Management View Cure-All? - Microsoft Management Console - Company Business and Marketing

One of my charges at my current company is to somehow, some way, get our network and server management systems integrated under one central console. That can be quite a challenge, especially considering the number of products that we use to perform various management functions in our enterprise network.

Let's see. We use HP OpenView Network Node Manager to get an overall view of our WAN and LANs. Concord Network Health is used to get utilization reports and to do WAN trend analysis. Compaq Insight Manager lets us take a look at our servers' low-level functions, while some BMC Patrol products, which we have on order, will provide us with more server information as well as monitor our Exchange Servers. Wait, there's more. We use Bay Networks' Site Manager as well as Optivity to configure and manage our Bay Networks routers and switches. On top of that, we use Systems Management Server (SMS) for inventory, remote control and software distribution.

And then there is ... well, you get the picture. We're awash in a sea of point products, all of them individually doing a great job. Now, all that I have to do is to tie them all together. Easy, right?

When I first started looking around for a solution, three companies came to mind, namely, Computer Associates with its Unicenter TNG product; Tivoli, which pitches TME 10; and HP, which touts its OpenView suite. Of course, Microsoft was not forgotten, but at the time, Microsoft did not offer the single-point solution I was seeking.

There seemed to be something wrong with every product I investigated. The main problem was that most of the aforementioned solutions contained a great deal of functionality we already possessed with our individually purchased point product solutions. For example, I did not need the autodiscovery feature of CA-Unicenter, seeing that we already had a big investment in HP OpenView Network Node Manager. Because these products are expensive, it didn't make sense to purchase anything that had a lot of overlap with products we already had.

Then HP threw me a curve in midsummer when it made a pitch for CA-Unicenter. Seems as if HP is opting to ship some of its servers with parts of Unicenter TNG. This made for a few nervous weeks, as I saw our entire investment in OpenView go down the drain with reports in the trade rags making it seem more certain that HP was selling out to CA wholesale. Fortunately, those reports were a bit overblown. HP qualified the statements it had made earlier and reassured me that keeping OpenView around, at least Network Node Manager, was going to be a safe move.

Needless to say, a few months went by without finding an optimal solution. However, that all changed recently with the emergence of three management "frameworks" from CA, Tivoli and Microsoft.

The idea behind the management framework approach is to provide a common interface and the appropriate communications links between point products that you simply plug into the framework shell. The framework provides the central console, gathering all the individual solutions under one umbrella.

Of particular interest to Windows NT administrators is Microsoft's version of its management framework, Microsoft Management Console (MMC). MMC is in its early stages, but it is scheduled to be shipped with Windows NT Server 5.0, with versions for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95 soon to follow.

MMC is not designed to provide a management function on it own. Rather, it provides the "slots" into which specific management products, called "snap-ins," can be installed. Microsoft will provide many snap-ins. However, Microsoft is hoping that many ISVs will pick up the ball and write their own snap-ins as well. With all the management products already on the market, there seems to be no shortage of snap-in possibilities just waiting to be realized. Microsoft also intends to provide links to non-MMC integrated tools through the use of shortcuts.

MMC seems to hold out a lot of promise for me. While not a management application itself (we already have enough of those), it is more than just a common repository to hold management tools. MMC will provide network and system administrators with the ability to create and save their own custom views, similar to profiles, that can be recalled later. Administrators can create separate views to suit individual users. For example, a network administrator might want to first see OpenView Network Node Manager, while a Windows NT administrator might want to see SMS and Insight Manager (for Compaq servers) on initial view.

So, if you are a bit overwhelmed not only by the number of Windows NT system and network management tools available on the market, but also by all the products claiming to tie them all together, take a look at MMC. It might be just what the doctor ordered.

-- David B. Miller is a network/server engineer for a Fortune 500 information services firm (Purchase, N.Y.). Contact him at millerdb@glinchnet.com.

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