White Papers

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The white paper describes the SupportAssist collection capabilities across various iDRAC interfaces. iDRAC provides the customer
and application interfaces for gathering information that enables Dell EMC Technical Support to resolve issues that may occur on
your server.
AUDIENCE
This white paper is intended for a system administrator or a technical support personnel who wants to generate a SupportAssist
collection from a 14th generation PowerEdge server for gathering information about the system and system peripherals.
INTRODUCTION
When you call Dell EMC Technical Support for an issue with your server, you would be requested to gather information from the
system and send it to Dell EMC for diagnosing and troubleshooting the issue. The SupportAssist feature available on the 14th
generation of PowerEdge servers provides the capability to collect system information quickly. As a result, the Technical Support
personnel can spend more time on the critical task of analyzing the data to identify a resolution for the issue. This in turn also
reduces the average time required for resolving the issue and also the cost of services and support.
The SupportAssist feature is built using the embedded management technologies that were introduced in the 11th generation of
PowerEdge servers, and further enhanced in the 12th and 13th generation of PowerEdge servers. Technical Support Report (TSR)
introduced in the 12th generation and enhanced in the 13th generation of PowerEdge servers, was the embedded solution that
enabled gathering useful system and device information.
In the 14th generation of PowerEdge servers, the TSR solution is re-branded as SupportAssist, and the TSR collection is
rebranded as SupportAssist collection. Additionally, features of the SupportAssist Enterprise application such as automated
periodic collection, event monitoring, and case creation are also integrated in the SupportAssist feature available on the server.
SUPPORTASSIST COLLECTION OVERVIEW
SupportAssist Collection contains the following categories of information that are collected from the server, host operating system,
and devices that are present on the server.
 System Information (hardware and firmware data, Lifecycle Logs, and chassis logs on modular systems)
 Operating system (OS) logs and application data
 Storage controller logs
 Debug logs
SUPPORTASSIST COLLECTION PREREQUISITES
 To access any of the iDRAC interfaces, you must have operator or higher-level privileges.
 For collecting OS logs and application data, the following prerequisites must be met:
─ The server must be turned on and running an operating system that is supported by iDRAC Service Module (iSM).
─ iSM must be installed and running on the host operating system (OS). iSM can be installed by using one of the following:
o Dell Update Package (DUP) available in iDRAC – The iSM DUP is factory installed on the iDRAC starting from the 14th
generation of PowerEdge servers. The iSM DUP should be present in iDRAC unless LC Wipe or System erase has
been performed.
o Downloading the iSM DUP available at Dell.com/support and installing it on the host OS.
─ OS Collector (OSC) package must be available in iDRAC. The OSC package is factory installed on the iDRAC. The OSC
package should be on the iDRAC unless LC Wipe or System erase has been performed.
o If necessary, you can download and install the OSC DUP available at Dell.com/Support.
After the pre-requisites are installed, SupportAssist collection that includes OS logs and application data can be generated and
accessed through any of the iDRAC interfaces that are specified in the following sections. For information on specific commands for
generating the SupportAssist collection, see the respective interface sections in this white paper.
Note: The SupportAssist feature on the server does not have license restrictions. It is available with a base license.