Collecting Support Materials on Dell PowerStore

Support materials collection

You can collect support materials to help troubleshoot the appliances in your system.

Depending on the option that you choose, support materials can include system logs, configuration details, and other diagnostic information. Use this information to analyze performance issues, or send it to your service provider so they can diagnose and help you resolve the issues. This process does not collect user data.

You can collect support materials for one or more appliances. When you start a collection, data is always collected at the appliance level. For example, if you request a collection for a volume, the system collects support materials for the appliance that contains the volume. If you request a collection for multiple volumes, the system collects support materials for all appliances that contain the volumes.

You can set a timeframe for collecting support materials. Setting a timeframe can result in smaller and more relevant data collection that is easier to analyze. You can either set a predefined timeframe or set a custom timeframe that suits your needs.

You can also include additional information in the support materials collection from Advanced collection options. Collecting additional information can take longer than the default support materials collection, and the size of the resulting data collection is larger. Select this option if your service provider requests it. By default, the support materials collection uses the essentials profile. Use the svc_dc service script to collect support materials for other profiles. See the PowerStore Service Scripts Guide for more information about the svc_dc service script and the available profiles.

NOTE: The system can run only one collection job at a time.

You can perform the following actions on a collection of support materials:

• View information about existing collections.
• Upload a collection to support, if remote support through Support Connectivity is enabled.
• Download a collection to a local client.
• Delete a collection.

NOTE: Some of these operations might not be available if the cluster is operating in a degraded state.

Collect support materials

Steps

1. Select the Settings icon, and then select Gather Support Materials in the Support section.
2. Click Gather Support Materials.
3. Type a description of the collection in the Description field.
4. Select the timeframe for the data collection.

   You can select one of the available options from the Collection Timeframe drop-down menu, or select Custom and set a timeframe.

   NOTE: If you select Custom as the timeframe for the data collection, the estimated finish time for the data collection is displayed in the Collection Timeframe Finish column of the Support Materials Library table.

5. Select the type of support data to collect from the Object type drop-down menu.
6. In the Objects to collect data for: area, select the check boxes of the appliances from which to collect support data.
7. To send the data collection to support when the job completes, select the Send materials to Support when finished check box.

   NOTE: This option is available only when Support Connectivity is enabled on the system. You can also send the data collection to support from the Gather Support Materials page after the job is completed.

8. Click Start. The data collection is initiated, and the new job appears in the Support Materials Library table. You can click the job entry to view its details and progress.

Results

When the job is completed, the job information is updated in the Support Materials Library table.

Next steps

After the job is finished, you can download the data collection, send the data collection to support, or delete the data collection.