Servicecontrol Manager

[Cleymans Edwin]

As a consultant for a site with +/- 100 HP-UX 11.00 Workstations and +-/ 10 Servers (2 MC/ServiceGuard clusters) I am looking for a "hot" multiplatform management tool. I came accross the documentation of Servicecontrol Manager 3.0 via HP's website. In the field, resistance to something "new" is big. Any success stories so far ? The customer is allergic to SAM (too many bugs in the past) and to Openview Vantage Point-ITO (licenses too expensive). Any help/hints are appreciated...

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

I must say the first time I saw SCM was with in a superdome environment with over 16 partitions.

Management of every single OS from one central web based admin interface was great.

However, I have recently tried installing and have come across problems in installation (a quick search on the forum will reveal the problems - 3rd party plugins need to be purchased - so I guess that rules it out in my books)

But if you're looking to get away from sam, well scm kindov turns sam to html, so no luck. SAM in either case is pegged for migration/obsolesence - to be replaces by the OBAM environment (web based scm) in the furure.

It's worth a look/experimentation, it may be what you need for an all in one management environment.. and if 2 years ago software is anything to go by, then it's gotta be a great product by this stage.

Later,
Bill

[Steve Steel]

Hi


Try

http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/


A flexible freebie . good experiences recorded in a lot of places and now on HPUX as well


steve Steel

Quality is remebered long after the price is forgotten

Gucci

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

I suppose you could also look at webmin.
HP support it and I believe deliver it.

[John Meissner · Accepted solution]

My company has been using ServiceControl Manager for over a year now on a global basis. We have our main data center in New Jersey and our main support center for tier 1 & 2 in Pennsylvania (over 120 miles apart) We also have offices which use SCM in France, England, and China - all connecting to the central management server in New Jersey. Between PA and NJ we don't notice and performance difference but there is a small slow down on the other continents.

Currently our SCM environment has 65 nodes (HP-UX servers) installed with plans for another 30 HP-UX servers and another 13 SuSE linux servers.
We have 57 active users using SCM for support purposes. I have created many additional tools that add functionality to SCM such as jetadmin and cmviewcl to check service guard status on servers. I'd be happy to send you any details you would like via e-mail including screen shots or scripts that I use for these tools. I would also be willing to give you an entire list of tools that I've created and the associated scripts or command line options used to invoke them.I also have created a menu driven script to allow you to add users more easily into SCM and grant them permissions (this process normally takes a while using the GUI - my script does this via the command line but MUCH faster)

I access SCM through my linux box on my desk but the support teams use the web browser - which was easy to setup and a free way of connecting. It runs a java app in the web browser which allow SCM to use it as an X session. I personally love this product as it lets the tier 1 and tier 2 teams to support our environment and lets me sleep through the night.

[Ross Zubritski]

To Steve's point above, VNC is a wonderful multi-platform open source tool. IMHO, It is relatively mature at this point.

RZ

[monasingh_1]

Hello John,

What version are you using, I tried loading 3.0 SCM , it is failing at even mxinitconfig -a server.

It is failing with following message:
# mxinitconfig -a server
Performing server setup.
Configuring the repository...OK
Writing the server's authentication keys...OK
Copying initial database data files...OK
Configuring Tomcat web server...OK
Starting the server daemon...OK
Authorizing management of local agent...FAIL
ERROR: Failed to connect as an agent to the server: magneto.synopsys.com
null
FAIL
null
Performing server unsetup.
Stopping the server daemons...OK
Unregistering managed agents
Unconfiguring Tomcat web server...OK
Removing server authentication keys...OK
Removing table of managed agents...OK
Unconfigure the repository...OK
Completed unsetup of the server.
An internal error occurred.
Failed to complete setup of the server.

I have openned a call with HP for this, they are working on it for a week or so...

Also,
how big your document will be if I wanted to get it by email as you mentioned in your post,

Thanks.

[Cleymans Edwin]

Hello John,

This is the kind of feedback I was really waiting for. I think we should stay in touch.
My e-mail address is:
edwin.cleymans@thales-is.com

Currently, I receive a lot of "flack" from the customer I want to deliver support to on System and Network Administration (HP-UX 11.00 & HP-UX 11.11).
They have a project to develop a new tool for system and network admin, and I try to convince them that it's better to develop something in an area where the current & existing HP Tools are NOT really covering their needs, rather then to compete with the HP labs.
Their argument is that the installed base for Servicecontrol Manager is non-existent or real small and that the product will go away faster than it came. I beleive that SCM should be given an opportunity to prove itself...

[John Meissner]

monasingh - currently we're using Revision A.02.05 but we're planning on upgrading to version 3 shortly. Sorry I forgot to mention this in my original post. Version 3 looks like it has a better agent installation proceedure. Currently in 2.5 I have to swinstall from each agent I want to install. With version 3 it looks as though you can do this all from the central management server. I'm definately looking foreward to the upgrade.

[Steve Massey_2]

Complimentary 1/2-day expert consulting offer!

On behalf of Steve Cooke and the Servicecontrol Manager team,
you are invited to participate in HP's Customer Reference Program. We believe that the reference program is a mutually beneficial relationship, offering you visibility in the marketplace while helping HP develop new business.

I have attached an invitation letter and customer reference program agreement form.

As additional incentive, the SCM team is offering to provide you or your customer
up to one-half day consulting to help tune or install this product if you work with us to complete a Case Study (see attached form) now. We look forward to your participation and partnering with you and/or your customer
soon on this. Please reply or call me if you want to proceed with this offer or have any questions.

Your attention to this and any feedback you may have is greatly appreciated.

[John Meissner]

Seeing as how this thread made it back up to the top I'll give an update on my experiences...


I've sucessfully upgraded our environment to SCM 3.0. I have around 80+ systems installed with clients. The upgrade from 2.5 was VERY smooth (props to HP for the good work) The entire upgrade process took me about 1 day to do (about 6 or 7 hours for the ENTIRE ENVIRONMENT). I have not seen any problems since upgrading to SCM 3.0. And several problems I was having in version 2.5 have gone away.

USE:
Using SCM 3.0 is easier for the end users and administrating it is about as easy. The way some of the roles, tools, and users are managed has chaged but it only took a day to get used to it.

Tools:
Creating tools in SCM 3.0 is not as easy as in 2.5 -BUT- after creating a few tools I've gotten used to it. AND the tools that I can create are capable of more.

Recomendation:
I would definately recommend this product to anyone needing to administrate their environment or for allowing users or a help desk to run tools with root access without giving up the keys to the castle.