What is IBM
Support Assistant (ISA)?
The IBM
Support Assistant is part of a IBM Software Group cross-brand
(Information Management®, Lotus®, Rational®, Tivoli®, WebSphere®)
initiative, to improve customer self-help experience. It is a
free local software serviceability workbench that helps you resolve
questions and problems with IBM software products. It provides
quick access to support-related information along with serviceability
tools for problem determination.
New!!!
ISA V4.0 just released with a host of new features and added flexibility!!
Read below for more details!
How
can ISA help?
Get
Started! Cross brand solution in one place.
You can
find a copy of ISA on
ibm.com. ISA uses the Eclipse technology to allow all IBM
Software brands to add in necessary contents for their specific
products. Once you've installed ISA, it will then guide you through
configuration step for your network settings, update preferences,
and help you add the IBM product that you are working with via
the Product add-on.
Looking
for information? Get it all in one place.
How often
do you find yourself not being able to find that essential piece
of information about an IBM product?
- Search
across all IBM documentation - With IBM Support
Assistant, you will be able to get to the information you need
quickly. ISA provides a quick access through its concurrent
Search tool that spans across the bulk of IBM documentation
and returns the results categorized by source for easy review.
- Key
product Information - ISA provides a product information
feature that has key product information links that are essential
to self-help. Simply, select a product add-on that you had configured,
and this information will display.
Unable
to solve your problem? Want it answered faster?
Looking
for ways to solve your problem faster? Self-help or otherwise,
ISA can help with the time to problem resolution and managing
your PMRs!
- Free
Diagnostic Tools! Included in ISA is a new Tool workbench
that provides you with the problem determination tools that
IBM Support uses to resolve issues. Ongoing, different product
teams will make more and more tools available for ISA's tools
framework in order to enable you to perform problem determination
on your desktop. Click
Here for a list of available tools. Install the tools
quickly via Update --> Find
New --> Tools Add-on.
- Collect
data that support needs! The Collect Data feature includes
data collectors that provides the unique ability to collect
specific information relating to a particular problem that you
are having. Simply attach this file with your PMR report and
submit! For ISA V4, you can gather data from your local
or remote machines!
- Manage
your service requests. You can easily contact our
support teams via the Manage Service feature provided by ISA.
This page provides a simple guide to take you through steps
you can do to help our support team Then, leverage the
Service Request page to get to access a list of service request
you’ve requested, as well as opening a new one.
What's
new for version 4.0?
IBM Support
Assistant V4.0 has been released with a host of new features and
enhancements, making this version the most comprehensive and flexible
yet. Our one-stop-shop solution to research, analyze and resolve
software issues is now better than ever before, and you can still
download it at no charge!
- Getting
started is easier than ever! The new welcome
experience guides users through the initial customization,
migration wizards allow easy portability from the previous version
and tutorials help you get the most out of the new application
- Have
data on remote system you need to gather? Leverage the
Agent/Agent Manager to gather information from remote systems.
Explore file systems, run automated data collectors and troubleshooting
tools, and view the system inventory on remote systems
- Organize
your trouble shooting data in one location! Leverage
Case Management tools provided within ISA to store, document
and share the information with other problem analysts or with
IBM Support .
- Looking
to customize ISA for your own internal use? ISA
now provides a mechanism that allows you to add your own search
locations, control updates by hosting your own update site,
get the latest product news and updates
All
these new features augment the support features from previous
versions such as multi-source
search, symptom-specific
data collectors, and online
problem submission from the ease of a desktop application.
As always, there are several problem determination tools to help
you diagnose, analyze and resolve your issues.
IBM Support
Assistant V4.0 provides support for over 250 of the most popular
IBM products, and helps you research and diagnose various problems.
Download
the IBM Support Assistant or attend
a live demo to equip yourself with the resources and tools
to resolve your problems quickly and easily!
For information
on system requirements, supported platforms and help with the
install, refer to the Installation
Guide.
Platforms
Supported
ISA
Workbench: Microsoft® Windows® XP Pro SP1 / SP2 ,
Vista , Vista Business & Enterprise, Red Hat® Linux® 4.0,
5. SuSE Linux® Enterprise 10.0 FP 1 (w/ XGL)
ISA
Agent/Agent Manager: Microsoft® Windows® XP Pro SP1 (Agent
only), Windows® Server 2003, Red Hat® Linux® 4.0 / 5.0 ,
SuSE Linux® Enterprise 9.0 or V10. Solaris® V10.0 (no inventory
reporting) , AIX® 5L V5.3 , V6.1
For
the latest versions and additional information on the IBM Support
Assistant tool, visit the official
IBM Support Assistant website on IBM.com.
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