Using IBM Support Assistant to diagnose problems

About this task

If you experience a problem with ITCAM for Application Diagnostics and the problem was escalated to the Support team, you might be asked to use IBM® Support Assistant (ISA) to create a TAR file to send to the Support team. The information in this TAR file helps the Support team to diagnose and fix your problem.

To download ISA:

Procedure

  1. Go to the IBM Support Assistant web page http://www-306.ibm.com/software/support/isa/
  2. If you do not have a universal IBM user ID, you must click Register and enter the required information. Upon completion, you can return to this page and sign in.
  3. After signing in, follow the instructions to download the version of IBM Support Assistant that you want to use.

Results

To install ISA:

  1. Go to the directory on your hard disk where you saved the ISA .zip file.
  2. Extract the files in the ISA installation directory.
  3. Double-click the setupwin32.exe file.
  4. Follow the installation instructions to install ISA.
  5. Open the ISA program.

To install the ISA plug-in:

  1. Return to the web page http://www-306.ibm.com/software/support/isa/ and download the ISA plug-in to the ISA installation directory.
  2. Go to the ISA installation directory where you saved the ISA plug-in .zip file.
  3. Extract the files in this directory.
  4. Double-click the setup file.
  5. Follow the installation instructions to install the ISA plug-in.

To launch ISA:

  1. From the ITCAM VE list, click Help > Launch ISA.
  2. On the Main menu, click Tools.
  3. On the left side under Products, click the link for IBM Tivoli® Composite Application Manager.
  4. Enter the managing server installation directory and the PMR number the Support team assigned to your problem. Click OK.
  5. A script is called that creates a TAR file for use by the Support team. A message is displayed indicating ISA successfully created the TAR file. The TAR file is saved to the managing server installation directory with the following name: PMR number.current timestamp.tar. Send this file in an email to the Support team.

To collect problem determination files:

  1. Open the ISA Workbench.
  2. Click Collect and Send Data.
  3. In the Collector Selection window, expand IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for Application Diagnostics 7.1 and select ITCAM for Application Diagnostics Managing Server Problem. Click Add>> to add the collector to the Collector Queue list.
  4. Click Collect All to run collecting.
  5. Enter the managing server installation directory and the PMR number that the Support team assigned to your problem. Click OK
  6. Doing this calls a script that creates a PMRnumber.current_timestamp.tar.gz file in the managing server installation directory for use by the Support team. You can send the file to this Support using ISA Workbench or you can send this file by email to the Support team.