RE: [nv-l] servmon and itmquery in NV 7.1.4

["Barr, Scott" <Scott_Barr@csgsystems.com>]

Jane, could you tell us how you REALLY feel? (ducking)

My PMR is essentially dead. I will share the response I got from Development and I will also share my response to development. I'm sorry, folks are going to dislike what I am about to post. Unfortunately, you all won't know anything about servmon or it's status if I don't since apparently it's not going to get any attention from anyone anytime soon.

I just want to re-iterate to everyone listening - level 2 support team ROCKS! (And I mean all of you).

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First Response to the PMR

-----Original Message-----
From: (removed)
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 1:30 PM
To: Barr, Scott
Subject: RE: PMR 13988


Scott,
I got confirmation that servmon will not draw icons for the services it
discovers, it will only populate a smartset with devices that have the
service discovered.
The multi-homed boxes should get drawn in the smartset. I will test your
mutli-homed scenario by turning off the service from the main snmp
interface and then seeing if it populates the smartset.

(removed)

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My Response

To:    (removed)

cc:
Subject:    RE: PMR 13988

Do I understand correctly that Windows versions DO draw the icons?

Here is my problem: My mainframes have 20-30 services running on them. My
main application servers have as many as 100 services running on them. If a
service fails, I have no way of know which one failed. The icon shows up in
the smartset saying "I Have those services you want to know about" but I
have no way of knowing which one.

This seems like a pretty useless feature without that information and we've
been patiently waiting for it since nvsniffer made it's debut. Please tell
me service icons can be created to reflect which services are down. And if
you tell me it works on Windows, and not on Unix, I'm going to get down
right obnoxious since that screams "the code wasn't done yet".

Sorry to be a pain, but we really really needed this feature and I am quite
dismayed if it isn't actually useful.

Another question, can you provide details about what kind of code is
required for the "discovery test" i.e. does it have to be java? Is there an
archtected return code or something? More details would be very helpful.

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Next Response from Support

From: (removed)

Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 3:01 PM
To: Barr, Scott
Subject: RE: PMR 13988

Scott,
Windows version does draw icons for the services and will display status of
the service. However, it is based on node and not interface, so 3
interfaces each with a service will only display 1 icon.
I don't believe there is a way to create icons on unix so as to reflect
which services are down. I will need to double check this with L3.
I understand your position and frustration.
I will also check on the discovery test issue you raised.

(removed)

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To:    (removed)

cc:
Subject:    RE: PMR 13988

 

(removed) any update? We have a comittment from an application team to write a
status program.

 

Does it seem to you that the code was maybe released before it was done? I
really like/need the functionality of servmon but I am sorely disappointed
it is so crippled in this release. I'm not a big fan of "wait until next
release" so with there actually being people wanting to use it, what do you
think my chances are of getting one that is functional?

 

The status application specs would be appreciated.

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And here is the "*FINAL*" response from support

Scott,
I have checked with L3 and there is no way to create icons for the
services.

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WARNING THIS WAS MY FINAL RESPONSE TO SUPPORT - FLAME ON

First off, let me assure you that I in no way feel that your support has been anything but perfect. NO L2 complaints here.

Okay. Now, ask them this...

Why not?

If that sounds fascetious I'm sorry. I think this is a bunch of crap.

Second off, I am once again severely disappointed in L3. I think once again, a feature was included in a release that was not ready to be delivered. For goodness sake, if I put my mind to it, I guarantee that I could write rulesets and database automation to build the services in the map. It would be a time-consuming, resource-wasting administrative-nightmare kludge or I would have done it already. But it could be done. The answer "there is no way to create icons for the services." is obviously incorrect. Of course they could. They don't want to, have "more important" things to do (Maybe they are working on my 2 year old enhancement request to allow smarset icons in web client scopes, but I doubt it). They have icons for everything else. The windows version has icons. Nothing in the manual/release notes indicates I should not expect icons for the services.

Why do I need icons? Well, to be honest, our mainframes and application servers have dozens of ports in use. Not so many that icons would be prohibitive, but enough that navigating a menu drop down doesn't help much and a visual cue would be much better. (Especially since the entire application is driven around a visual entity - the smartset).

I am sure there is zero chance of this PMR being closed with me being satisfied so you can close it as "L3 won't fix it and the customer doesn't have any say" Feel free to send it up the escalation chain. And people wonder why IBM occasionally gets a black eye.

I'm not bitter, just angry and vocal. This is the "new netview" where the emphasis is on deploying new features as fast as possible and leave old features broken or castrated (NetView security, native console, "backup" functionality etc. etc.) I would be happy to discuss this new "feature" with anyone internally who is interested. And, once again, I volunteer my name for NetView pre-release/beta/early support testing. In my estimation this code is broke.

- Scott

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Aren't you glad you asked.