Roger there is one thing I disagree with here.  This was worse than a train
wreck.  It was a train taking a wrecked train to the scrap pile that wrecked
in the station before leaving.

Adolph is working on this from the Share and Tivoli Sales and Marketing end.
I am working on it from the Level 2 management and Critical Situation team.
I just hope the picture is better than the two train tracks that do not
meet.

Paul D. Seay, Jr.
Technical Specialist
Naptheon Inc.
757-688-8180


-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Deschner [mailto:rogerd AT UIC DOT EDU]
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 11:17 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: OK IBM _ ENOUGH ALREADY with the IBM/Tivoli TSM website -


After fielding numerous questions from our end-users about where to get
client code, I went in to get it myself. After following the circles around
and around to dizziness, I hit the jackpot: I got the popup ibm.com web site
survey. Well, in almost all categories, it got marks somewhere between
"poor" and "terrible". (i.e. 3 down to 0 on the 1-10 scale). I clicked
"Submit" satisfied that, well, they asked, and they got what they asked for.

At a major campuswide seminar yesterday afternoon, I was forced to admit to
our end-user consultants that client code was "temporarily unavailable".
Until now, I have been loath to maintain a local library of client code,
because it is always changing and it would be a maintenance headache. Until
now. I now think I've got a new maintenance headache - a local library of
client code to build and maintain.

Also, the new web pages are MUCH SLOWER than the old. I finally broke out of
the loops to find the WinXP 5.1.5 client code, and it took 20 minutes to
download via our really wide pipe to the 'net. Our students can download a
similarly sized music file in an eyeblink. It's going to take me all day to
build that new local library of client code for various platforms. I'll try
the ftp site, which is not anything I'd inflict on end-users.

When it comes to browsers, we mostly use Netscape, we distribute it to our
end-users, and we mildly discourage IE due to security concerns and
incompatibility with some of our own web pages.

We were warned that there would be something new coming on the horizon, and
that this would be about the time it would come down the tracks. When it
arrived, it was clearly a train wreck. I suggest that a temporary backout to
the old web site would be appropriate until the new one can be made to work.
(With the newest client code made available via the old site until the new
site works.)

Adolph Kahan (below) is a leader in SHARE's ITSM project, so I hope his
influence helps get something done about this pretty quickly. (At moments
like this, you see the value of user groups like SHARE!) It has been a
public embarassment to those of us who are proponents of ITSM at our sites.

Roger Deschner      University of Illinois at Chicago     rogerd AT uic DOT edu


On Wed, 23 Oct 2002, Adolph Kahan wrote:

>I escalated this to the TSM Product Manager in San Jose. He is
>following up with the developers of the Web Site.
>
>I also sent a note to the FEEDBACK mechanism and was told that some of
>the problems could be due to the Browser I was running. They now only
>support Internet Explorer. If you use Netscape on Windows or any other
>platform, you are out of luck. Netscape is one of the few browsers that
>run on Linux and various UNIX flavors.
>
>Whoever was responsible for the architecture of the new "unimproved"
>web site really missed the boat.
>
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf
>Of Mark D. Rodriguez
>Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 5:20 PM
>To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
>Subject: Re: OK IBM _ ENOUGH ALREADY with the IBM/Tivoli TSM website -
>
>Prather, Wanda wrote:
>
>>The new IBM/Tivoli Storage Manager pages are now Circular, and have
>been
>>that way for days.
>>
>>We RELY on the web pages to do client downloads.
>>DOES ANYBODY KNOW who we can call to get this mess straigtened out?!?
>>
>>I've had people from Tivoli asking ME how to get to the downloads page
>-
>>THIS IS STUPID AND INCONSIDERATE OF THE CUSTOMERS AND INTERFERES WITH
>THE
>>SALE AND SUPPORT OF THIS PRODUCT.
>>
>>WHY don't you ever ask WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS NEED BEFORE screwing with
>this
>>stuff?!?
>>
>>
>To All of You,
>
>I have just forwarded your comments on to Michael James.  He is the
>Tivoli Storage Channel Manager for the south-west region.  I am sure he
>will direct these complaints to the appropriate people.  As an IBM
>Business Partner I apologize for this situation and I am using whatever
>influence I have to get this matter resolved.
>
>--
>Regards,
>Mark D. Rodriguez
>President MDR Consulting, Inc.
>
>=======================================================================
>=
>=======
>MDR Consulting
>The very best in Technical Training and Consulting.
>IBM Advanced Business Partner
>SAIR Linux and GNU Authorized Center for Education
>IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert, CATE
>AIX Support and Performance Tuning, RS6000 SP, TSM/ADSM and Linux
>Red Hat Certified Engineer, RHCE
>========================================================================
>=======
>