New era of control - network control via Netview - column

Software Magazine, May, 1988 by Jerry Cashin

NEW ERA OF CONTROL

Network management may be the hottest subject today. It is no longer a question of installing or not installing a package of this type, but when.

IBM's Netview, an early leader in the network management sweepstakes, represents one of the more important software products of this decade. With its new Release 2, it seems on the way to becoming a standard, a benchmark system that will become the role mode for competitive offerings.

Alternative products, like Net/Master from Cincom Systems of Cincinnati, function effectively in the IBM environment. Third-party firms market network control systems for a wide variety of communications configurations. All provide some degree of equipment oversight to aid in network monitoring.

Only Netview, however, and perhaps Net/Master, offer a comprehensive network control architecture for current and future growth in the world of IBM host systems.

Even the vaunted network prowess of Digital Equipment Corp., at least at the departmental level, must defer to Netview. Netview's capability in Release 2 to interface with SNA, non-SNA, and even non-IBM components places pressure on DEC to upgrade its current SNA gateway offering in order to achieve the full flavor of Netview's automated network control.

This pressure applies to other competing vendors, if they wish to remain viable in the network management marketplace.

Prior to release 2, this breakthrough package functioned solely in an SNA environment. This was important in a prototype sense, but it lacked the universality needed to cope with multi-vendor network configurations.

Now with Release 2 having applicability to IBM components outside the SNA orbit, along with interface capabilities for non-IBM devices, an industry standard looms on the horizon.

AN ALTERNATIVE TO NETVIEW

The aforementioned Net/Master is a legitimate alternative to the IBM package. It actually presented similar integrated network control features as Release 2 before the latter was announced. Net/Master supported MVS, VSE and VM operating system installations well before IBM did itself.

Another product has been added to Cincom's offerings called Sys/Master. It works in conjunction with Net/Master to provide similar configuration control facilities as offered by Release 2 of Netview.

The new Netview operates with VM,VSE, MVS/370 and MVS/XA operating systems and all major mainframe processors. This includes the 9370 departmental system. There is also a new release of Netview/PC, V1.1, to support LAN environments and non/IBM communications devices.

This new universality of Release 2 is in full harmony with Systems Application Architecture (SAA) principles which foster layered protocols and peer-to-peer functionality among multivendor components and networks.

Look upon SAA as a technological tidal wave. It is a force that will grow and grow over the years, a giant umbrella for promoting heterogeneous connectivity and application interaction among diverse computing cultures, but done "in the IBM way," according to their own pronouncements.

With release 2, a mainframe such as a mammoth 3090 can monitor a distributed network comprising intermediate systems in the 9370 range, along with PCs connected to a token-ring LAN.

This multilevel span of control supports the linking of the complete IBM line under one control mechanism, heretofore an impossible task. Add Netview/PCs flexibility in interfacing a wide range of heterogeneous devices and one can see the all-encompassing nature of these upgraded software products.

Netview will also provide automated console operations for all supported operating systems and their associated network. This includes display of control commands and related messages at an operator system console. Non-370 CPUs, such as the System 3X line, can now initiate peer level communications where they were previously forced to operate in the master/slave context.

INTEGRATED ELEMENTS

In addition, Netview has been given the capability to interact with Vtam so that it will not arbitrarily abort when Vtam encounters problems of its own.

In a global sense, Netview is an integrated set of seven major elements dealing with network operations from many perspectives. They are as follows:

Command Facility. Supports automation of many system management tasks. Also allows system operations to be structured on a central or distributed basis.

Session Monitor. Manages session interactions and permits access to varying data concerning a session such as end-user identification, response time, and accounting-type data.

Status Monitor. Provides operator access to network information such as status of all resources.

Hardware Monitor. Deals with actual and budding failure conditions, assits in determining a cause, along with possible corrective actions.

Online Help Facility. Describes operation and syntax of Netview commands for various components, proposed action codes, and related information.

Help Desk Facility. Assists with network operations and problem analysis via online procedures.