Remote Support For Severe System Conditions; Planning For Call Home - IBM FlashSystem A9000R Deployment Manual

process of phasing out a component or the restart of customer-visible system
services as it happens. The customer has full control over whether to proceed with
a support session by using mechanisms such as timeout or force-disconnect. If a
session disconnects unexpectedly, the IBM service representative can resume the
session when the storage system next connects to the Remote Support Center.

Remote support for severe system conditions

A remote support connection may be established automatically, when activated, if
severe system conditions (critical issues) are seen in the system and access to the
machine is blocked to the host. Immediate action is necessary so that waiting for
session connection is not necessary. This function is also known as "XRSC on
severe system conditions".
Important: Enabling the remote support for severe system conditions is strongly
recommended in order to keep system repair time to a minimum and in order to
resume connectivity to hosts as fast as possible. This allows an IBM service
representative to access the system remotely and start the repair action
immediately.
Remote support for severe system conditions permits a remote support access
without the need for the customer to initiate the SSH session towards the remote
support center. It also eliminates the need to dispatch an IBM service
representative to the customer site in order to initiate this session to do so.
The remote support for severe system conditions can be configured by the IBM
service representative at the time of the storage system installation. This
information is communicated through the Technical and Delivery Assessment
(TDA) checklist and worksheets.
Note: If remote support for severe system conditions is not enabled at the time of
installation, you can enable these actions at any time, using the XCLI utility. Use
the support_center_config command to configure the automatic connection to a
support center, setting automatically_connect to yes. For more detailed
information, see IP configuration commands > Defining a support center
connection on restart in the IBM FlashSystem A9000R Command-Line Interface (CLI)
Reference Guide (SC27-8711).

Planning for Call Home

Using Call Home, you can set up the IBM FlashSystem A9000R system to
automatically send pre-failure or failure notifications to the IBM Troubleshooting
Ticketing System in the IBM Service Center. You can also configure the storage
system to automatically send alerts directly to you. Call Home cannot accept
incoming communication, which means that the IBM Service Center cannot contact
the FlashSystem A9000R system using Call Home.
When certain events occur in the FlashSystem A9000R system, Call Home sends a
notification to the IBM Service Center. After receiving the notification, IBM service
personnel analyze the problem promptly and take appropriate action. If the
problem requires service, an IBM service representative is sent to your site with
any necessary replacement parts. With access to the FlashSystem A9000R system,
IBM service personnel can perform service tasks, such as viewing error logs and
problem logs or initiating trace and dump retrievals.
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Chapter 7. Planning for remote support, on-site service, and maintenance