Re: R: AS/400 Serial Number

At 01:32 PM 10/30/01 -0500, Al Barsa Jr wrote:
>Let's not get confused here.  When you load OS/400 without a license key,
>you get 70 (or is it 71) days.  Most of the vendor software is not so
>gracious.  In TAATOOL we have a CRTGRCKEY command that buys you ten days,
>one time, anywhere.  We assume that no matter what happens, you can reach
>us in 10 days.

Slight correction, I believe the grace period is for 7 changes of the
operating system date - which would normally be 7 days, not 10.

Part of a DR test should be finding out what the procedure is for whatever
vendors you have - calling ahead for a key may result in finding out there
is a procedure you can run.  Whatever you find out - include it in your DR
plan as part of the documentation. If you find out that they are only
reachable M-F 9-5, it may influence what you do.  I.e., if you declare a
disaster on a friday afternoon, you probably want to call them *then* to
see what can be done, and not necessarily wait until you have restored the
system.

Ask what the support hours are - if they aren't 7 x 24, ask how you can
reach a support person outside those hours - email, pager, fax, pigeon,
smoke signal, whatever.  (And keep in mind that in a real disaster you may
not *have* corporate email, depending on what was lost.)

-Ilena Ayala