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Joe, I'm not disputing that no vendor has "everything". And
again, I'm just doing my semi-annual rain dance to try and get some attention
from IBM to expand and enhance the design and development areas for NetView.
There is the appearance, justified or not, of apathetic management at IBM. When
you talk to people in support or development, they lament the situation. You can
tell they would love to do more - if they could, but have no
resources.
As I have stated many times in this forum, sometimes, it is
necessary and desirable to re-invent the wheel. There are inherent issues with
NetView (and as I said TEC also) where it is obvious that significant change is
necessary. Particularly in the area of single threaded architecture. When I
started working with NetView on the distributed side (I was a mainframe NetView
guy also), the networks were flat ethernet and token ring segments with low
speed links. Routers were small and simple, switches did not exist and only the
smallest minority of traffic was TCP/IP in corporate America. The internet was
not an avenue for commercial product deployment. Ancillary devices like UPS
systems and printers and PBX systems were not only non-SNMP manageable,
they weren't even hooked to the network. Not any more. Now, virtually everything
is attached to the network, virutally everyone is using TCP/IP, we not only have
high speed links we have 100mb and 1000mb ethernet and routers with hundreds of
interfaces. In corporate America, we have gone from a reactive approach (letting
users call the help desk) to the proactive model (driven by things like
Sarbannes Oxley legislation [sorry if the spelling is wrong] and overly
demanding service level agreements. For goodness sakes we have service level
agreements covering products we deliver OVER the internet!
And yet, the core architecture of NetView is virtually
identical to what it was 10 years. In software, evolution is key, and if you
don't agree, you merely need to look at Microsoft Windows and the IBM mainframe
products to see examples of technology that is fundamentally different than it
was 10 years ago because the market place pointed that way and IBM and Microsoft
recognized it. The development effort on the NetView product has not kept pace
with the advancement of technology and the changes in corporate culture and now
it looks, to the untrained eye anyway, to be an aging dinosaur amongst a lot of
young products that are loaded with functionality (albeit they all come with
their own support and inter-operability issues).
And the most infuriating aspect of it is that when you try
and raise the red flag, when you try and get the ear of IBM executives, you fall
short and are typically disappointed. Thats why I say the senior managment seems
oblivious or apathetic. Maybe it's time for NetView to be open source (probably
can't do that due to HP code).
Look, I have been accused of bleeding blue for a long time.
I *DO* believe in IBM as a company - I think they represent all that can be
right about a technology company. But I can tell you also that NetView is NOT
meeting the demands a typical corporate network. Everyone wants centralized
management. Everyone wants integrated systems, problem management, fault
isolation, escalation, automation - all have to be tied together. We have thrown
big hardware at NetView and we could throw even more, but I still can't get
around performance issues related to single threaded automation. And I can't
continue to endorse a platform that just doesn't seem to be going anywhere
technologically.
Maybe this seems like I'm overstating my opinion, and maybe
things are going on behind the scenes I don't know about, but right now, I don't
see a light at the end of a tunnel, not even an oncoming
train.
Hi Scott,
You buy the SNMP Security Pack for NetView from
SNMP Research.
No vendor today - aside possibly from Microsoft - would
claim to have products to meet all of its customers' requirements. Hence the
major vendors have Partner Developer Programs under which they encourage
Independent Software Vendors - like SNMP Research and us - to develop and
market complementary products to fill gaps.
As I
said, I am only addressing one point in your posting - support for
SNMPv3.
At 07:51 AM 04-08-04 -0500, "Barr, Scott"
<Scott_Barr AT csgsystems DOT com> wrote:
That
SNMPv3 support is via a purchased product? Or is that add-on free? I'm not
sure I consider that part of NetView. I was aware of that package.
- From: owner-nv-l AT lists.us.ibm DOT com [mailto:owner-nv-l AT lists.us.ibm DOT com] On Behalf Of
Joe Fernandez
- Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2004 8:55 PM
- To: nv-l AT lists.us.ibm DOT com
- Subject: Re: [nv-l] Enhancement Requests
- Hi Scott,
- Just on one of your points....
-
- At 09:22 AM 03-08-04 -0500, "Barr, Scott"
<Scott_Barr AT csgsystems DOT com> wrote:
- If it takes 18 months to get a fairly simple change (from a feature
point of view) to the "review" stage, then how long will it take for
support for SNMPv3?
I believe SNMPv3 is provided for NetView by the SNMP Security Pack
add-on from SNMP Research.
And, while I don't speak for IBM, this may be related to what you said
later......
Look, we all understand that IBM generally gives software away at
very reasonable prices and earns their revenues based on service
contracts.
Joe Fernandez
Kardinia Software
jfernand AT kardinia DOT com
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