On Jun 4, 2009, at 7:21 AM, Hans Christian Riksheim wrote:
... Frankly, I am a bit worried. I look at the bloat at Passport Advantage(4GB download for reporting? Seriuos?) and it seems that every piece of s**t software that IBM has produced now is forced upon us. Already TSM in itself has a steep learning curve with a lot of different "strange" concepts, but IBM obviously doesn't seem to think this is enough in their ongoing effort to scare off potential customers. An installation of 6.1 with reporting and administration on a small site with for example a 2 drive, 40 slot library will require how many servers? 3? One for TSM, one for admin and one for reporting? ...
Indeed. I've been with the product since ADSM v.2, and have seen it grow enormously. Even having been part of that evolution, the growing amount of complexity can be overwhelming. We see customers writing in having difficulty with even basic functionality in the product: Having to additionally cope with LAN-Free, Library Manager/Client, encryption key management, Fibre Channel fabric and other technologies to make things work has to be daunting. (And don't overlook inscrutable licensing regimens.) This certainly creates opportunities for competitors offering streamlined, straightforward solutions to data assurance needs. Realization of this may be why IBM acquired the targeted B/R product Fastback from FilesX last year. The TSM product is obviously trying to accommodate all the latest technologies out there so as to meet all needs. The difficulty in trying to do that is that the result can be a huge monolith of a product with such intertwined development requirements that implementing seemingly simple new features can entail an inordinate amount of time and coordination. The danger in that approach is in ending up with a massive composite like Microsoft did with Windows, with its Longhorn/Vista development debacle. I'd instead go for a more modular approach, where customers can acquire and plug in what they really need, toward more efficient, focused solutions to their needs. This would make for more streamlined, timely development, and new releases that customers eagerly embrace rather than recoil from in fear. Richard Sims