IBM Content Analytics

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    IBM Content Analytics - Enterprise Search Solution

    - Shweta Chaudhary

    What is content analytics?IBM Content Analytics helps you perform content analysis of unstructured documents, e-mails, databases, andother enterprise content by providing a platform for crawling content, extracting facets of meaning from text, andinteractively exploring those facets and relationships between facets.

    Content analytics starts with the gathering of relevant enterprise content.

    IBM Content Analytics provides crawlers for a wide variety of enterprise content sources that allow content,metadata, structured data, and unstructured data to be collected and fed into the analytics pipeline. Crawlerconfiguration is flexible and scalable, enabling you to gather the source information that you need to intelligentlyanswer content-based questions.

    Component overview

    The content analytics components collect data from throughout your enterprise; analyze, parse, and extractmeaning from the information; and create a text index and a correlation index that users can explore and mine.

    A content analytics collectionrepresents the set of sources that users can explore and mine with a single query.When you create a collection, you specify which sources you want to include and configure options for how userscan search and mine the indexed data.

    You can create multiple collections, and each collection can contain data from a variety of data sources. Forexample, you might create a collection that includes documents from databases, or you can give your websiteurls. When users explore and mine a collection, the results potentially include documents/links from each of thedata sources.

    Crawlers

    You can start and stop crawlers manually, or you can set up crawling schedules. If you schedule acrawler, you specify when it is initially run and how often it must revisit the data sources to crawl newand changed documents.

    You can configure the Web crawler to run continuously. You specify which uniform resource locators(URLs) you want to crawl, and the crawler returns periodically to check for data that is new or changed.

    Parsers,document processors and annotators

    The parser, document processors, and annotators analyze documents that were collected by a crawlerand prepare them for indexing.

    Indexing

    After documents are parsed and analyzed, the indexing processes incrementally add information aboutnew, changed, and deleted documents to the index to ensure that users always have access to the mostcurrent information.

    Search Servers

    The search servers work with your search applications to process queries, search the index, and returnresults.

    When you configure the search servers for a collection, you can specify options for how the collection isto be searched or mined:

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    You can configure a search cache to hold the results of frequently submitted requests. A search cachecan improve search and retrieval performance.

    If your application developers create custom dictionaries, you can associate the dictionaries withcollections:

    o When users query a collection that uses a synonym dictionary, documents that containsynonyms of the query terms are included in the results.

    o When users query a collection that uses a stop word dictionary, the stop words are removedfrom the query before the query is processed.

    o When users query a collection that uses a boost word dictionary, the importance of documentsthat contain the boost words is increased or decreased, depending on the boost factor that isassociated with the word in the dictionary.

    If you predetermine that certain documents are relevant to certain queries, you can configure quick links.A quick linkassociates a specific URI with specific keywords and phrases. If a query contains any of thekeywords or phrases that specify in a quick link definition, the associated URI is returned automaticallyin the results.

    You can configure type aheadsupport. When typing a query, users can see suggestions for potentialmatches of the query terms and select one of the suggested matches to run the query. Suggestedmatches are also provided for facet values. Users can select the facet values that they want to add to asearch by selecting one or more of the suggestions.

    In a multiple server configuration, failover capability is available at the collection level, not just at theserver level. If a collection on one search server becomes unavailable for any reason, then the queriesfor that collection are routed automatically to another search server.

    Administration Console

    The administration console runs in a browser, which means administrative users can access it from anylocation at any time. Security mechanisms ensure that only those users who are authorized to accessadministrative functions do so.

    The administration console includes wizards that can help you do several of the primary administrativetasks. For example, the crawler wizards are specific to a data source type and help you select thesources that you want to enable users to search.

    Monitoring the System

    You can use the administration console to monitor system activities and adjust operations as needed. Ifyou create a search collection, you can see detailed statistics about current and past query processing.For example, you can select a timeline for the query statistics, see the most popular queries, and seequeries that returned no results. You can also export the query history to a comma separated value(CSV) file, which you can then import into a spreadsheet or other application for further statisticalanalysis.

    Log Files

    Log files are created for individual collections and for system-level sessions.

    When you configure logging options for a collection or for the system, you specify the types ofmessages that you want to log, such as error messages and warning messages. You also specify howoften you want the system to rotate older log files to make room for recent messages. You can chooseoptions to receive e-mail about specific messages (including alerts), or all error messages, wheneverthey occur.

    Customizing the content analytics system

    The application programming interfaces enable you to create custom search, administration, and textminer applications; custom applications to update the content of collections; custom programs for text

    analysis; and custom dictionaries for synonyms, stop words, and boost words.

    Search and text miner applications

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    You can use the search and text miner applications as a template for developing custom applications.

    How Data Flows through the system

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    Planning for Installation-H/w and S/w Requirements

    The supported system configurations depend on whether you install the product on a single server or multiple

    servers.

    Single server installation

    After you install the software on one computer, you can install additional servers to support search and documentprocessing. For example, you might want to set up several search servers to spread the query processing loadacross processors. If you install the product on additional servers, you must use the administration console tospecify the purpose of the server.

    Install the crawl, index, and search components on one computer. You can then add servers to support the

    following activities:

    Search

    To provide increased scalability and high availability for query processing, including processing requests

    for deep inspection of text analysis results, you can add multiple search servers.

    Document processing

    To provide increased scalability and failover support for parsing and analyzing documents, you can add

    multiple document processing servers.

    Backup server for high availability

    To provide increased throughput and failover support for crawling and indexing documents, you can add

    one high availability backup server on AIX or Windows platforms. This server is supported through

    IBM PowerHA for AIX and Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) on Windows. You must ensure that

    the backup server that you add and the master server share the same data directory

    (ES_NODE_ROOT).The following figure shows a sample single server configuration.

    Figure 1. Sample single server configuration

    Distributed server installation

    If you install the product on more than one computer, you must install the base product on one server,called the master server. You can then add servers to support the following activities:

    Crawl

    You must install one master crawler server to support crawlers.

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    Search

    You must add at least one server to support search. To provide increased scalability and high

    availability for query processing, including processing requests for deep inspection of text analysis

    results, you can add multiple search servers.

    Document processing

    To provide increased scalability and failover support for parsing and analyzing documents, you can add

    multiple document processing servers.

    Backup servers for high availability

    To provide increased throughput and failover support, you can add one high availability server for

    crawling documents and one high availability server for indexing documents on AIX or Windows

    platforms. This server is supported through IBM PowerHA for AIX and Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS)

    on Windows. You must ensure that the backup server that you add and the master server share the

    same data directory (ES_NODE_ROOT).

    The following figure shows a sample distributed server configuration.

    Figure 2. Sample distributed server configuration

    Operating system

    The following table specifies the operating system(Windows Server in this case) for any computer on which youinstall the server components for IBM Content Analytics. In a multiple server installation, all servers must run thesame operating system.

    Operating system (Required)

    Hardware platform:

    Notesx86x86-64

    POWERzSeries

    Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise with SP2(32-bit)

    Minimum: Onecomputer withtwo or moreIntel 32-bit orAMD 32-bitprocessors.

    Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise withSP2 (32-bit)

    Minimum: Onecomputer withtwo or moreIntel 32-bit orAMD 32-bitprocessors.

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    Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise with SP2(64-bit)

    Minimum: Onecomputer withtwo or more64-bitprocessors(AMDOpteron, 64-bit kernelsupport only,or IntelEM64T, 64-bitkernel supportonly).

    Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Standard with SP2(64-bit) Minimum: Onecomputer withtwo or more64-bitprocessors(AMDOpteron, 64-bit kernelsupport only,or IntelEM64T, 64-bitkernel supportonly).

    Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise (64-bit) Minimum: Onecomputer withtwo or more64-bitprocessors(AMDOpteron, 64-bit kernel

    support only,or IntelEM64T, 64-bitkernel supportonly).

    Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard (64-bit) Minimum: Onecomputer withtwo or more64-bitprocessors(AMDOpteron, 64-bit kernelsupport only,

    or IntelEM64T, 64-bitkernel supportonly).

    Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise withSP1 (64-bit)

    Requires IBMContentAnalytics 2.2Fix Pack 2.

    Minimum: Onecomputer withtwo or more64-bitprocessors

    (AMDOpteron, 64-bit kernel

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    support only,or IntelEM64T, 64-bitkernel supportonly).

    Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard with

    SP1 (64-bit)

    Requires IBM

    ContentAnalytics 2.2Fix Pack 2.

    Minimum: Onecomputer withtwo or more64-bitprocessors(AMDOpteron, 64-bit kernelsupport only,or IntelEM64T, 64-bitkernel supportonly).

    Disk space

    The following table specifies the minimum disk space required to install the IBM Content Analytics serversoftware. The disk space requirements for running a content analytics system can vary and depend on thenumber of documents to be crawled, the types of data sources to be crawled, and how documents are parsed,indexed, and queried. Disk space requirements are also influenced by how regularly you build and update

    indexes.For a multiple server configuration, the space requirements affect the index server. The ES_NODE_ROOTdirectory requires the most disk space on your system.

    Disk space (minimum)

    Operating system:

    NotesAIX Linux Win

    2000 MB for the Content Analytics software, plus1800 MB of temporary disk space

    This is the minimumrequired to install thesoftware. More spaceis needed to run acontent analyticssystem.

    Memory

    The RAM specifications in the following table reflect basic server requirements for an IBM Content Analyticssystem.

    RAM (minimum)

    Operating system:

    NotesAIX Linux Win

    4 GB, plus 4 GB paging space Suitable for a small,entry-level solution(one document

    processor and up to100 MB of data).

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    8 GB, plus 8 GB paging space Suitable for a mediumsolution (twodocument processorsand up to 1 GB ofdata).

    16 GB, plus 16 GB paging space Suitable for a large

    solution (fourdocument processorsand up to 10 GB ofdata).

    Processor

    The CPU specifications in the following table reflect the minimum requirements for small, medium, and largeinstallations. Actual system requirements depend on the number of active collections and your performancerequirements.

    ProcessorOperating system:

    NotesAIX Linux Win

    1 or 2 processors per server Suitable for a small,entry-level solution(one documentprocessor and up to100 MB of data).

    2 or 4 processors per server Suitable for a mediumsolution (twodocument processorsand up to 1 GB ofdata).

    At least 4 processors per server Suitable for a large

    solution (fourdocument processorsand up to 10 GB ofdata).

    Web application server

    IBM Content Analytics requires one of the following web application servers to run the search and text mining applications.Even if you run the search and text mining applications on WebSphere Application Server, the embedded Jetty web applicationserver is required for certain functions. For example, the Jetty server is used for administration, monitoring, and providingsearch functions.

    Web application server (required)Operating system:

    NotesAIX Linux Win

    Jetty 6.1.22 (32-bit or 64-bit) Automaticallyinstalled by theIBM ContentAnalyticsinstallationprogram.

    WebSphere Application Server 6.1, base edition (32-bit) Also requiresIBM HTTPServer 6.1 andWebSphereApplication

    Server 6.1plug-ins.

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    Not supportedon Linux onSystem z.

    WebSphere Application Server 6.1, base edition (64-bit) Also requiresIBM HTTP

    Server 6.1 andWebSphereApplicationServer 6.1plug-ins.

    WebSphere Application Server 7.0.0.3 or later, base edition(32-bitor 64-bit)

    Included in theContentAnalyticsdistributionpackage. Youmust alsoinstallFix Pack3 or later.

    Also requiresIBM HTTPServer 7.0 andWebSphereApplicationServer 7.0plug-ins.

    The 32-bit levelis notsupported onLinux onSystem z.

    WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment 7.0.0.3 or

    later (32-bit or 64-bit)

    Also requires

    IBM HTTPServer 7.0 andWebSphereApplicationServer 7.0plug-ins.

    The 32-bit levelis notsupported onLinux onSystem z.

    Clustering is

    not supported.

    LDAP server

    When you use Jetty as the application server, IBM Content Analytics can be configured to authenticate users that are managedby one of the following Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) servers.

    LDAP server

    Operating system:NotesAIX Linux Solaris Win

    Lotus Domino Enterprise Server7.0.0, 7.0.1, 7.0.2, 7.0.3, 7.0.4

    Domino Enterprise Server 8.0.0,

    8.0.1, 8.0.2, 8.5.0, 8.5.1 Tivoli Directory Server 6.0, 6.1, 6.2,

    http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=180&uid=swg27004980http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=180&uid=swg27004980http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=180&uid=swg27004980http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=180&uid=swg27004980http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=180&uid=swg27004980http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=180&uid=swg27004980
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    6.3

    Windows Active Directory 2003

    Windows Active Directory 2008

    Browser (Product Components)

    The following table specifies the browser software that you can use with the IBM Content Analytics administrationconsole and sample applications. Note that you must enable JavaScript in your browser, and you must alsoinstall Adobe Flash Player 10.x.The IBM Content Analytics clients are best viewed with a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 or higher. For the bestperformance, use Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.x or Mozilla Firefox 3.5.x.

    Browser

    Operating system:

    NotesAIX Linux Win

    Microsoft Internet Explorer 7

    Microsoft Internet Explorer 8

    Mozilla Firefox 3.5 Not supportedon Linux onSystem z.

    Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Not supportedon Linux onSystem z.

    Java environment

    IBM Content Analytics includes the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Java Virtual Machine (JVM) 1.6.The following table specifies the requirements for compiling Java applications. The Java SDK is not required toinstall a content analytics system.

    Before you can build Java applications, you must also install and configure Apache ANT, a Java-based build tool.

    Java

    Operating system:

    NotesAIX Linux Win

    IBM Software Development Kit for Java 5.0 (32-bitor 64-bit)

    IBM Software Development Kit for Java 6.0 (32-bitor 64-bit)

    Apache ANT 1.7 Seehttp://ant.apache.org/

    LanguageWare Resource Workbench

    IBM LanguageWare is a technology that provides a full range of text analysis functions. You can use IBM LanguageWareResource Workbench with IBM Content Analytics to implement custom linguistic processing, such as creating customannotators. For information about adding support for additional languages, contact IBM Software Support.

    LanguageWare Resource Workbench

    Operating system:

    NotesAIX Linux Win

    LanguageWare Resource Workbench 7.2 For more informationabout LanguageWare,seeText AnalyticsTools and Runtime for

    IBM LanguageWare.

    http://ant.apache.org/http://ant.apache.org/http://ant.apache.org/https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/groups/service/html/communityview?communityUuid=6adead21-9991-44f6-bdbb-baf0d2e8a673https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/groups/service/html/communityview?communityUuid=6adead21-9991-44f6-bdbb-baf0d2e8a673https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/groups/service/html/communityview?communityUuid=6adead21-9991-44f6-bdbb-baf0d2e8a673https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/groups/service/html/communityview?communityUuid=6adead21-9991-44f6-bdbb-baf0d2e8a673https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/groups/service/html/communityview?communityUuid=6adead21-9991-44f6-bdbb-baf0d2e8a673https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/groups/service/html/communityview?communityUuid=6adead21-9991-44f6-bdbb-baf0d2e8a673https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/groups/service/html/communityview?communityUuid=6adead21-9991-44f6-bdbb-baf0d2e8a673https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/groups/service/html/communityview?communityUuid=6adead21-9991-44f6-bdbb-baf0d2e8a673http://ant.apache.org/
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    Change history

    History Date Change

    Release 2.2.0 October 2010 New

    Security in IBM Content Analytics

    Security mechanisms enable you to protect sources from unauthorized searching and restrict administrativefunctions to specific users.

    With IBM Content Analytics, users can search and explore a wide range of data sources. To ensure that onlyusers who are authorized to access content do so, and to ensure that only authorized users are able to accessthe administration console, the system coordinates and enforces security at several levels.

    Web server

    The first level of security is the Web server. You can assign users to administrative roles andauthenticate users who administer the system. When a user logs in to the administration console, onlythe functions and collections that the user is authorized to administer are available to that user.

    Search and text miner applications can also use Web server security mechanisms to authenticate userswho search collections.

    Collection-level security

    When you create a collection, you can enable security at the collection level. You cannot change thissetting after the collection is created. If you do not enable collection-level security, you cannot laterspecify document-level security controls.

    When collection-level security is enabled: The global analysis processes apply different rules for indexing duplicate documents. You can configure options to enforce document-level security, such as associating security

    tokens with documents as they are crawled, requiring current credentials to be validated duringquery processing, and specifying whether anchor text in Web documents is to be indexed.

    You can enforce security by mapping search and text miner applications (not individual users)to the collections that they can search. You then use standard access control mechanisms topermit or deny users access to applications.

    There is a trade-off between enabling collection security and search quality. Enabling collection securityreduces the information that is indexed for each document. A side effect is that fewer results will befound for some queries.

    Document-level security

    When you configure crawlers for a collection, you can enable document-level security. For example, youcan specify options to associate security tokens with data as the data is collected by crawlers. Yourapplications can use these tokens, which are stored with documents in the index, to enforce accesscontrols and ensure that only users with the proper credentials are able to query the data and viewsearch results.

    For certain types of data sources, you can configure options to validate a user's login credentials withcurrent access controls during query processing. This extra layer of security ensures that a user'sprivileges are validated in real time with the data source. This capability can protect against instances inwhich a user's credentials change after a document and its security tokens are indexed.

    The anchor text processing phase of global analysis normally associates text that appears in onedocument (the source document) with another document (the target document) in which that text does

    not necessarily appear. When you configure a Web crawler, you can specify whether you want toexclude the anchor text from the index if the text links to a document that the Web crawler is not allowedto crawl.

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    Because of differences in facet counting that occurs when document-level security is enabled,document-level security is not supported for text analytics collections or for search collections that areconfigured to use facets.

    Security for your collections extends beyond the authentication and access control mechanisms that thesystem can use to protect indexed content. Safeguards also exist to prevent a malicious andunauthorized user from gaining access to data while it is in transit. For example, the search servers useprotocols such as the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), the Secure Shell (SSH), and the Secure HypertextTransfer Protocol (HTTPS) to communicate with the index server and the search and text minerapplications.

    Additional security is provided through encryption. For example, the password for the systemadministrator, which is specified when the product is installed, is stored in an encrypted format.Passwords that users specify in user profiles are also stored in an encrypted format.

    For increased security, you need to ensure that the server hardware is appropriately isolated and securefrom unauthorized intrusion. By installing a firewall, you can protect the servers from intrusion throughanother part of your network. Also ensure that there are no open ports on the servers. Configure thesystem so that it listens for requests only on ports that are explicitly assigned to IBM Content Analytics

    Backing up and restoring the system

    Backup and restore scripts enable you to back up and restore the IBM Content Analytics system.

    What the scripts back upThe scripts back up and restore the following files:

    Configuration files from the ES_NODE_ROOT/master_config directory System databases, such as databases for crawled data, identity management, and so on.

    All files in the ES_NODE_ROOT/data directory Index files for collections that are configured with non-default data directories

    Restriction: Do not use operating system commands to copy files between the production-level IBM Content

    Analytics server and a backup server. The system will not work as expected because host name and IP address

    information, which IBM Content Analytics requires, is not provided through file copy mechanisms. In addition,

    unless the production IBM Content Analyticssystem is completely stopped before you copy files, the internal

    database might be copied in an inconsistent state, which can prevent IBM Content Analytics from starting on the

    target server.

    Backup directory structureThe backup script creates the following subdirectories under a directory that you specify when you run the script.

    The administrator ID must have permission to write to the directory that you specify.

    master_config

    Contains the configuration files from the ES_NODE_ROOT/master_config directorydatabase

    Contains the database files from the crawler server

    data

    Contains the index files from the index server

    Usage guidelines

    You can back up data from one computer and restore it to another computer. However:o You cannot restore files that were backed up from a different version of IBM Content

    Analytics.o You must restore data to a system that has the same number of servers. For

    example, if you back up a system that runs on two servers, you must restore data to asystem that uses two servers.

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    o You cannot restore files that were backed up from one operating system to a systemthat is running a different operating system. For example, if you installed the producton AIX and now want to run it on Linux, you must install a new system on your Linuxservers.

    All settings for the installation directory (ES_INSTALL_ROOT), the data directory(ES_NODE_ROOT), and the administrator ID and password must be the same between thebacked up system and the system to which data is restored.

    For a multiple server configuration, back up and restore the system from the index server.Because all of the crawler data resides in databases on the crawler server, the scripts runremote commands to back up and restore the crawler data.

    You must have enough disk space available to back up the system files to another directory.The backup and restore scripts do not check the files.

    All system sessions are stopped while the backup and restore scripts are running. To avoidseeing incorrect or inconsistent system information, do not use the administration console whilethe scripts are running.

    If the system fails because of an irrecoverable error, you must re-install IBM Content Analytics.

    Analyzing contentUse the text miner application to analyze your content and discover trends, correlations, and deviations in data

    over time. The text miner application provides real-time statistical analysis of structured and unstructured data

    in IBM Content Analytics collections.

    By using the IBM Content Analytics text miner application, you can explore structured and unstructured contentand gain insights that can help drive business decisions. For example, by exploring content that was analyzedthrough content analytics, you can identify patterns, observe trends in data over time, and take action whenunusual correlations or anomalies are surfaced.

    The overall content analysis workflow consists of iterating through multiple cycles of the following steps:

    1. Set the objectives for your analysis.2. Gather the appropriate data.3. Analyze and explore the data by using the text miner application.4. Take actions based on the insights that you discovered.5. Validate the effect.

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    IBM Software Support

    IBM Software Support provides assistance with product defects.

    Before you contact IBM Software Support, your company must have an active IBM software subscription and

    support contract, and you must be authorized to submit problems to IBM. The type of software subscription andsupport contract that you need depends on the type of product you have:

    IBM distributed software products (including, but not limited to, Tivoli, Lotus, and Rational products,as well as DB2 and WebSphere products that run on Windows or UNIX operating systems)

    You can enroll in Passport Advantage in one of the following ways:

    Online: Go to thePassport AdvantageWeb page(www.ibm.com/software/lotus/passportadvantage/) and click How to Enroll.

    By phone: For the phone number to call in your country, go to the contacts page of theIBMSoftware Support Handbookon the Web and click the name of your geographic region.

    IBM eServer software products (including, but not limited to, DB2 and WebSphere products that runin zSeries, pSeries, and iSeries environments)

    You can purchase a software subscription and support agreement by working directly with an IBM sales

    representative or an IBM Business Partner. For more information about support for eServer softwareproducts, go to theIBM Technical Support AdvantageWeb page (www.ibm.com/systems/support/).

    If you are not sure what type of software subscription and support contract you need, call 1-800-IBMSERV(1-800-426-7378) in the United States or, from other countries, go to the contacts page of the IBM SoftwareSupport Handbookon the Web and click the name of your geographic region for phone numbers of peoplewho provide support for your location.

    Follow these steps to contact IBM Software Support:

    1. Subscribing to support updates (RSS feeds)With IBM Software Support RSS feeds, you can to stay up to date with the latest content forspecific IBM Software products. Feeds are updated daily.

    2. Determine the business impact of your problemWhen you report a problem to IBM, you will be asked to supply a severity level. Therefore, youneed to understand and assess the business impact of the problem you are reporting.

    3. Describe your problem and gather background informationWhen explaining a problem to IBM, be as specific as possible. Include all relevant backgroundinformation so that IBM Software Support specialists can help you solve the problem efficiently.

    4. Submit your problem to IBM Software SupportYou can submit your problem in several ways.

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