Troubleshooting/Crash Analysis

Sometimes, your enterprise operating systems may crash. On those occasions, you want to know what caused the crash. Was it due to a problem with the hardware? Was it something with the operating system itself? Or was it a glitch with privileged code within your application? Let PARSEC Group help you find the problem and the solution. You do not want the unexpected reboots to reoccur.

PARSEC Group has extensive experience with Panic (core dump) analysis on UNIX systems and Bugcheck (crash dump) analysis on OpenVMS systems. One of our trainer/consultants created the first VAX/VMS Crash Dump Analysis class while working for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in their Customer Support Center. He then created the first OpenVMS Alpha Crash Dump Analysis class while working at PARSEC Group in 1996. This same level of expertise exists with our UNIX Consultants.

Thank you very much for the help that you and the rest of your crew have provided to help solve the PPL problem for username X during the last 2 days.

I am tremendously impressed by the speed of PARSEC's responses to my emails. Today you responded as soon as you received a 341 Mbyte dump file, even before I had a chance to send you an email stating that I had FTP'd the dump file! The quality of your analysis is every bit as impressive as the speed of your response. I forwarded your recommendations regarding how PPL locks are causing problems and what can be done to appropriate members of my department.

Marshall K. IT Analyst in the Information Management Industry

Hardware Issues

When the issue is determined to be related to faulty hardware, PARSEC Group can work with your hardware support organization to pinpoint the cause of the problems. This eliminates finger-pointing between hardware support and software support and provides you with the quickest return to the stable environment you have come to expect from your systems. If you do not have a hardware support contract, we can recommend one of our hardware maintenance partners that we have worked with and have trusted for years in your area.

Application Issues

Our technical support team averages 35+ years of experience analyzing crashes generated by the operating system, 3rd party device drivers, hardware malfunctions, as well as privileged applications. We have recommended several patches to HP that have been included in the operating system. If the crash was initiated by an application we can help you identify what the application was doing when it caused the system to crash and work with the application developer to find a fix. PARSEC Group has done this with some of the third-party layered product vendors to improve the reliability of their applications.

Operating System Issues

When we detect a bug in the operating system, we notify the manufacturer's support and often the appropriate engineer of our findings to help generate a fix as soon as possible. PARSEC Group works with the manufacturer to provide them with tools to replicate issues and verify when a possible fix does resolve the issue. Many times we can identify an existing patch or develop a work around to avoid the issue and make the client's site as stable as possible until the fix can be implemented. PARSEC Group endeavors to maintain strong relationships with the manufacturer's support and engineering teams to expedite problem resolutions.