Rex, Sure.
We expected the z990 IP console function to work as solidly and reliably as those that are locally connected to the 3174 controllers. That is, they should be easy to use, robust, reliable, not drop out during normal usage. Additionally, we expected the TCPIP aspect of these console connections to work as well as over vended products (like the Automation Point Viewer remote console for example); It should allow as many people on at the same time as we need it to with no problems, since after all, this is IP we're talking about and it should take advantage of the versatility of the architecture. We were sorely disappointed in our setup and testing of these OSA console connections. They would come up easily enough, and allow connection using a telnet session over our intranet through Attachmate or Reflections, but no more than one person could be connected to a console at a time. When more than one person attempted to get into the same console at the same time, or at random intervals (from hours to days), the connections to the ICC consoles would drop without giving any kind of definitive error code in SYSLOG (you could see the CN switch, but no consistent reason to troubleshoot). Multi-connect seemed to make the ICC consoles lockup. To get the consoles back on, we had to go through an annoyingly long sequence of vary console, vary device, and reset console commands to get it working again so that we could telnet back into it. Where we had expected it to come up, and stay up from IPL to IPL, we were very disappointed. Where we had expected to be able to restore connectivity with one vary console command, again we were disappointed. Clearly, the ICC console capability is useful, but more as a disaster recovery or HMC console replacement and is not ready for prime time. We did have IBM's direct support and help in getting the consoles up and working, and working through the problems we had. The issues we had could not be resolved well enough for us to recommend replacing our 3174 MCS with ICC consoles this time. Perhaps in a later iteration, this product will be more suited for our needs. Maybe it's already good enough for what you need, but we weren't happy with what we saw when we did our own demo. Very best regards, Gary Diehl -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Pommier, Rex R. Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 1:22 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: z990 IP Consoles Gary, Can you elaborate on the flaky comment? We're evaluating replacing our 7060 Multiprise with a z890 and were going to use the OSA console support pretty much exclusively. Thanks, Rex ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
