I still maintain the following statements are true.
1. User groups work in large metro ares. I live in Nebraska. Good luck forming
a user group.
2. The issue is not user groups but geographic. I am sure I can find good
Netview help in NYC or Chicago.
3. An online site with all the modern conveniences (such as Chat, download
sections, FAQs and threaded forums) would be much better.
4. Take the word "unofficial" out of the forum. It should not be "unnofficial"
it should be a bona fide support forum.
I don't understand why this is not a "no brainer" for folks. What argument
could there be against such facilities? The only downside I can see is the cost
of "hosting" space and servers and for goodness sakes you would figure IBM
could come up with SOMETHING. Good lord we make James sit on his hands when he
has good answers he's not allowed to provide and we have gaping holes where no
expertise exists because we can't really "capture" it permanently as it
happens. I personally HATE the mailing list because I get all the emails about
everything. Often I have to mark all the forum messages read in my inbox
because I don't have time to read them so how much value is it to me anyway? I
would much rather have a forum I could use for research, a forum with threads
and on-site archives. And I can't emphasize enough the usefullness of download
sections for user contributions. You want a ruleset to correlate node down
events? SURE! You can have mine. But in a year, when someone else !
comes along who needs it, it's not already a common repository in the user
contribution section.
Features that would be nice:
1. Forums
2. Support Forms (for filing ESRs with support and retrieving patches - want to
keep them tighter in the loop)
3. Documentation
4. FAQs for new users
5. Enhancement requests
6. Download sections for user contributions
7. Chat rooms (for sessions with experts or ad-hoc meetings among interested
users in geographically diverse areas)
8. Registry of "experts" - people willing to mentor / assist other users
9. Surveys (for product and marketing people to submit questions like "Do you
think this ________________ enhancement is critical?")
I can see forums shaking out into several subcategories:
1. FAQs - new netview administrators
2. Best Practices - threads about the way things should be run
3. Automation Script development
4. Ruleset development
5. Application development (enhancing and expanding the web Console)
6. TEC Integration
7. Netmon/Discovery
8. Traps / Trapd
9. Mibs / snmpCollect
10. Enhancement discussions
Over year ago I set up a sample site for enhancement discussions. It took less
than an hour and it was totally free and had all of the things I just mentioned
above.
As an example, I found www.pong-story.com which is a web site with all of those
facilities (well most of them) for the ATARI VERSION OF PONG, a software
product that was invented in 1972 and could not be any simpler of an
application and has far more facilities than a 1960s era mailing list.
Once again, I will never offer a problem without a solution. If IBM would like
to see this sort of site set up for Netview I will volunteer my time and effort
to build and maintain it. I just can't believe the state of things in 2003. IBM
is going to have to understand the ROI on such a site will ultimately reduce
support costs and improve customer productivity.
Sorry, just my two hundred cents.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nv-l-digest@lists.us.ibm.com
[mailto:owner-nv-l-digest@lists.us.ibm.com]On Behalf Of Mike Odom
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 3:36 PM
To: nv-l@lists.us.ibm.com
Subject: Re: NetView User Groups (was[nv-l] another list)
I recently returned from the network user group meeting in Leipzig. There
is a meeting in the spring and one in the fall. The group is hosted by
individual customers at some hotel. The coordination is done by Share and
the attendees are members. Customers present their best practices and
typically we have one or more product or development representatives from
the lab to discuss some relevant topics. I think there is benefit from
this gathering as It provides me with the opportunity to gather
requirements and get direct feedback from customers on what they see coming
in the network management arena.
.
.
Mike Odom
Switch Analyzer Product Manager
Jane Curry
<jane.curry@skills-1st. To:
nv-l@lists.us.ibm.com
co.uk> cc:
Sent by: Subject: NetView User
Groups (was[nv-l] another list)
owner-nv-l-digest@lists
.us.ibm.com
10/17/2003 01:16 PM
Please respond to nv-l
I agree with Mike about the value of User Groups and the dearth of
NetView user groups. The problem seems to be that no-one currently has
education or travel budget, and when they did, we were still a
relatively sparse community when spread around the globe.
I believe that the Germans DO have a NetView User Group - can anyone
comment on if / how that works?
Another suggestion is to run a BOF (Birds Of a Feather) session at /
after a Tivoli User Group. I did this at Planet Tivoli in New Orleans
but even with a week's advanced notice, we still only had half a dozen
of us chewing the NetView fat.
I guess it doesn't help Mike, but we have a Tivoli User Group meeting in
the UK on November 13th. If there's interest, I would be very happy to
hold an informal NetView BOF afterwards ("informal" tends to be defined
as "includes beer/ wine / food at a local hostelry on a self-funding
basis"). If there's interest, please respond. Perhaps others TUGs
could do the same. Ideally, we need more NetView content on a TUG
agenda, but that means someone has to volunteer...
My 2 pennorth.....
Cheers,
Jane
Mike Walsh wrote:
>Scott and James,
>
>If I can weigh in with my own frustrations. I am very new to Netview and
>the whole Unix world Being such, a lot of this stuff goes over my head.
>What disappoints me is that there are no user groups, meetings etc. where
I
>could try to gain added knowledge and expertise. Nobody I could talk to
>and share information with directly. I've been to the admin class, and
>while Charlie Carter is very, very good at teaching, he only has a few
days
>to beat everything into our heads.
>
>I mean the Tivoli bunch have one that meets regularly. Why not Netview.
>Guess it is because we are a poor cousin to Tivoli and so overworked and
>under-maned in the business world that we could never get away regardless.
>
>Mike Walsh
>****Please Note - New EMAIL Address mike.walsh@us.ing.com*********
>612-342-3118
>
>
>
> "Barr, Scott"
> <Scott_Barr@csgsy To:
nv-l@lists.us.ibm.com
> stems.com> cc:
> Subject: RE: [nv-l]
another list
> 10/15/2003 01:20
> PM
> Please respond to
> nv-l
>
>
>
>
>
>Well, I will weigh in on this from a different perspective.
>
>I think the mailing list and a newsgroup both have significant
limitations.
>In this day and age, more facilities should be available for a user
>community than just a simple email thread. If you look around at other
>software products and their support forums, you see a feature list like
>this:
>
>1. Message threads / bulletin board
>2. Download area for user contributions (i.e. let me share my script /
>rulesets with you)
>3. Chat room for online meetings with product experts
>4. Patches
>5. Documentation
>6. Surveys / questionnaires
>7. Enhancement requests
>
>Just to draw a parallel - I play online games. If you go look at the
>support site for a user community from one of the popular MMORPGs you find
>a suite of tools and features that is quite robust and usually these are
>supported by fans without a lot of capital to pay for fancy features -
they
>just use whats easily obtained and create some DAMN good web sites to
>support their "guilds". It is extremely annoying to me, that the user
>community for NetView is still living in the text only 1970s bulletin
board
>format.
>
>I don't really have a preference about news vs. email, I just hate the
>limited feature set for support so we have to keep answering the same
>questions for folks over and over (no threads so we can't have a sticky
>topic with FAQs) - no download area so we can't share files / scripts,
etc.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-nv-l-digest@lists.us.ibm.com
> [mailto:owner-nv-l-digest@lists.us.ibm.com]On Behalf Of James Shanks
> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 10:30 AM
> To: nv-l@lists.us.ibm.com
> Subject: RE: [nv-l] another list
>
>
>
> Folks,
>
> I sent a posting to this list a couple days ago, which I don't seem to
> be able to find any more, so I'll try again.
>
> I inquired about this and was told that a Tivoli executive had ordered
> the creation of this NetView newsgroup so that he could say that all
> Tivoli products, like all IBM products, had one. Furthermore, the
> mention of the newsgroup in the next version of each product's Release
> Notes was also mandated. No one in my group nor in NetView development
> even saw this boiler plate before the ID group replaced that book on
> the CD. It was not considered technical content and therefore was not
> given to them to review. That's why the nv-l list was not mentioned
> there as well. I have already escalated this and I think that will be
> rectified in the Release Notes to the first FixPack for 7.1.4.
>
> As for the newsgroup itself, even the people who created it say that
> they do not think of it is a replacement for the nv-l list, which they
> admit is monitored by people with much more expertise than any
newsgroup
> is.
>
> So my advice is that, as users, you "vote with your feet" as it were
and
> use the vehicle you prefer. This list is your forum after all; it was
> started by customers for customers, and until it suddenly needed a home
> and a Tivoli guy volunteered to rescue it, it was not maintained by
IBM
> at all. If you choose not to participate on the newsgroup, you need
> not. I don't plan to, myself.
>
>
> James Shanks
> Level 3 Support for Tivoli NetView for UNIX and Windows
> Tivoli Software / IBM Software Group
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
--
Tivoli Certified Consultant & Instructor
Skills 1st Limited, 2 Cedar Chase, Taplow, Bucks, SL6 0EU, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1628 782565
Copyright (c) 2003 Jane Curry <jane.curry@skills-1st.co.uk>. All rights
reserved.
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