Serviceability (computer)

In software engineering and hardware engineering, serviceability (also known as supportability,) is one of the -ilities or aspects (from IBM's RAS(U) (Reliability, Availability, Serviceability, and Usability)). It refers to the ability of technical support personnel to install, configure, and monitor computer products, identify exceptions or faults, debug or isolate faults to root cause analysis, and provide hardware or software maintenance in pursuit of solving a problem and restoring the product into service. Incorporating serviceability facilitating features typically results in more efficient product maintenance and reduces operational costs and maintains business continuity.

Examples of features that facilitate serviceability include:

Serviceability engineering may also incorporate some routine system maintenance related features (see: Operations, Administration and Maintenance (OA&M.))

A service tool is defined as a facility or feature, closely tied to a product, that provides capabilities and data so as to service (analyze, monitor, debug, repair, etc.) that product. Service tools can provide broad ranges of capabilities. Regarding diagnosis, a proposed taxonomy of service tools is as follows:

As a rough rule of thumb for these taxonomies, there are multiple ‘orders of magnitude’ of diagnostic data in level 1 vs. level 2 vs. level 3 service tools.

Additional characteristics and capabilities that have been observed in service tools:

Excellent example of Serviceability Feature Requirements:

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