Jimbo wrote:

> I've been in AIX support for a few years, and so far I've managed to
> avoid using a Windows based GUI to manage and monitor the AIX systems
> I've supported. Managed fine with the command line.
>
> We've now got 24 AIX servers to manage, and I think the time has come
> to use a GUI based management software.
>
> It need to be Windows/browser based product. It would be useful if it
> could integrate into HACMP as well.
>
> Any Ideas as to which would be a suitable product.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> James.

James;

Usually the overhead required to run a GUI for a server is not worth it
IMHO. Do what I/We did... install webmin on each AIX box. It runs its own
perl based http(s) server which is extremely efficient and each server can
be accessed from a browser on your desktop. Therefore there is NO GUI on
the server itself.

There never has been anything that I haven't been able to do admin-wise
using webmin.
www.webmin.com

Good luck.

Bob

On Oct 8, 6:52 am, Jimbo wrote:
> I've been in AIX support for a few years, and so far I've managed to
> avoid using a Windows based GUI to manage and monitor the AIX systems
> I've supported. Managed fine with the command line.
>
> We've now got 24 AIX servers to manage, and I think the time has come
> to use a GUI based management software.
>
> It need to be Windows/browser based product. It would be useful if it
> could integrate into HACMP as well.
>
> Any Ideas as to which would be a suitable product.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> James.

Have you looked at wsm?

On Oct 8, 5:55*pm, smallpond wrote:
> On Oct 8, 6:52 am, Jimbo wrote:
>
> > I've been in AIX support for a few years, and so far I've managed to
> > avoid using a Windows based GUI to manage and monitor the AIX systems
> > I've supported. Managed fine with the command line.
>
> > We've now got 24 AIX servers to manage, and I think the time has come
> > to use a GUI based management software.
>
> > It need to be Windows/browser based product. It would be useful if it
> > could integrate into HACMP as well.
>
> > Any Ideas as to which would be a suitable product.
>
> > Thanks in advance.
>
> > James.
>
> Have you looked at wsm?

I think you should really seperate the requirements of monitor and
manage. What app are these boxes running? Does your enviroment already
have some monitoring infrastructure in place? If not, Nagios is easy
to setup and get going. This can do monitoring and notifications! If
you have an Oracle enviroment, talk to the DBAs about getting in on
Grid Control, since it can do alot of the same.

For mgmt, I've always stayed with command line stuff. I've tried
Webmin (awhile ago) on HP-UX and disliked it. It was only helpful for
small things like user/group creation, anything hard hitting (disk,
filesystem, ulimits, etc) I needed to jump to the command line, so it
was pointless. Maybe it's changed since then? Also, since AIX has WSM,
wouldn't this do a much better job?

Are you already using NIS+ to make user land an easier place?

Exactly what mgmt problems are you having? If you let us know, we've
probably been through it and can let you know how we handled it.

edcrosbys wrote:
> On Oct 8, 5:55 pm, smallpond wrote:
>> On Oct 8, 6:52 am, Jimbo wrote:
>>
>>> I've been in AIX support for a few years, and so far I've managed to
>>> avoid using a Windows based GUI to manage and monitor the AIX systems
>>> I've supported. Managed fine with the command line.
>>> We've now got 24 AIX servers to manage, and I think the time has come
>>> to use a GUI based management software.
>>> It need to be Windows/browser based product. It would be useful if it
>>> could integrate into HACMP as well.
>>> Any Ideas as to which would be a suitable product.
>>> Thanks in advance.
>>> James.
>> Have you looked at wsm?
>
> I think you should really seperate the requirements of monitor and
> manage. ...

I agree with edcrosbys.

Automated _Monitoring_ with Alerts (optionally with GUI) is essential
for even a small number of systems or LPARs.

_Management_ is a rather unsharp term. It could mean AIX System
Administration or the Server Management you do with the HMC or handling
Applications and Ressource Groups...

GUI based System Administration (like wsm) to me makes less sense the
more systems or LPARs you deal with. There are (non GUI) tools like nim,
dsh and shell scripting which help in automating these administration tasks.

Also, I understand the HMC as a Server Management tool, where you can
optionally use the GUI for tasks you are not familiar with, but can work
more efficiently by scripting commands.

Joachim

I always liked the distributed command line implementations rather
than a gui for
system administration of a large number of servers.

I loved PSSP while it was still being sold, and I like CSM. (Both of
them IBM products)
CSM includes a utility called "dsh", and does some work integrating
file collections and
group management with that. CSM also has can be used for remote power
off and on
through an HMC.

For monitoring, I have always used a combination of scripted email
alerts (For less pressing problems)
and Tivoli monitoring (for immediate problems)

Hope this helps,
Casey