Diagnostics and Predictive support

[Haitham Hamad]

I did a cold install of HP-UX 11.0 last week. I am getting a warning email that I have to install Diagnostics and Predictive software. I was told this email will come like 7 times whether or not I install the software or not. My question is how important are these tools. Does both of them require a dial out to HP (I don't think management want to do that!). Will I be able to use these tools to diagnose system problems,...etc locally.

Thanks, Haitham

[Patrick Wallek]

I would definitely install the Diagnostics at the very least. Predictive can be a good tool too. Only Predictive requires a dial out, although I think Predictive can now e-mail data to HP now, so it won't require a dial-out connection.

You can use diagnostics to look at the hardware on your system. There are also some tools that HP service personel use, these are locked and only HP knows the password and the password changes quarterly, and if those tools are not installed when they get there they will probably want them installed. Better to do it now while you've got time.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

I always install the Diagnostics bundle at large (Predictive, EMS and STM) and wouldn't be without Predictive.

An internal modem is often configured for use with Predictive Support and can be setup to only allow call-out. The setup of Predictive is menu-based (/opt/pred/bin/psconfig). You can configure it to run nightly; verify your hardware "health"; send logs to HP; mail notices of problems to yourself; AND an engineer will call you if there are issues!

You use 'swinstall' to install Predictive from the depot /cdrom/DIAGNOSTICS/B.11.00 when you mount the SupportPlus cdrom at /cdrom.

Here is a link to the Predictive documentation:

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/H2571-90009/H2571-90009.html

STM (Support Tools Manager) is also extremely valuable. An engineer will want this installed. You too can use it, to see your installed memory, check your PDC version, etc.

For more information on the suite of diagnostic tools, see:

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/diag/index.html

...JRF...

[Thierry Poels_1 · Accepted solution]

Hi,
you don't HAVE TO let predictive "talk" to HP through modem or email, but I would certainly recommend the use of it, with or without sending reports to HP.
Predictive can predict :) several types of possible hardware failures, and software inconsistencies. It's way better to know in advance you have problems with a disk, than to find out because your server suddenly went down.

Thierry.

[paul courry]

Using the ITO portion of OpenView I have ITO email me if certain messages from predictive flash across the console. (In fact a LOT of emails go out based upon messages flashed across the console)

This gives me extra time to plan my response to impending crises (wait for my paper at HPWorld this year for the details).