Databox: Opinion: happy face NetFinity Version 3.0 IBM, 1133 Westchester Ave, White Plains, NY 10604 phone: 800 426 2255 faxback: 800 426 4329, document #?? http://www.pc.ibm.com it will eventually. In the meantime, you can find the announcement letter at: ftp://ftp.pcco.ibm.com/pub/software_announcements/295326.ann} Price: $599 for Manager, $79 per managed server Pros: Simple to setup, works with NetWare, OS/2, and Windows Cons: NetWare monitoring could be better IBM's entry into multi-platform desktop network management may have escaped your attention. However, with version 3 of its NetFinity product, which adds the much-needed support for NetWare and all flavors from 3.11 on up to 4.x, there is finally something to look at. NetFinity can easily hold its own against Intel's LANDesk or Saber's LAN Workstation, particularly when it comes to managing a mixture of OS/2 machines and Windows 3.x clients on NetWare servers. (support for Windows 95 is coming but not for NT.) The product is especially useful for alert notification, asset collection, and remote control features, and supports a mixture of NetBEUI, TCP/IP, and IPX protocols, as well as dial-up connections directly to a server. NetFinity's strength is that it provides similar information for all operating systems and protocols in a similar format, making it easy for time-pressed network managers to get the information they require. For example, you can set up the software to notify your pager every time someone changes a CONFIG.SYS file -- whether that file is on your NetWare server, your Windows desktop, or on OS/2. Now, that is probably an extreme example, but it gives you a good flavor of the kinds of power available with this software. Other network management products will take more effort to do these kinds of tasks. We especially liked the ability to monitor critical server events and processes, such as disk space remaining or particular executable programs. Again, NetFinity's routines are similar across managing NetWare's Loadable Modules (NLMs), Windows executables or OS/2 server processes. We had a few glitches with how NetFinity reported on NetWare memory conditions and server processes, and IBM assures us that they'll fix these soon. Installing most network management products in such a mixed protocol and operating system environment can take the joy out of anyone's day, but NetFinity manages this with relative ease, once you get over their strange terminology: there are two pieces of software that come included in the box: "Managers" (which run on either OS/2 or Windows clients) that are the control consoles used to view network conditions and alerts, and "Services" (which run on all three operating systems) that enable each desktop to report statistics and be controlled by the manager. When you purchase the manager box you get all three operating systems flavors, but have a license to run only one of them, along with a single companion services license. NetFinity has a small footprint on the workstation, unlike other network management products. Indeed, we were able to install all of its software on our NetWare 4.1 servers and run it just fine over the network itself. No .INI files, no TSRs, and no changes to NetWare's login scripts were needed. LANDesk and others can't make that claim. NetFinity uses about a dozen NLMs to manage each NetWare server: these take up about 600 kB of server memory and about 10 MB of disk space. NetFinity is one of the few network management products that supports OS/2 from both the server and workstation side, which you would expect from IBM. However, if OS/2 isn't a factor in your organization, don't let that get in the way of taking a careful look at this product. And, if you are in the market for an IBM server, the software comes pre-installed on most models at no extra charge.
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David Strom
Port Washington, NY 11050 USA
US TEL: 1 (516) 944-3407