Description:
On occasion CA support needs to see customer data as part of the investigation of a problem. A cartridge can be sent by mail, but this extends the time for a resolution and is expensive, especially if via over-night. Can we send such data electronically?
Solution:
Yes. Each CA STAR support contact has an ftp folder associated with it for electronic data exchange. Normally dumps, reports, screen shots or other attachments in .txt or .bin form are placed there as an issue is investigated. A tape image, such as a CA Dynam VSE catalog backup, for example, may be sent. Standard FTPBATCH may be used for this. As an example, the following job illustrates sending a tape to CA support using CSI FTP stack:
// JOB FTPTAPE // TLBL SADMP1,'DUMMY' // ASSGN SYS007,540 // EXEC FTPBATCH,SIZE=FTPBATCH, PARM='IP=141.202.253.54' [email protected] where [email protected] is the email address you use when connecting to support.ca.com password where password is the password you use when connecting to support.ca.com localuser localpassword BIN CD 0cccccc/nnnnnnnn-01 where cccccc is your CA company number and nnnnnnn the issue number CD files_from_customer PUT %SADMP1,TAPE,FB,8192,8192 SATAPE.BIN QUIT /* /&
If you are using BSI FTP stack, the JCL will be quite different. Please refer to your BSI documentation for a sample to FTP a tape file.
Another way to send documentation to CA support is, instead of creating a real tape, to create a virtual tape on an INTEL platform using IBM's VSE VTAPE support. Please find here a sample JCL to BACKUP the DYNAM catalog onto a virtual tape on an INTEL platform:
// JOB DYNCAT VTAPE START,UNIT=cuu,LOC=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:2386,FILE='C:\ddd\datasetnamX e.AWS',SCRATCH // TLBL IJSYSBK,'DYNBACKUP.DUMP' // ASSGN SYS006,cuu // EXEC DYNCAT BACKUP /* // RESET SYS006 /* /& VTAPE STOP,UNIT=cuu where cuu is a tape address that can be used xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of the VSE VTAPE server ddd is a directory on this server datasetname.AWS is the name of the file you will create on this server.
When done, you can FTP the file in BINARY to CA suppport. From a DOS screen you will type the following command:
ftp supportftp.ca.com
When asked for userid, enter the email address you are using to connect to support.ca.com.
When asked for password, enter the password you are using to connect to support.ca.com.
Then issue the command cd /0custid/nnnnnnnn-xx/files_from_customer
where custid is your CA company number, nnnnnnnn the contact number and xx the issue number, most of the time 01.
When done, change the transfer mode to binary.
Then PUT the virtual tape to CA server.
If desired, the CA support representative can provide the specific ftp folder name.
Please be aware the incoming MUST stay in binary form. That is, no ASCII to EBCIDIC conversion.
Once the job is complete, CA support will be notified that the data has been received.