Skip to main content

So many tools, so many problems

It seems like many of my more "complex" legacy tools are not setup "right" for what we want to do. I'm always struggling with some of these products.

A good example today is HP NNM which is our MPLS, and topology manager. The main goals of the tool are to build a layer 2/3 topology and do server and upstream suppression to avoid alarm floods. Of course none of it works right, and it's a constant main in the rear. We have tried on many occasions to fix this with the help of HP. We have tried numerous suggestions.

Finally I got on the phone today with a product manager and got the real story. We can implement some changes which would fix it for now, the downside we'd lose some of our DR capabilities. The product wasn't designed to actually operate in a DR type of way (strange for a market leading product). They have a new version coming out in roughly a year which should fix this, and we'd have to re-architect the infrastructure yet again.

    The good news is that we are ahead of HP and we've been using products they have recently acquired. Our use of these products and the fact that we are ahead of the game makes them want to talk to us. This is a good thing, because we can help create the future for them. Its helps us and it helps them.

    In the meantime, I'm deciding if we can afford to do a short term fix, and then a major re-architecture in a year. I want to investigate IBM Precision, as its really slick and nice integration to Netcool Omnibus/Webtop would make our lives easier. It's really going to be a matter of cost and functionality. We looked at Precision several years ago when it was a Micromuse product, it was recently acquired by them and the product was not "working" in our environment. It was a young product, and its been completely rewritten since then. I have high hopes, we'll see how the POC goes, which should be well underway in early December.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Q1: What version of NNM ?

Q2: Were you able to get extended topology to correctly discover your entire network ?

Q3: Did you have APA enabled ?


You have a huge complex network and I am curious how well extended topology did in discovering your entire network to even allow APA to work.

-Jerry
Thursday, November 08, 2007 11:24:00 PM
Unknown said…
We are on 7.5 right now, and we will be testing 8i unless we decide to toss NNM for Precision.

We do have discovery working, extended topology, MPLS SPI. RAMS SPI is not working due to us not able to use APA.

We cannot use APA as we have a fully redundant/HA environment. APA doesn't support that setup yet. We may change (and lose proper DR and resiliency).
Friday, November 09, 2007 8:57:00 AM
Anonymous said…
Now I understand your previous comment that you could implement some changes now but lose some DR capabilities.

Thx for the info. I never knew NNM APA couldn't currently work with NNM HA deployment.

Jerry
Saturday, November 10, 2007 10:11:00 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dynatrace Growth Misinformation

For my valued readers: I wanted to point out some issues I’ve recently seen in the public domain. As a Gartner analyst, I heard many claims about 200% growth, and all kind of data points which have little basis in fact. When those vendors are asked what actual numbers they are basing those growth claims on, often the questions are dodged. Dynatrace, recently used the Gartner name and brand in a press release. In Its First Year as an Independent Company, Gartner Ranks Dynatrace #1 in APM Market http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/06/prweb12773790.htm I want to clarify the issues in their statements based on the actual Gartner facts published by Gartner in its Market Share data: Dynatrace says in their press release: “expand globally with more than three times the revenue of other new generation APM vendors” First, let’s look at how new the various technologies are: Dynatrace Data Center RUM (DCRUM) is based on the Adlex technology acquired in 2005, but was cr...
10 comments
Read more

Misunderstanding "Open Tracing" for the Enterprise

When first hearing of the OpenTracing project in 2016 there was excitement, finally an open standard for tracing. First, what is a trace? A trace is following a transaction from different services to build an end to end picture. The latency of each transaction segment is captured to determine which is slow, or causing performance issues. The trace may also include metadata such as metrics and logs, more on that later. Great, so if this is open this will solve all interoperability issues we have, and allow me to use multiple APM and tracing tools at once? It will help avoid vendor or project lock-in, unlock cloud services which are opaque or invisible? Nope! Why not? Today there are so many different implementations of tracing providing end to end transaction monitoring, and the reason why is that each project or vendor has different capabilities and use cases for the traces. Most tool users don't need to know the implementation details, but when manually instrumenting wi...
2 comments
Read more

IBM Pulse 2008 - Review

I spent Monday-Wednesday at IBM Pulse in Orlando. It was a good show, but quite a few of the sessions were full when I arrived. It was frustrating because they didn't offer them more than once. The morning sessions were mostly pie in the sky, and not very useful to me. I got to spend a lot of time with senior people in engineering, architecture, and acquisitions/strategy. I also got to meet people I knew from online or other dealings with IBM. Overall, the show was a good use of my time, and I found it enjoyable. Here are some of my highlights: ITM 6.2.1 improvements including agentless capabilities and such. New reporting framework based on BIRT which will be rolling forward. New UI which is being pushed and was on display from TBSM 4.2. Hearing about what other customers are up to (mostly bad decisions from what I've seen). Affirmation of ITNM (Precision) as a best of breed tool, with a excellent roadmap. Some things which are bad and make no sense: Focus on manufactur...
6 comments
Read more