System information

100 Logical Partitions on System i5
3.6.2 Inventory Scout services
The Inventory Scout is a tool that surveys managed systems for hardware and software
information. Inventory Scout provides an automatic configuration mechanism and eliminates
the need for you to manually reconfigure Inventory Scout Services. Depending on the levels
of your HMC and partition software, you might be required to manually configure partitions
that you create in order to perform Inventory Scout tasks.
The Inventory Scout collects the Vital Product Data (VPD) from the hardware resources in the
managed system or systems that the HMC is managing. For the Inventory Scout to collect all
the information accurately, all the managed system partitions must be active. The Inventory
Scout collects information such as a resource type and serial number, its part number, its
operational status, and other VPD, depending on the resource type.
This VPD is sent weekly to a database at IBM by a scheduled job. The initial collection of data
will send all collected VPD, but any subsequent transmission will only send what has
changed since the last transmission to IBM. The information sent to IBM is a valuable aid for
IBM Remote Technical Support personel when solving problems on the managed systems,
as they will have an accurate profile of what the resources are on the system without having
to connect to the system.
There are three options available under Inventory Scout services:
򐂰 Inventory Scout profile configuration
򐂰 Collect VPD information
򐂰 Restart inventory scout daemon
Inventory Scout profile configuration
Running this option runs a wizard which guides you through setting up the Inventory Scout
profile. This should only be needed to run if the initial setup wizard for the HMC was not run or
if a new AIX partition has been created since the initial setup wizard was run on the HMC.
򐂰 Collect VPD information — This collects the VPD to diskette if required.
򐂰 Restart inventory scout daemon — Option to restart the inventory scout daemon.
3.6.3 Service Focal Point
The Service Focal Point application is used to help the service representative diagnose and
repair problems on partitioned systems. 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 by filtering them into one error code.
The options available under Service Focal Point are as follows:
򐂰 Repair serviceable event
򐂰 Manage serviceable events
򐂰 Install/add/remove hardware
򐂰 Replace parts
򐂰 Service utilities