Service Processor System Monitoring - Surveillance
Surveillance is a function in which the service processor monitors the system, and the
system monitors the service processor. This monitoring is accomplished by periodic
samplings called

heartbeats

.
Surveillance is available during two phases:
vSystem firmware bringup (automatic)
vOperating system runtime (optional)
Note: Operating system surveillance is disabled on partitioned systems.
System Firmware Surveillance
System firmware surveillance is automatically enabled during system power-on. It
cannot be disabled by the user, and the surveillance interval and surveillance delay
cannot be changed by the user.
If the service processor detects no heartbeats during system IPL (for a set period of
time), it cycles the system power to attempt a reboot. The maximum number of retries
is set from the service processor menus. If the fail condition persists, the service
processor leaves the machine powered on, logs an error, and displays menus to the
user. If Call-out is enabled, the service processor calls to report the failure and displays
the operating-system surveillance failure code on the operator panel.
56 Eserver pSeries 690 User’s Guide