>> On Fri, 3 Mar 2006 14:28:06 -0500, Richard Mochnaczewski 
>> <Richard.Mochnaczewski AT STANDARDLIFE DOT CA> said:


> I had some problems with the setup of the Admin Console. I placed a
> call with IBM, [...]


The ranting about the ISC was legion in Oxford, and clearly a source
of frustration for the IBMers there; there were many questions or
"I-want" type statements which were answered with "We're doing that in
the Admin Console".  It's clear that they've placed a lot of effort
and thought into the AC design.

I'm starting to think that we, TSM admins, are just too varied a bunch
to have our needs met within the constraints of one such system and
the ideology that must be imposed with it.  Maybe IBM can just ditch
the GUI idea entirely, and leave the market to the 3rd party tools.
Or maybe they can ditch the idea that the GUI is 'full featured', and
deploy something intended to coddle folks who are never going to make
the effort, and omit the hard bits.



I'm in sympathy with the desire to web-ify many administrative aspects
of many IBM tools under a unified umbrella.  But the One Ring to Rule
Them All attitude has well-documented failure modes, and nobody wants
to be Sauron at the end.

It gets worse when the One Ring is as (pardon me) shaky and
unmaintainable as Websphere.  We've had deep, deep _DEEP_ problems
with that product.  A low point was when a level 2 tech in all
seriousness told us he wasn't sure the product supported HTTP.

No, really. I can't make that up.  Our tech replied that maybe they
should change the product name to just "Sphere".

I've been through the AIX install of the ISC and AC on a disposable
LPAR several times now; even with a fresh clean box and support on the
line, we've not been able to get a working console up, which I find
more amusing than irritating, any more.



- Allen S. Rout