The system supports sending notifications to support personnel through cloud service or
through a local email server. You can use either the management GUI or the command-line interface to
change current setting call home notifications.
During system setup, you can
configure call home notifications to improve the response time for issues on the system. Call home
notifications send diagnostic data to support personnel who can quickly determine solutions for
these problems which can disrupt operations on the system. If you want to update current call home
notification settings, select . You can also use the chcloudcallhome command
to update call home with cloud services or use the mkemailserver command to set
up call home with email notifications. Call home can also be integrated with other
support-related services like remote assistance and IBM Storage Insights.
The system supports two methods to transmit
notifications to the support center:
- Call home with cloud services
- Call home with cloud services sends notifications directly to a
centralized file repository that contains troubleshooting information that is gathered from
customers. Support personnel can access this repository and be assigned issues automatically as
problem reports. This method of transmitting notifications from the system to support removes the
need for customers to create problem reports manually. Call
home with cloud services also eliminates email filters dropping notifications to and from support
which can delay resolution of problems on the system. Call home with cloud services use
Representational State Transfer (RESTful) APIs, which are a standard for transmitting data through
web services. For new system installations, call home with cloud services
is configured as the default method to transmit notifications to support. When you update the system
software, call home with cloud services is also set up automatically.You need to ensure that
network settings are configured to allow connections to the support center. This method only send
notifications to the predefined support center.
- Call home with email notifications
- Call home with email notification sends notifications through a
local email server to support and local users or services that monitor activity on the system. With
email notifications, you can send notifications to support and designate internal distribution of
notifications as well, which alerts internal personnel of potential problems. Call home with email
notifications require configuration of at least one email server and local users. However, external notifications to the support center can be dropped if
filters on the email server are active. To eliminate this problem, call home with email
notifications is not recommended as the only method to transmit notifications to the support center.
Call home with email notifications can be configured with cloud services for redundancy and internal
management of notifications. If you also want notifications sent to an internal user or server, you
must set up email notifications.
The system also supports both these transmission
methods configured at the same time. If both cloud services and email notifications are configured,
call home with cloud services is the primary transmission method to the support center and email
notifications are used as a backup if the system cannot connect through cloud services to the
support center. For each transmission method, statuses are displayed to indicate the connection
health between the system and the support center. If call home with cloud services is configured,
the following connection statuses are displayed:
- Active
- Indicates that the connection is active between the system and the support center. A timestamp
displays with the last successful connection between the system and the support center.
- Error
- Indicates that the system cannot connect to the support center through call home with cloud
services. A timestamp displays when the failed connection attempt occurred. Select to determine the cause of the problem. Use the
lscloudcallhome command to display the status of the connection. If the
connection parameter displays error_sequence_number, which
indicates the error number that can be used to help determine the cause of the problem. One
common issue that causes connection errors between the system and support center is firewall filters
that exclude connections to the support center.
For call home with email notification, statuses indicate the availability of the configured
email servers. If call home with email notifications is configured, the following statuses are
displayed for email servers:
- Active
- Indicates that the system can connect to the email server, which is actively sending
notifications to defined email users.
- Failed
- Indicates that the system cannot connect to the configured email server. This message is also
displayed when repeated connection attempts fail after a Failed Temporary
status. If you receive this message, verify that the email server or servers that you are using are
available. Select to display the error log for the system. You can also use the
lsemailserver command to view additional information about the email server.
- Failed Temporary
- Indicates that the last connection attempt to the email server failed, but the problem was
temporary and additional connection attempts will be repeated.
- Untried
- Indicates that the email server is configured but is not being used to send notifications.
The system also supports internal notifications through Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
notifications and syslog messages; however, these notifications cannot be used to contact support
with the call home function. These notifications can be used to send notifications to internal users
as an alternative to email notifications.