AMDS vs Availability Manager

[Bart Zorn_1]

I am already complaining for years that Availability Manager is missing the most important feature of AMDS: the System Overview window. Availability Manager can only display one group at a time.

Up to OpenVMS V8.2 that was not really a problem: I used AMDS. Now that I have the first systems running V8.2 I found out that there is no AMDS$VMSAXP-V82.LIB file, with as consequence that V8.2 systems cannot be displayed in AMDS!

Availability Manager would probably be qualified as bloatware by VAXman and rightfully so. It takes a huge amount of resources (both memory and CPU) thanks to java. AMDS, being a DECwindows application is much more efficient.

Using an old Alphastation as Availability Manager station is simply impossible.

Personally I find this unacceptable.

Anyone care to comment?

Regards,

Bart Zorn

[Jan van den Ende]

Bart,

Wholeheartedly agreed!

Perhaps you can open an issue via HP advocacy? Be assured you get my "I Agree"!

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[Bart Zorn_1]

I have added an "I agree" on issue 1572 from Andy Park, with a comment that this is getting urgent because AMDS does not display V8.2 systems.

Bart

[Ian Miller.]

There is a feedback form on
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/products/availman/questions.html

I think AMDS will not gain a V8.2 file but there is work going on to improve Availability Manager. A new version is due soon.

[Bart Zorn_1]

Thanks Ian.

I have submitted a comment on that site.

We will see what a new version will bring. But because it will still be written in java, no improvement on resource usage can be expected.

Bart

[Jeffrey Goodwin]

In addition to the one group at a time issue, the Availability Manager display is extremely network intensive. We monitor multiple clusters worldwide. I can't even get the AM splashscreen up over our WAN in a reasonable amount of time, never mind using AM to correct an issue.

I've spoken about this until I'm blue in the face. All I've gotten from HP is a weak excuse that "AM is what our customers are asking for". If you're such a customer that is demanding HP eliminate AMDS in favor of AM, I wish you'd fess up. :)

I can live with AMDS without additional features. It would be very simple for HP to provide the proper Alpha/Itanium V8.2+ libraries for AMDS.

This is just one more irritating move by HP that is sadly going to eventually drive my company away from HP and OpenVMS.

-Jeff

[Jan van den Ende]

Bart,

somehow I have not (yet?) been able to get to "issue 1572" to add my "I agree".
I did enter a request to continue AMDS to the AM feedback page.

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[Michael Kloth]

HP Openview is now also available for OpenVMS (minimum version : V7.3-2).
Wouldn't this be a replacement for AMDS ?

[Bart Zorn_1]

Michael,

I am not really familiar with HP OpenView, but are you familiar with AMDS?

AMDS is (still) a standard part of OpenVMS and as such comes without additional cost. OpenView is definitely not free and therefore not a reasonable replacement, regardless of its features.

Thanks for your suggestion anyway!

Bart Zorn

[Tom O'Toole · Accepted solution]

Bart,

If you copy amds$vmsaxp-v732.lib to amds$vmsaxp-v82.lib, you will get a couple of error messages on amds startup, and the sub windows don't work, but the overview window works perfectly.

Been running this way for a long time.