ISC why should I bother?

[timgren]

We have always been a CLI shop. We recently upgrades all of our servers from 5.2.9.0 to 5.3.4.2.

Our IBM sales rep asked how the ISC install and transition went. When I told him we're not going to install it, he became very concerned that we may be running in an unsupported environment.

I have used ISC for another new install in Sydney. We gave it an honest month long eval. I personally can't stand it. My feeling is that It's a bloated, slow, and rather useless Java console intergrated into TSM on the ruling of a Sr. IBM VP that only sees budget and spreadsheets and nothing else. (I bet he/she got a bonus for the decision too.)

So... Since we don't / won't use it, why bother installing it?

Am I missing anything?

 

[tmcquaig]

No you are not.

Looks like you summarized it very well.

 

[heada]

I've been using TSM since the ADSM 3.1 days back in 1998. I can honestly say that the ISC is the worst thing IBM has ever done to TSM. If you don't have to use it, I'd suggest that you don't. There is nothing in the ISC that you can't do via CLI. If IBM were to ever drop the CLI, we'd drop TSM.

-Aaron

 

[gweston]

ISC stinks

You aren't alone. ISC stinks. Plain and simple.

I installed it on a machine. Used it for a day.. and junked it. It performs like junk, the ui is horrible, and it can probably only do a fraction of the things the old web interface could. Yeah, maybe it can do more.. but considering how clumsy the interface is and how long it takes to get something done.. I can pop to the command line, figure out the correct syntax for something, and execute it in much less the time.

Hopefully they smarten up and bring something similar to the web interface back. Simple logic. If it works well. Don't break it.

 

[n9kws]

Fellow TSM Admins ----

Lets put ISC into prospective here, it was designed to help new TSM admins get value out of the product from day 2, and reduce the learning curve of these people. As experienced admins we all mutually agree that the new ISC stuff is more pain than help. However, I feel that I must point out one or two areas where the use of the ISC is helpful (depending on your shop).

Areas ISC is helpful:

1) TSM service health monitoring -- If you have operators doing the daily work, then this can really reduce your workload, by having an operator do the health monitoring.

2) Setting up advanced scheduling combinations -- As we all know that 'classic' backup scheduler in older versions of TSM made it difficult to impossible to get the exact schedule you wanted. This new scheduler does lots more, and provides many more options for scheduling.

And a few other things, so lets not give up on the ISC quite so quickly. It's likely to be around for quite awhile, and there is not much chance the web admin will return anytime soon.

Andy.

PS. Yes, I know you can do health reporting with the Operational Reporting tool, but if you have multiple TSM server, the ISC can let you see the health on one screen (dashboard style) which operational reporting cannot.

 

[chad_small]

n9kws I must disagree with your points.

1) First off the ISC does nothing to help new admins work with TSM since the Interface is so convoluted and slow it actually makes the admin dumber using it! YES that is true! And the health monitor although good does not do enough to alleviate the CRAP that is the ISC.

2) Setting up schedules through the command line are as easy when you consider that by the time the admin actually figures out where scheduling in done in the Admin Center I could have defined mutliple schedules from the command line. And to be truthful I would not be surprised if one of the scripting gurus here has not made a sweet shell script to do just that.

I just tried to upgrade the ISC from 5.3 to 5.4 and it failed misserably. It gave me JVM errors and I could not uninstall the previous version. I had to reimage the windows server and install from scratch. Since installing from scratch I notice that nothing has been done to help with usability with the Admin Center. Most items go off the screen and to be honest IBM should fire the Admin Center project managers for not doing any usability testing. Most items go off the screen and the average 1024x768 user can not serious use it to help with productivity. This has to go down in the anals of App interfaces as one of the biggest blunders in recent history.

 

[max]

n9kws, come on .... "it was designed to help new TSM admins get value out of the product from day 2" ... please ...

if you are happy with ISC, it's ok, but the only reason IBM has developed that awful thing, is to try and sell more products and plug them into the Websphere Portal ...

in my opinion, tsm is a great software, because it lets you configure what you need in a very flexible way, and you cannot reach that on "day 2". You better buy Veritas, should you need some precompiled stuff ...

cheers
max

 

[dms19]

Its jerky and slow, but there are somethings I'd rather just do in the ISC than fumble with on the CL. I have a few admins new to TSM, and the ISC (once you find what you are looking for) allows things like moving client nodes from one PD to another much easier than CL.

So I agree and disagree!!

Personally I liked the 5.2 interface. I wish theyd bring that back in a big way!

 

[chad_small]

You can still use the 5.2 web interface but moving clients from one PD to another is so much easier on the command line, it takes 5 seconds!

 

[chad_small]

I recommend TSMManager its has a lot of features that the ISC needs not to mention the speed. ISC is so slow its unusable.

 

[may]

Yep,
You can do everything and more with TSMManager!
you have reporting and also a alert manager

So Web Int or TSMManager,
or as we do here both but NEVER ISC

 

[sudheer_kb]

How the ISC works for TSM 5.4

As anyone experienced ISC newer version if any for TSM 5.4. Please let me know is there any difference.

What you guys would suggest for alternative to ISC

 

[SANMAN]

I refused to deal with ISC Admin Center and I like gui's until this crap came along. It takes all days just to do something, what gives.

 

[moon-buddy]

The ISC is a good idea but poorly implementated. The java implementation is poor. If IBM had used a proven programming language like C++ or a scripting language like Perl to write the codes/routines, execution will definitely be faster.

I will stick with the classic Web Admin interface and CLI.

 

[sudheer_kb]

Is anyone know that Web admin interface is going to work for TSM 5.4 ? if not what would be the GUI interface or have to deal with this ISC

 

[blagrange]

I second TSM manager. If you want an interface for new TSM admins TSM manager is very good for that. And it is reasonably priced.

 

[Sunhillow]

I think TSMmanager is cheaper than this Java monster, it doesn't need a dedicated machine to run on. If I only knew ISC as TSM front end, I seriously would look for another backup application.

Probably the IBM management prefers listening to the claqueurs who are responsible for this thing, not to their customers

 

[lztz3v]

webadmin GUI and TSM 5.4

I upgraded my TSM 5.3 Windows test server, which has the 5.2 webadmin GUI installed, to TSM 5.4 and the GUI was still there and working fine.

 

[sjhorvath]

I'm with everyone on this thread, except I also hated the web browser, never found any value to it because whenever you clicked on something it would redraw to display the output and you lost what you were previously looking at. Jim Morrison, had he lived and took a career in IT, might have said: Let it scroll, baby, scroll... Let it scroll, baby, scroll.

Admin center is so complicated that I can't even figure out how to login to it anb find TSM. CLI forever and ever!

 

[mricca]

Isc 5.3.3

We recently upgraded our server a couple months ago. I have ISC 5.3.3 installed and running on a little windows server...but honestly I am afraid of it. I login occationally and kind of look around, but am not comfortable running any updates or commands. I prefer the command line. And we still have the old GUI running as a backup. Anything I cannot do via command line I run via the old GUI and then find the command it ran and save it for future. I still cannot find where to set up a new client schedule without having to thumb through all the manuals.