this chapter provides information about using the service focal point application.

    service representatives use the hmc as the starting point for all service issues. the hmc groups various system management issues at one control point, allowing service representatives to use the service focal point application to determine an appropriate service strategy.

    traditional service strategies become more complicated in a partitioned environment.

    each partition runs on its own, unaware that other partitions exist on the same system.

    if one partition reports an error for a shared resource, such as a managed system power supply, other active partitions report the same error. the service focal point application enables service representatives to avoid long lists of repetitive call-home information by recognizing that these errors repeat, and the filtering them into one error code.

    errors that require service are reported to the hmc as serviceable events. because the hmc stores these serviceable events for 90 days and then discards them, it is important to have the partition and hmc date and time set correctly. for instance, if the date on a partition’s software is set 90 days behind the hmc’s set time, the serviceable events reported from this partition are immediately discarded. the ibm hardware management console installation and operations guide for pseries, order number sa38-0590. to set the partition’s date and time, see the documentation provided with the operating system that is running on that partition.

    getting started

    when you are setting up service focal point, keep the following in mind:

    1 if the time configured on a partition is 90 days older than time configured on the hmc, serviceable events cannot be reported.

    2 verify that the hmc host names are defined. for more information on using fully qualified and short host names, see the ibm hardware management console installation and operations guide for pseries, order number sa38-0590.

    3 if you need to add or change a partition name, see the ibm hardware management console installation and operations guide for pseries.

    testing error reporting

    to ensure that service focal point is configured properly, generate a test error by doing the following:

    1. in the partition, run diagnostics to test the managed system’s operator panel.

    2. when the diagnostics window asks you if you see 0000 on the managed system’s operator panel, select no. this action generates an error.

    3. in the srn window, type enter to proceed.

    4. when the system asks you if you want the error sent to service focal point, select yes.

    5. type f3 to exit diagnostics.

    6. wait for one minute while the managed system sends the error to service focal point.

    7. check the serviceable event window to ensure that the error was sent to service focal point and that service focal point reported the error. for more information about working with serviceable events, see “working with serviceable events” on page 16.

    service focal point settings

    the service focal point settings task in the contents area allows you to configure your hmc’s service focal point application.

    the advanced operator, operator and viewer roles have read-only access to the following tasks.

    automatic call-home feature: you can configure the hmc to automatically call an appropriate service center when it identifies a serviceable event.

    to enable or disable the call-home feature, you must be a member of one of the following roles:

    1 system administrators

    2 service representative

    to enable or disable the call-home feature for one or more systems, do the following:

    it is strongly recommended that you not disable the call-home feature. when you disable the call-home feature, serviceable events are not automatically reported to your service representative.

    1. in the navigation area, click the service applications icon.

    2. in the navigation area, double-click the service focal point icon.

    3. in the contents area, click service focal point settings.

    4. the service focal point settings window opens. select the cec call home tab on the top of the window.

    5. click on the managed system you want to enable or disable.

    6. click enable to enable call-home for the selected system, or click disable to disable call-home for the selected system.

    7. click ok.

    setting up surveillance: service focal point surveillance generates serviceable events when it detects communication problems between the hmc and its managed systems.

    you can configure how you want the hmc to survey the following:

    1 the number of disconnected minutes considered an outage

    2 the number of connected minutes you want the hmc to consider a recovery

    3 the number of minutes between outages considered a new incident

    to set up surveillance, you must be a member of one of the following roles:

    1 system administrators

    2 service representative

    to set up surveillance, do the following:

    1. in the navigation area, click the service applications icon.

    2. in the navigation area, double-click the service focal point icon.

    3. in the contents area, select service focal point settings.

    4. the service focal point settings window opens. select the surveillance setup tab on the top of the window.

    5. in the first field, select the number of minutes you want the hmc to wait before sending a disconnection error message.

    6. in the second field, select the amount of connection time that the hmc is considered to be recovered. this amount is expressed in minutes.

    7. in the third field, select the number of minutes between outages that you want the hmc to wait before sending a new incident report.

    8. select one or more managed systems from the table in the lower part of the window and then click enable or disable. surveillance is then either enabled or disabled for the selected managed systems.

    enabling surveillance notifications: you can enable or disable surveillance-error notification from this hmc to connected managed systems. enabling this notification causes errors to be passed to the service agent application for notification.

    you must further configure service agent to handle notifications sent by service focal point.

    to set up surveillance, you must be a member of one of the following roles:

    1 system administrators

    2 service representative

    to set up surveillance-error notification, do the following:

    1. in the navigation area, click the service applications icon.

    2. in the navigation area, double-click the service focal point icon.

    3. in the contents area, select service focal point settings.

    4. the service focal point settings window opens. select the surveillance notification tab on the top of the window.

    5. select one or more managed systems from the list and then click enable or disable. surveillance notification is then either enabled or disabled for the selected managed systems.

    working with serviceable events

    you can view, add, or update serviceable event information, including error details.

    viewing serviceable events: to view serviceable events, you must be a member of one of the following roles:

    1 system administrators

    2 service representative

    3 advanced operator

    4 operator

    5 viewer

    to view a serviceable event, do the following:

    1. in the navigation area, click the service applications icon.

    2. in the navigation area, double-click the service focal point icon.

    3. in the contents area, click select serviceable event.

    4. designate the set of serviceable events you want to view. when you are finished, click ok.

    5. the serviceable event overview window opens, and the entries displayed are ordered by time stamp. each line in the serviceable event overview window corresponds to one error within a serviceable event. on this window, designate the set of serviceable events you want to view by specifying your search criteria (such as event status or error class).

    only events that match all of the criteria that you specify are shown.

    when you are finished, click ok.

    when you select a line in the serviceable event overview window, all lines in the same serviceable event are selected. to open the serviceable event details window for the selected event, select the event and click event details.

    viewing serviceable event details: to view serviceable event details, do the following:

    1. perform the steps in “viewing serviceable events” on page 16.

    2. the serviceable event details window opens, showing extended serviceable event information, including the following:

    1 status

    2 earliest original time stamp of any managed object

    3 aix error log

    4 should this error ever get called home?

    5 error was called home

    6 pointer to extended error-data collection on the hmc

    the window’s lower table displays all of the errors associated with the selected serviceable event. the information is shown in the following sequence:

    1 failing device system name

    2 failing device machine type/model/serial

    3 error class

    4 descriptive error text

    viewing serviceable event error details: to view serviceable event error details, do the following:

    1. perform the steps in “viewing serviceable event details”.

    2. select an error in the lower table, and click error details.

    viewing service processor error details: to view service processor error details, do the following:

    1. perform the steps in “viewing serviceable event error details”.

    2. if the serviceable event error details you are viewing are for a service processor-class error, the lower table on the resulting window contains service processor errors. select a service processor error from the lower table, and click service processor error details to see further details.

    saving and managing extended error data: to save extended error (ee) data, do the following:

    1. perform the steps in “viewing serviceable event details” on page 17.

    2. click save ee data. to save extended error data for only oneerror associated with the serviceable event (rather than for the entire serviceable event), select the error from the lower table and then click error details. in the next menu, click manage ee data.

    viewing and adding serviceable event comments: to add comments to a serviceable event, you must be a member of the service representative role.

    to add comments to a serviceable event, do the following:

    you cannot edit or delete previous comments.

    1. perform the steps in “viewing serviceable event details” on page 17.

    2. select the error to which you want to add comments to and click comments.... if you want to close the event and add comments, click close event from this window. the serviceable event comments window opens.

    3. type your name and add comments as appropriate. you can also review previous comments, but you cannot edit this information.

    4. if you clicked comments on the serviceable event details window, clicking ok commits your entry and returns you to the serviceable event details window.

    if you clicked close event on the serviceable event details window, clicking ok commits all changes and opens the update fru information window. for more information about updating field replaceable unit information, see “updating field replaceable unit (fru) information” on page 19.

    closing a serviceable event: to close a serviceable event, do the following:

    1. perform the steps in “viewing serviceable event details” on page 17.

    2. select the error to which you want to add comments and click comments....

    3. click close event from this window. the serviceable event comments window opens.

    4. click ok to commit your comments. the update fru information window displays. see “updating field replaceable unit (fru) information” on page 19 for information on completing this window. click ok on the update fru information window to close the serviceable event.

    you must close a serviceable event after it has been serviced to ensure that if a similar error is reported later, it is called home. if an old problem remains open, the new similar problem is reported as a duplicate. duplicate errors are neither reported nor called home to a service center. close a serviceable event when the partition that reports the error is active. closing the event causes the new status of the serviceable event to be properly sent to the partition.

    updating field replaceable unit (fru) information: this task allows you to update

    the fru information you changed or modified as a result of this serviceable event.

    from this panel, you can also activate and deactivate leds and search for other serviceable events that contain the same fru entries.

    to update fru information, do the following:

    1. perform the steps in “viewing serviceable event details” on page 17.

    2. click fru information... . the update fru information window opens.

    the lower table shows any parts that you have replaced or added during your current update session but that have not been committed to the serviceable event.

    the changes from the lower table are committed by clicking ok or apply.

    from this window, you can also activate and deactivate leds and search for other serviceable events that contain the same fru entries.

    replacing an existing fru: to replace a part already listed for this serviceable event, do the following:

    1. perform the steps in “updating field replaceable unit (fru) information”.

    2. in the upper table, double-click the part you want to replace.

    3. if the fru has a new part number, type it in the new fru part number field.

    4. click replace fru. the update fru information window displays the fru replacement information in the lower table. click ok or apply to commit the changes to the serviceable event.

    adding a new fru: you can add a part to the serviceable event that was not listed in the upper table of the update fru information window. to add a new fru for this serviceable event, do the following:

    1. perform the steps in “updating field replaceable unit (fru) information”.

    2. click add new fru to list.

    3. type the fru’s location code and its part number in the appropriate fields.

    4. click add to list. the update fru information window opens and displays the newly added fru in the lower table.

    5. click ok or apply to commit these changes to the serviceable event.

    after you click ok or apply, you cannot change this information. if you clicked the close event button in the serviceable event details window, then clicking ok also completes the close dialog and changes the status of the serviceable event to closed.

    viewing serviceable event partition information: you can view partition information associated with this serviceable event. this information includes each affected partition’s state and resource use.

    1. perform the steps in “viewing serviceable event details” on page 17.

    2. click partition info....

    hardware service functions

    activating and deactivating fru identity leds: this task allows you to activate or deactivate a managed system’s system attention led or any fru identity led. fru identity leds are helpful in determining which frus need servicing.

    to activate or deactivate a managed system’s system attention led, do the following:

    1. in the navigation area, click the service applications icon.

    2. in the navigation area, double-click the service focal point icon.

    3. in the contents area, select hardware service functions. the led management window opens.

    4. in the led management window, select one or more managed systems from the table.

    5. select either activate led or deactivate led. the associated system attention led is then either turned on or off.

    to activate or deactivate a fru associated with a particular managed system, do the following:

    1. in the navigation area, click the service applications icon.

    2. in the navigation area, double-click the service focal point icon.

    3. in the contents area, click hardware service functions. the led management window opens.

    4. in the led management window, select one managed system from the table.

    5. click the list frus... button. the list of fru slot indices and their respective current led states display.

    6. select one or more fru slot indexes.

    7. click either the activate led or the deactivate led button.

    the associated fru identity leds are now either enabled (blinking) or off.