Learn about how keeping your service and support organization up to date with your service information helps when service and support is needed.
Each operating system environment has tools that can help you keep service information about your server. This information can help your service provider or your support organization provide better service and support. Also, you can enable your server to automatically connect to service and support for either outgoing communication, incoming communication, or both.
If you have i5/OS®, you can use iSeries® Navigator to collect and manage various types of service information on a regular basis, and store the information on a designated central system. For example, you can collect the information for users and groups, updates, system values, hardware resources, software resources, service attributes, contact information, or network attributes. You might have other applications installed that allow you to collect lists of other types of resources.
The server has vital product data (VPD) that is stored internally. The VPD consists of information such as how much memory is installed, and how many processors are installed. These records can provide valuable information which can be used by remote service and service representatives so that they can help you keep the firmware and software on your server up to date.
If you choose, you can share this information with your service and support organization through Electronic Service Agent™, which enables your service and support organization to help you identify problems and troubleshoot them more quickly. For more details, see Electronic Service Agent.