| > a) Is the NET/MASTER product relegated to a simple "messenger" role
> between DECmcc and NETVIEW (as opposed to a viable NETVIEW
> alternative) in this environment?
>
SCI will be providing a "NetView Bridge", that co-resides with NetView (no
mean feat, given the limitations of the CNM interface in VTAM). It will
manage the IBM side of the communication with the DECmcc components, but,
more than that, will provide the conversion into the IBM formatted alerts
for processing by the NetView Hardware Monitor. It will also provide the
NetView components needed for the NetView operator to manage the flow
of events/alerts between the systems. Depending on configuration, it may
be able to provide distribution between SNA domains beyond that done
by NetView.
> b) Or are we planning on forming a similar peer relationship
> between DECmcc and NETVIEW?
See above and below.
>
> c) Will the benefits to this existing NETVIEW customer be at least
> as enticing and transparent as the "NET/MASTER to DECmcc"
> bidirectional links?
No, the NetView customer will NOT realize the same benefits as the Net/Master
user. This is partly for strategic reasons, partly for purely technical
reasons, and partly for reasons of not wanting to put effort into things
that will not solve real customer problems.
Example: We will be able to forward DECmcc events to the SNA management system.
Net/Master can make the original information available to the user on a
screen and/or to user-developed NCL processes. In NetView, however, the
conversion to standard formats and pre-defined fields will certainly result
in a loss of information. Another example of the difference is that Net/Master
provides a level of management information distribution that is not currently
available with NetView. It is not clear whether this will change, or how
much it will change, with NetView V2R2, not due out for another year.
The basic differences in the 2 configurations are this: with either full-blown
Net/Master or the NetView bridge, we will be able to receive SNA notifications
in DECmcc, and provide basic monitoring and control of SNA resources from
DECmcc, and we will be able to forward DECmcc events to be treated as
alerts in either SNA management system. There will also be access from
Net/Master to some management operations in DECmcc; that will not be available
to the NetView operator. Lastly, there will be some configuration limitations
with NetView that we can overcome with Net/Master - purely a function of the
differences between the two product architectures.
Hope this helps, for now. We'll try to get more details out as they're
available.
K
|
| I just received a copy of a local hospital's 5 year Strategic Network plan.
As they explain their own Strategic Network Architecture, under the Net Mgt
section they state that...
"Net Mgt info will be accepted that conforms to the following standards:
1) SNMP
2) CMIP/CMIS
3) IBM's SNA Network Management Vector Transport (NMVT) message
format. The IBM define Request for Maintenance Statistics (RECFMS)
is not an acceptable substitute."
Since DEC will have no problem meeting requirements 1 and 2 above, and since
this hospital has an SNA network now with Netview installed,...
Is it too early in the DEC-SCI partnership to know whether or not SCI will
use NMVT as their message format when communicating between NETVIEW and MCC?
Thanks, Stan
|
|
>Is it too early in the DEC-SCI partnership to know whether or not SCI will
>use NMVT as their message format when communicating between NETVIEW and MCC?
No, although it's early enough that anything we think is true today may
be false tomorrow, and vice versa.
Having said that, the answer is, as always, "it depends". That is,
NMVTs will not flow across the wire, but alerts sent to NetView will
likely be formatted into NMVT alert major vectors for passing across
the interface into NetView.
Other information - such as that which controls the state of the alert
flow - will never be in NMVT format.
I can't resist pointing out, however, that the management information
flow is between two cooperating applications (i.e. DECmcc/SNA and
NET/MASTER) and presented at known interfaces, so the on-the-wire
encoding really shouldn't matter to anyone!
|