Unified Infrastructure Management 20.3 - Core Features

[Issac08]

Hi All,

Just getting some lights from customers!!

 Which feature you like the most with Unified Infrastructure Management 20.3 and why it so.

[Garin Walsh]

So far I can't say that there's a single thing that makes 20.3 better than 8.51.

My use case might be specific but 20.3 represents a huge expense and loss of functionality.

[Mark DeBoer]

Best feature: It got rid of flash!


I'll think of something else as well, give me some time.

[Luc Christiaens]

I have a list why I don't like version 20.3.1: (updated after first tests with sp1) 
(I hope that this list is temporary, or even wrong, because I start playing with 20.3)
- with OC (Operator Console) NO customization of view, sites, menus is possible! (I know, UMP is gone, but coming from all customization possible to NO customization possible is a real shock)
- no listview replacement (there is a start of replacement with the Dashboard list function, but time slices are not possible)
- dashboard list qos metric dropdown is unsorted
- dashboard list has no possibility to add a column with all available targets
- every access to a custom dashboard requires an extra logon
- unusable alarm console:
   - not all columns are available, specially the main sort field: arrival time is not there (this means that you potentially will miss updates on important alarms)
   - no save of settings/config
   - no direct access to the alarm console with in the parameters: the columns (in correct display order) and needed filters
- no portlet for webcontent
- no replacement for USM view where we had directly a good view of the environment and when selecting a server we had directly all key metrics in a graphical way (the replacement Edit Metric function is, in most cases, not giving ANY metric, and for the devices where he shows metrics the default selected metrics are not coming up in graph format by default)
- no replacement for custom prd views where we added qos metrics from different sources together
- still no customization possible of the date format (Example dd-mm-yyyy hh:mm, where hh is 24 hour format)
- sla/slm not included (slm is included in sp1, but do not see the reports)
- enriched origin is not showed in OC
- no documented way how we can add our own customized reports into OC
and yes, the good thing is that Flash is gone

[Nick Barlow]

/slm gets you to slm

[Luc Christiaens]

thanks, I remarked that, but it's a buggy slm without any reports

[Ashish Aggarwal]

SLM/SLA shall be released with refreshed UX with UIM 20.3.1 patch.
Your existing SLA alarms shall continue to work post upgrade, but please don't use the non supported /SLM webapp unless GA.

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Product Manager - AIOps
CA Technologies (A Broadcom Company)
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[Ashish Aggarwal]

Hi Luc,

Team made sure UIM 20.3 is available for users to upgrade before Flash is formally deprecated and thereby making sure monitoring is not impacted post upgrade. Though has been vast number of improvements in UIM 20.3, we are game to release regular improvements based on customer feedback. This is surely not the last UI improvement within UIM. having said that, let me try to respond on concerns and plans around it:

• with OC (Operator Console) since Liferay dependency have been removed, there no customization of view, sites, menus but on the same time access level can be set based on ACL permissions for the assigned user role.
  OC comes with white labelling using which login screen, header, footer and product logo can be customized as per organizational policies.
  
• List view replacement is recommended using the Dashboard designer list widget. For the gaps highlighted we shall get those triaged and resolved in upcoming releases.
• Access to a custom dashboard requires an extra logon and its same as in previous UIM releases. Some of the users embed the links of published dashboards on 3rd party (non-UIM) web pages and hence login checks the authorized access. As of now behavior for published dashboards is same as in OC vs other pages. 
• Alarm console has option to customize view for each user based on role and persona
  • Edit columns to view appropriate alarm attribute 
  • Alarm filters are persisted across user session
• OC home page provides single glance view to understand state of inventory under monitoring from multiple context like device, groups or monitored technology. Its developed based on "Follow the Red" paradigm suited for operator persona who just have to follow the alarms icons and click on respective hyperlinks to drill down further for triaging an issue.
• Group based navigation can be done using the tree view or with touch screen friendly card/list viewd.
• Contextual menus 
• Centralized settings menu
• SLA/SLM shall be released as part next Operator console installer release code named UIM 20.3.1 just few weeks away. 

Please elaborate on the ask around:
- still no customization possible of the date format
- enriched origin is not showed in OC
In case there is already an Ideation for them, please vote that up.





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Product Manager - AIOps
CA Technologies (A Broadcom Company)
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[Luc Christiaens]

Hi Ashish,

Thanks for your reaction.

- Some years ago UIM was one of the best and flexible monitor softwares (specially for service providers) available.
   - totally customized environments
   - only the reports/views/options the different customers are paying for
   - once logged on in UIM no other logon was needed
   - VERY flexible listviews and prd views
Now in 1 version most of these positive points are (totally) removed without anything that replaces this flexibility.
The removal of Liferay will be a very difficult one to digest.

- Version 20.3 needs to be in production before end of year, so what can a service provider say to his paying clients?
  No custom environment,
  No listview, 
  No prd view,
  No reference to created web reports,
  No custom report menu that list/execute all available cabi/jasper reports,
  No customized consoles with pre-defined filters/columns,
  very difficult to show a user only the reports/dashboards that he needs (in previous versions we added a custom menu structure)
- In previous versions we added access to the custom dashboard in our customized portal, like most clients do, NO additional logon was needed
- The alarm console is not really usable in this format:
   - UIM alarms have 3 different date/time fields. Alarm console manages to include only 1 of them; initial creation date!!
     Normally we sort a console on arrival date so that we see the new arrivals/updates. Sorted on creation date we are potentially missing         important updates.
   - some fields are fixed position (owner). Several clients are not using this field that can not be removed.
   - date field (again) in a fixed date format (in the original IM console we could customize the date fields into every possible format).
   - column width is not saved
   - we cannot place the console as starting point in OC
- For several portlets that are removed there is even NO replacement to migrate to the "new" suggested possibility. (like listview and prd reports)
(a lot of clients have Liferay sites for their clients build with 100's of different listview and prd reports!!!)

My remarks had as only goal to start a discussion to have some feedback to know which points would be interesting to open an idea for.

* For my remark that the enriched origin is not shown I have a ticket open.  Because once we enrich/change the origin via the qos_processor we would expect that the origin field in OC (very visible via Inventory) would be the modified origin (in a lot of cases the client name).  This is not the case, it stays the original origin.
* For the date format there is at least 1 idea open, but I can only vote 1 time for an idea.  But with a new GUI like OC, I would AT LEAST expect that such tiny tings would be included from the design. Each time I see AM or PM my brain doesn't understand what he is seeing.

[Luc Christiaens]

This becomes very difficult to stay positive on this release.
You (=development) decide to remove a lot of needed customization functions from the product and if I open a ticket how to do access/customize this in the 20.3 version I receive as answer to open an enhancement request. ???? Is this a reverse world?
If you decide to remove functionallity we expect at least something better as replacement.
- access the console with column parameters and filters => open idea
- nimbus.dll update (hotfix from march 2019) to correct error messages during startup Infrastructure Manager => not available anymore
- access to CABI dashboards that was possible via webcontent or cabi portlet = not possible anymore; open idea (if I understand correctly the update from Ashish this will be added in the future)
- the listview replacement doesn't work correctly
- the prd replacement , via edit metrics, gives empty metric lists, where the qos metrics are created correctly (forced to use sql enterprise or perl tools to see them)
- qos metrics without devid are not selectable in any view, but updating Perl, nsa and nas to correct this is already pending since years (for nsa I had a test fix for 20.1, but is not included)

[Malathy THIRU]

For Ashish -
You mentioned this in the response - "Alarm console has option to customize view for each user based on role and persona

• Edit columns to view appropriate alarm attribute 
• Alarm filters are persisted across user session"

Please elaborate on how to do to this.
We had a custom "DCOpsAlarms" portlet (based on Alarm View) in previous UIM release - it was displaying the Alarm Page in LIST view to users belonging to a designated ACL. This view had Sort Order, Default Filters, Custom Columns configured and when the user logged in, they got this custom view - their main function was to call out the alarms to the resolver groups, annotate or assign the alarms and /or acknowlege them. They did not see any other options like Inventory, Dashboards, reports etc.
In 20.3 we defined similar acl for alarm mgmt but i cannot figure out how to get rid of the Inventory/Groups/Dashboards/Reports tabs

[Ashish Aggarwal]

On the OC Alarm console, user can edit columns and put column level filters.
These settings are persisted for each user across sessions.

Account level filters and column selection is not available.

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Product Manager - AIOps
CA Technologies (A Broadcom Company)
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[Malathy THIRU]

Thanks for the response Ashish
Yes I have been able to determine the use of filters in the logged-in session of the user and have tested the persistence of filters also.
Are there any plans to implement account level filters in future?
We are a service provider that support multiple customers - we have a team of 30 to 50 people who will use / operate the Alarms Portlet daily;
In the current release we have created several account level filters - based on alarm properties (like origin or severity or msg type etc.) and the users will rotate through using different filters each day depending on the workload.
I don't think the current filtering mechanism in the portlet allows users to SAVE different filter settings; only the last used filter criteria is persistent.
So these issues can be avoided if the account level filters functionality existed.

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Malathy
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[Christopher Moreland]

I agree with the fact that FLASH removal has at least been a few months before it is longer available, which does help.

But a feature that is definitely missing ( or I have not found it), is the use and viewing of custom CABI reports / dashboards in OC.
We used to publish a page, with the CABI portlet, and then set that to a specific report, based on user /site /client. But there is no way that I can see currently to display CABI custom reports/dashboards. Only those you create with Dashboard designer.

Have I missed something?

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Chris
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[Andrew Cooper]

No replacement for relationship viewer

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Knows a little about UIM/DXim, AE, Automic
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[Ashish Aggarwal]

UIM has moved away from portlet based architecture to web app based OC architecture, which in the coming time uses shall find useful in terms of maintainability.
Liferay is not coming back, but based on comments from Both you and Luc Christiaens, following features have been added in backlog :
1. Add/ onboard custom dashboard developed using CABI on OC.
2. Tool admin to have capability to create user/account specific dashboard && Report view list


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Product Manager - AIOps
CA Technologies (A Broadcom Company)
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[Christopher Moreland]

Thank you Ashish, That is most appreciated.

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Chris
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[Ivan Gasparec]

Is there a way to change default view under Groups menu?
Currently default view is a Tree view and it is so slow that it is unusable (I have 30 groups, and some groups have hundreds/thousands of elements).

[Ashish Aggarwal]

As of now there is no way to change the view layout from Tree to card or list view.
I have requested QA to reverify the loading times and customer experience.

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Product Manager - AIOps
CA Technologies (A Broadcom Company)
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[Christopher Moreland]

Hi Ashish,

What is the timeline on the 20.3 OC patch GA? Is there one as yet?
Regards,

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Chris
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[Ashish Aggarwal]

UIM 20.3 OC patch ie. 20.3.1 shall be out before mid Nov, 2020. Its undergoing QA cycles and team is confident in meeting the timelines.

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Product Manager - AIOps
CA Technologies (A Broadcom Company)
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[Christopher Moreland]

Thanks Ashish.

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Chris
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[Magen Kamil]

when the patch will be out?

[Luc Christiaens]

There is a possibility if you place your report in a (not really documented way) specific folder:
https://community.broadcom.com/enterprisesoftware/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?MessageKey=7ba4389f-6cc3-4e52-b9d0-bb0ea8bb4cb5

[Christopher Moreland]

Thanks Luc,
I will give it a try.

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Chris
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