Support Central

Product technical support is provided to customers currently enrolled in support, based on the terms and conditions of the customer’s license agreement with BMC and BMC’s current support terms and policies.  All Support terms and policies not covered on this page can be located here.

If you are currently enrolled in support, you can contact BMC via phone, email, and web during all product technical support stages. Extended support options may be available for some products for an additional annual support cost. Contact your BMC account representative for assistance.

For current support status and product information, sign up for Proactive Alerts and visit the Supported Product A-Z pages. (Proactive Alert email messages and the associated documentation are provided in English only).

For a product to be eligible for Support, all its Licensed Capacity needs to be enrolled.

BMC reserves the right, for the benefit of all its customers, to use or incorporate into any BMC products or services any suggestions, enhancement requests, recommendations or other feedback provided by its customers.

This topic includes the following sections to help you learn more about the support policy:

• Release numbering
• Support for Enterprise Products: This is Support for products that do not run in a mainframe environment and products that are in the Control-M and Control-D products family. “Enterprise Products” do not include products in the BMC MainView, BMC AMI, Db2 or IMS product family.
• Support for Mainframe Products: This is Support for BMC products that run in a mainframe environment and products in the MainView, BMC AMI, BMC Compuware, Db2 and IMS product families. Such Products are referred to in this Support policy as the “Mainframe Products”. Mainframe Products do not include Control-M or Control-D.
• Extension of Support Periods
• Product End of Life
• Third-Party Products
• Upgrading
• Multi-Language Support
• Additional Information

Release numbering

BMC uses a three-place numbering scheme to designate released versions of its products. The formats are:

• VV.RR.SP
  VV=major version, RR=minor release, and SP=service pack
• VV.RR.MM
  VV=major version, RR=minor release, and MM=maintenance level
• YY.YY.RR 
  YY.YY= 4-digit year, RR=release

BMC has the following version levels for its Enterprise Products:

BMC provides at least 5 years* of product technical support from the Version.Release (VV.RR) general availability (GA) date in three technical support stages for its Enterprise Products as defined in the following table, subject to the Product End of Life Policy below:

* Exceptions to extend or reduce product support will be announced via the BMC Support Central web site, Proactive Alerts and Release Notes for the affected products. BMC always provides at least Limited Support for a VV.RR for a period of at least 24 months from the date on which such VV.RR became GA.

This table shows an example of the 5-year lifecycle of a VV.RR release, and dates the support status would change:

Support for Mainframe Products

The policy for the Mainframe Products refers only to the VV.RR portion of the release numbering (with the MM portion not being a factor). When referring to general product versions and releases, the maintenance level (MM) is often omitted, but it is implicitly included.

This policy uses these terms to refer to release relationships:

• Current release – The most recently available version and release of a Mainframe Product.
• C–1 – The version and release immediately preceding the current release. 
• C–2 – The version and release immediately preceding the C-1 release.

BMC provides support for the Mainframe Products as defined in the following table, subject to the Product End of Life Policy below

Example of this support policy:
Using three version/releases of a product (3.0, 2.9 and 2.8), the following support policies would apply:

When 3.0 becomes “generally available” (GA):

• 3.0 is covered under Full Support. Might require current maint be applied.
• 2.9 is covered under Full Support for max 36 months followed by 12 month limited.
• 2.8 is covered under limited support for at least 12 months, if Max full support age had not been reached while being C-1.

You can submit enhancement requests at any time, but they will be considered only for future releases of the product.

Note: While product release cycles vary, most versions and releases are supported for 4 to 6 years. Here is a common example: the initial release has full support for 2 years, the C-1 version has full support for 2 years, and the C-2 version has limited support for 2 years. No version or release will be supported for less than 24 months.

Extension of Support Periods

In some cases, BMC may extend its support of certain product lines beyond the dates specified in this document. Announcements to this effect are made through the BMC Support Central web site and the Proactive Alert service via the Release Notes of the affected products.

Product End of Life

• At any time BMC may “end of life” a product by terminating support for such product.
• At least 12 months prior to the termination of support, BMC will post a notification to the BMC Support Central web site and send physical or electronic notice to each customer who is enrolled in such support to the  customer address on file.
• During the timeframe between when “end of life” notification is posted to the BMC Support Central web site and the actual termination of support, the product will be supported as follows:
  • New enhancements will not be made to the product.
  • No enhancements will be made to the product to support new or updated versions of the platforms on which the product runs or to which it connects. BMC Customer Support will direct customers to existing fixes, patches, or workarounds applicable to the reported case.
  • BMC Software will develop new hot fixes for problems of high technical impact or business exposure for customers. With customer input, BMC will determine the degree of impact and exposure and the consequent activities.
  • Research and Development will be engaged on critical cases only and on a limited basis for problem identification.

Third-Party Products

To receive full support for a BMC product, you must have such product installed in a generally available supported environment. If a third-party vendor cancels support for one of its products (such as an operating system or subsystem), and that third-party product integrates or interacts with the BMC product you have licensed, you must upgrade to a generally available supported version of that third-party product before BMC Customer Support can provide you with support for the affected BMC product.

Where a third-party vendor cancels general support, but offers a paid extended support option, BMC will have no obligation to continue to Support the canceled version, irrespective of whether you have chosen to pay for extended support or not.

Upgrading

When you are ready to upgrade, you can download the latest version from BMC's Electronic Product Distribution (EPD) site. To access this site, you must be currently enrolled in support for that product.

Multi-Language Support

English is the only language BMC contractually commits to providing. However, to enhance our follow-the-sun support model and better serve our customers, BMC Software has contact centers worldwide that have multiple language capabilities. Local offices can provide support in the prevailing local languages, but BMC’s priority is to get the most knowledgeable person to handle your case. In addition to English, BMC can offer a “first point of contact” local language service for the following languages:

Americas:

•  English
•  Spanish (LATAM)
•  Portuguese (LATAM)

EMEA:

•  French
•  German
•  Spanish
•  Italian
•  Portuguese

AP

•  Chinese
•  Japanese
•  Korean

The first point of contact service is hosted by BMC’s contact centers and the language offerings are only available during local business hours. Following the initial communication between the customer and our customer support center, BMC will endeavor to distribute the support issue to a local specialist. However, BMC cannot guarantee local language support from our product specialists. Translation services are available on an exception basis.

Additional Information

For additional information regarding the availability and support periods of certain product lines, contact your local BMC representative.