Line Web site at the following URL:
http://www.ibm.com/services/cwi/portal/_pagr/128/_pa.128/161?category=4&subcategory=575
- For Subscription and Support (S & S) contracts, refer to the IBM Software Service Request Web site
- 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:
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 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 are 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:
Table 1. Severity level |
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 .
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 and
click the name of your geographic region.
What to do next
If the problem you submit is for a 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. 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 others who experience
the same problem can benefit from the same resolutions.