System Manager functionality in version 9.5

Did I miss something in the release notes for 9.5? The Node Details screen for any node I look at has all function buttons except Manage Node and List Resources grayed out and unavailable.

Is that by design? It seems about all that is left to System Manager is the ability to manually add a node, change monitored resources and display some basic data about the node. Am I right?

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ElisabethZakes

Our direction is to move most functionality to the web. As we add to the web console, we will start to remove functionality from System Manager because System Manager was written a long time ago when the options in code with limited user interface options. Contemporary web consoles offer far richer options, so that's where we are focusing our efforts.

freemen

Thank you EZakes. So, System Manager is functioning as designed?

With the functionality attrition rate, how long does SM have to live?

vhcato

Our direction is to move most functionality to the web. As we add to the web console, we will start to remove functionality from System Manager because System Manager was written a long time ago when the options in code with limited user interface options. Contemporary web consoles offer far richer options, so that's where we are focusing our efforts.

Elisabeth,

Just based on my limited experience thus far with the "Manage Nodes" function on the web, it seems to be a much slower and more cumbersome means to perform our normal ACD's within Orion as compared to System Manager. I find it more efficient to RDP to the polling engine and use System Manager than to use the web thingy. I understand the desire to webify everything, and the potential upside to doing so, but I also think I would chew my fingertips off if I had to rely solely on the current web mechanism for this function.

I guess it depends on how many changes one makes at any given time, but the wait time associated with page reloads following every change that is made just drives me nuts. My desktop is not the fastest thing in the world, but it's even painful when doing it from the NPM server itself, which has plenty of horsepower. It may not be as noticeable when dealing with a relatively small number of elements, but it can be a real pain when you have tens of thousands of elements with which to play.

One thing I find particularly lacking in the web version is the ability to use the mouse to highlight a group of interfaces and click on a button to include or exclude them. It might not sound like much, but depending on a number of factors such as the number of contiguous interfaces you wish to toggle, it can be a real time-saver.

Without some improvements in performance and function for the web mechanism, I would hate to see System Manager go.

freemen

I have to agree with vchato on this. There are some performance advantages to keeping System Manager around. Just something to think about.

dm5253

I too would have to agree with vhcato. I couldn't imagine trying to manage all of my devices using the web interface, it is god awfully slow.

ElisabethZakes

Thanks for the feedback, as always. I'll make sure this is noted by the Product Manager!

vhcato

Please tell Denny "THE COMMUNITY HATH SPOKEN!!!" :P

mleinio

I haven't yet installed 9.5, but in 9.1SP4 managing the nodes in web is incredibly slow. It is totally unusable.

We have 4000 nodes with 14000 elements.

SolarWinds, I know you are keen on including new features (we like that as well!), but getting the management performance better has to get more priority on your development.

FormerMember

Both Brandon and Denny hear you.

What are the tasks you all are doing that are painful? Are you using grouping to limit the number of items that show up at a time? The more details about pain points you can give us, the better we can focus our efforts. Going after 'X is slow' might result in us going after something you all don't care about.

So far I see dealing with large number of items and the pain associated with editing an item, then going back to the initial WNM page). What are the other specifics?

AlbanyNYMike

I would like to chime in and state that I also enjoy using the SM as oppsed to the web.
Is it possible to keep the basics of SM, while exploring the benifits of the web GUI?
Managing nodes using the Web GUI is great in a pinch, but the speed and ease of the SM is by far better.
As mentioned before, this is essecially the case when dealing with MANY elements.

FormerMember

While at CiscoLive, we've been doing some analysis of where the web UI is slow. We've already got some ideas for how to make that workflow a lot faster. Stay tuned.

bleearg13

I would like to chime in and state that I also enjoy using the SM as oppsed to the web.
Is it possible to keep the basics of SM, while exploring the benifits of the web GUI?
Managing nodes using the Web GUI is great in a pinch, but the speed and ease of the SM is by far better.
As mentioned before, this is essecially the case when dealing with MANY elements.

Just my 2 cents...

Personally, I've found that the web console is much faster than System Manager. It takes several minutes for SM to open up a device that has a few hundred interfaces on it. In addition, it takes even longer for SM to list resources for that same device. Conversely, the web console is much faster with listing everything immediately and querying the device for resources. Not to mention that I would have to open up the RDP program, RDP to the box, sign in, wait for it to log in to the account, and then open up SM. I find the SM is good for many things, but speedy management is not one of them. This is the pickle that SW is in - some customers say web mgmt is faster, while others find it unbearably slow.

Warlynx

We tried to add a couple of our hotspots via the website, and man, was it a pain. It is much quicker doing it through the system manager, and I agree with a lot of the people that posted before me. The SM is, for the time being the better option.

I also don't understand why we should deviate from the company standard, which is IE to use browser with a faster JS engine? I mean, the engineers toolset is designed to work on IE and not firefox?

I am glad I read this post before upgrading, because it doesn't make sense to remove functionality from something that is actually functioning within it's intended scope, and this point, along with the slow website interface will delay my upgrade process for a bit.

The only functionality which we use from the web management console is to put multiple nodes into an unmanaged state, the rest we do in good 'ol SM

FormerMember

I also don't understand why we should deviate from the company standard, which is IE to use browser with a faster JS engine? I mean, the engineers toolset is designed to work on IE and not firefox?

We don't have a beef with IE in general. IE 7 and 8 work well. But IE 6 is a problem because it is so non-standard.

FormerMember

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will assure you that we have heard your issues. We are already prototyping some changes that we expect will dramatically improve performance on key tasks.