[Info-vax] Is console Management a priority?

[Paul Sture]

On Tue, 01 Nov 2011 08:01:05 -0700, Dave wrote:

> On Nov 1, 10:50 am, Dale Dellutri <ddelQQQl... at panQQQix.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:37:44 -0700 (PDT), Bill Johnson
>> <baron.pi... at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >...
>> > Those of you that know me know that I am very interested and provide
>> > a Console Management solution, ConsoleWorks that runs on OpenVMS.  As
>> > we continue to support the product and actually build out capability
>> > for console management - I am interested in why you believe its
>> > important and why you need it. Those thoughts help TDI build out our
>> > roadmap and product feature set.
>>
>> I'm curious.  What advantage does this product have over using conman
>> or conserver running on a linux server connecting to a terminal
>> concentrator like an Avocent/Cyclades CS4016 whose ports are connected
>> to the serial consoles of, say, AlphaServers?
>>
> 
> I use Consoleworks to access the console on my one remaining
> alphaserver.    I can definitely say that my life would be worse without
> some kind of solution to provide connectivity to the Alpha console.   
> I'm not a huge ConsoleWorks advocate, however it is what I have, and it
> works fine, so I am a happy camper.
> 

I did a prolonged evaluation and subsequent implementation of ConsoleWorks 
in 2003.  We didn't have any Linux systems available back then, and were 
still on NT 4 plus Netscape on our PCs, so wanted the ability to do the 
monitoring from VMS boxes as far as possible.  At that time, ConsoleWorks 
would support Netscape 3.03 on VMS, even with the dated Javascript it 
understood.

Our requirement was to monitor both system consoles and disk/tape 
controllers via serial lines to terminal servers. We took a conscious 
decision to use an out of band product rather than relying on network 
resources on the machines being monitored, and this was one of 
ConsoleWorks' advantages.  IIRC CockpitMgr Manager became available 
around that time, but we'd already started down the ConsoleWorks route 
(think corporate decisions here, they take time).

During the evaluation period TDI were very responsive to bug reports and 
enhancement requests that I filed.

TDI were also trying to sell us various files containing all the error 
messages and suggested severity levels to match against, but we had 
already built up our own for an in house product, so didn't bite here.

I will mention something that had me biting my lip at the time though. 
During my evaluation Bill Johnson kept posting here on comp.os.vms 
offering a discount if we signed by the end of the month.  I knew that 
wasn't going to happen the way our corporate wheels turned, and I managed 
to keep to my estimate to the UK salesman that the whole process would 
take no more than 6 months.  FFS it took 6 weeks to organise a formally 
approved test environment, based on existing kit (it had to come off 
someone else's budget, and appropriate firewalls had to be closed off for 
someone else then opened up for me before I could start using it).

-- 
Paul Sture