IBM Tivoli User Community

Bill Kribbs
Vice President IBM Tivoli Worldwide Support & Services

Extending electronic support and educational services to help you succeed with Tivoli software

Success is one thing none of us can take granted - especially when it comes to something as complex as business software.

So helping you and all of our customers succeed with Tivoli products is the top priority for my team and me. We listen carefully to your issues and concerns - then work to bring you the best and most relevant blend of support, training and services.

Here are a few highlights of recent improvements we’ve made to help you roll out, operate and maintain winning Tivoli projects:

Improved electronic support
We’ve expanded our help and support services on ibm.com to provide more information, immediately and at your convenience.

For example, we introduced the IBM Support Assistant, a software serviceability workbench you can download at no charge. The software lets you search for answers to your question or problem in multiple locations simultaneously. You can also easily track information about products, look up error messages and run free troubleshooting and diagnostic tools to resolve performance and other issues.

We’ve also enabled RSS feeds. With this feature you can subscribe to specific feeds and automatically receive information by product as it becomes available. Visit us for an extended list of feeds or click on any orange RSS symbol on individual product or support pages.

Webinar support
Extending our electronic reach into other areas is a priority, as well. For example, now more than ever, customers are taking advantage of remote troubleshooting and repair with our technicians.

We also continue to create custom Webcasts to address problems or issues of great interest to our customers. Our Support Technical Exchange Webcast program continues to expand, addressing topics of interest based on your experience using Tivoli products. With your feedback, we create and record Web-based technical exchange sessions that let you hear directly from our top subject matter experts - at your convenience.

Recent subjects include restoring the Windows Active Directory using Tivoli Storage Manager and questions around performance-driven automation using OMEGAMON and System Automation for z/OS. Visit the site to view a list of upcoming Webcasts.

Continuing education
Another key to succeeding with Tivoli is the ability to access the right blend of education and training to get the job done. That includes instructor-led classroom courses, Web courses, labs and specialized training tailored to customer needs. But other online resources can make a big difference, as well.

We’re especially happy about the IBM Education Assistant, which offers a collection of multimedia educational modules. These modules can help you better understand your IBM software products and use them more efficiently. Users can access presentations, Flash demonstrations, tutorials and other resources. We continue to add products to this program on a regular basis.

Topics listed by IBM software brand allow you to drill down to a specific product and issue. When using Tivoli Monitoring, for example, you can access Flash presentations that show how to configure historical data collection or build situations with Tivoli Enterprise Portal. Or, you can learn about provisioning and workflow for the Tivoli Identity Manager. You can also access the same presentations in PDF format. Check out the Education Assistant’s guided online tour to learn more.

Deployment services
When it comes to deployment, we’ve partnered our services architects with our development teams to provide more unified solutions. For example, when you implement a monitoring system, you might also roll out a complementary security solution. Before, each IT division would deal with the applications as separate functions or silos. Now, we’ve combined efforts to ensure your monitoring system remains integrated and secure.

Based on your feedback we are defining and documenting architecture models and best practices focused on solution integration. This can provide you with better performance, higher security and more streamlined operations, as well as improved time to value from your Tivoli investment.

In closing, I’d like to say we look forward to providing you with continued improvements in support, services and enablement. After all, your success is our success - and we don’t take that for granted.

For more information:
IBM Support Assistant
IBM Software Support RSS feeds
Technical Exchange Webcasts
IBM Education Assistant

Bill Kribbs, Vice President IBM Tivoli Worldwide Support & Services

Bill Kribbs is vice president of worldwide customer support and services for Tivoli software, IBM Software Group. He is responsible for planning and implementing global support strategies, services programs and strategies, and technical product education. In particular, he and his team are focused on driving improvement in the areas of product deployment and customer knowledge to further increase rapid time to value for IBM Tivoli customers.