Yes, I have. During our efforts to deploy MLM data collection, we worked
very closely with multiple folks at Tivoli. At the time (mid-1998), we were
one of the original Lighthouse customers, so we worked the issues through
the product manager. We also had multiple cases open with the Support
Center and, overall, received good support in fixing the problems or getting
workarounds. We had a few conference calls with the product managers (Gerry
Roy and Mike Aiott), support manager (Mark Stowers), developers (Tom Hemp),
and support staff. There was also a group of folks from Tivoli that came on
site to help us with problems during the version 5.1 beta test. One of
them, Wayne Hawkins, asked me to document my concerns about MLM, which I did
and e-mailed to him.
(Get ready for some venting)
The biggest issue for us was that Tivoli made the bonehead decision of NOT
PROVIDING FIXES FOR VERSION 5.0!!! Combine that with the fact that version
5.1 was not yet available, and we were put in a situation that was
completely unworkable. We were forced by Tivoli to abandon our plans for
distributed SNMP data collection with MLM, and to use the NetView server
instead. This solution does not scale to our enterprise (not enough server
resources), which forced us to upgrade our NetView server (I'm not
complaining about that one too much, though; it's very nice having the extra
horsepower!). Even after the server upgrade, we still are not polling all
of the resources that we planned to. This is primarily because we want to
minimize the SNMP traffic on some of our WAN links, so we are doing limited
polling of resources which are "remote" to our NetView server.
Now, here we are again two years later, still thinking about using MLM for
distributed data collection. If Tivoli wants to keep its customers happy
(unlike "the no fixes for 5.0" decision), then I am confident that they will
figure out how to make MLM polling work for us.
(end of venting: I feel a little better now)
I don't mean to sound like I'm just complaining, but I think that this group
of NetView users could be a powerful force with Tivoli. You may not
experience the same problems that we have (you may not even use these
functions), but I just hope that this information helps you in your dealings
with Tivoli and NetView. Better yet, if any of you are more successful than
I at influencing the product, or if we can do it collectively, then we will
all benefit.
Joel Gerber - I/T Networking Professional - USAA Information Technology Co.
- San Antonio, TX
* (210)456-4231 * mailto:Joel.Gerber@USAA.com "
http://www.usaa.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Leslie Clark [SMTP:lclark@US.IBM.COM]
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2000 21:10
To: NV-L@UCSBVM.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Re: MLM experiences
Joel, have you detailed your concerns and requirements to your
Tivoli rep,
and/or netview@tivoli.com? It is important that you do so. Product
planning
involves cost/benefit analysis, and customer input is critical to
the
process.
Thanks.
Cordially,
Leslie A. Clark
IBM Global Services - Systems Mgmt & Networking
Detroit
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