Authorized Program Analysis Report
An APAR (Authorized Program Analysis Report) (pronounced A-PAR, rhymes with far) is an IBM designation of a document intended to identify situations that could result in potential problems. It also serves as a request for the correction of a defect in current releases of IBM-supplied programs.
01The Process
"Occasionally" IBM software has a bug.
Once it has been ascertained that the situation has not been caused by problems in third-party hardware or software or the user's configuration errors, IBM support staff, if they suspect that a defect in a current release of an IBM program is the cause, will file a formal report confirming the existence of an issue. In addition to confirming the existence of an issue, APARs include information on known workarounds, information on whether a formal fix is scheduled to be included in future releases, and whether or not a Program Temporary Fix (PTF) is planned.
Documenting the problem
IBM has a program to facilitate documenting the problem.
Solution levels
There are at least 2 levels of fix:
- The APAR may result in "an APAR fix."
- a permanent correction called a PTF. whereas the PTF "is a tested APAR... The PTF 'closes' the APAR." Prior to that, an APAR is "a problem with an IBM program that is formally tracked until a solution is provided.”
A PTF is a permanent correction with respect to the VRM (Version, Release, Modification) level of the product to which it is applicable, and is a temporary fix in the sense that the problem correction will temporarily be available as a permanent fix, and later will be incorporated into the product base code, and will thereby no longer be a fix, although the associated PTF and/or APAR numbers will, as a rule, be included in the source documentation associated with the ensuing base code update.
'
The acronym referred to: System Improvement / Difficulty Report.
02System Improvement Request
SIR (System Improvement Request) is a terminology that Digital Equipment Corporation used, much as Xerox used SIDR.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Authorized Program Analysis Report”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
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