Web Access Added -- Web interfaces let users manage
both networks and systems from any desktop
March 17, 1997, Issue: 622
Section: Networking
Web Access Added -- Web interfaces let users manage
both networks and systems from any desktop
By Jon Pepper
If you haven't yet considered managing your network from a Web
browser, start now. Just about every sizable vendor of management tools
is adding Web access to its products, and the trend promises to make
network and systems management more flexible, easier, and less costly.
The most immediate benefit, users and vendors say, is that Web access
liberates network managers from needing to be at a specific management
console to diagnose and fix a problem. Instead, they can access
network-management information from any browser-equipped desktop in
the enterprise-including an end user's PC. "The fact that you don't have to
be at your system or in the network operations center really gets people
excited about this trend," says Andrew Vanagunas, who heads
Hewlett-Packard's OpenView enterprise management program.
Web access has other advantages over the pricey, proprietary graphical
console Unix or Windows clients that vendors traditionally have offered as
the interface for their management applications. It uses browser software
that's free or almost free and often consumes fewer resources. It also
provides platform independence and a more uniform user interface among
different applications.
Diagnosis From Anywhere
Web access also means IS staff can diagnose network problems using
standard TCP/IP remote-access products. "It allows our engineers to
access the net via modems, instead of having to be at a management
workstation," says Rod Bowman, manager for enterprise management at
Foundation Health Systems, a health-care management organization in
Sacramento, Calif. Foundation uses the Web to access the NetView
network-management software from IBM's Tivoli Systems unit. Adds
Chris Amley, network-management architect at 3M Corp., which uses
HP's OpenView, "The primary benefit we see is easier access to network
information, possibly even saving a trip into work." A Web interface for
HP's OpenView management platform, Network Node Manager, can be
downloaded free from the vendor's Web site.
Network equipment vendors have been quick to add Web access. Bay
Networks Inc. already has announced Web interfaces for several of its
Optivity network-management tools. Cisco Systems Inc. is adding Web
access to new and existing network-management products this year, says
Jim Turner, Cisco's manager of network-management partnerships.
But don't plan on ditching your proprietary console software just yet.
Though vendors eventually may make all their applications' functions
accessible via the Web, they're starting with more modest efforts.
Web interfaces from a number of vendors, including HP and Tivoli,
currently let users view, but not update, management information. Tivoli's
NetView, for instance, lets users view network events and the status of
networked devices from a browser. Tivoli says it plans to add capabilities
for changing network-management information via the Web in a
forthcoming release, probably in the second quarter. However, "We don't
think [the Web interface] will supplant the console," says Leo Cole,
Tivoli's director for NetView.
Paul Mason, an analyst with International Data Corp. in Framingham,
Mass., sees it differently. "The Web is simply going to be the new GUI for
this class of product," he says. Some vendors agree. HP, for one, plans to
make the Web the primary interface for OpenView Network Node
Manager, and says it will eventually make all OpenView's capabilities
available via the Web.
Foundation's Bowman says he has already seen benefits from Tivoli's
Web interface. Previously, network-management staff accessed NetView
using workstations running the X Window system, which placed heavy
memory demands on the NetView server. Now, Foundation's staff can
use browsers installed on desktop machines.
But the software also reflects a limitation of management products' current
Web front ends. Bowman says the NetView Web front end doesn't
provide as much network topology information as the full NetView
console does. "It doesn't deliver quite as much detail as you might want at
this point," he says.
Some vendors agree that the quality of the user interface is a problem.
Marc Sokol, Computer Associates' senior VP for advanced technology,
says the challenge is to ensure that the software "doesn't look like a boring
HTML front end, in which case we would be going backward." CA lets
users view and update the help-desk component of its CA-Unicenter
TNG systems-management software via the Web. The company plans to
extend Web support to the entire product-letting users both view and
update information-probably around midyear, says Yogesh Gupta, CA's
senior VP for product strategy.
Vendors also cite security concerns, because providing a Web interface
means potentially exposing vital network-management
information to anyone who can access your network. Gupta says CA uses
encryption and password authentication to secure information that's made
available via Web browsers.
Big Picture
Some vendors are adding Web access as part of a larger effort to rework
their network-management products. Novell, for instance, is developing
new versions of its ManageWise products using Sun Microsystems' Java
language, for rollout later this year. ManageWise applications will be
stored as Java applets on a network server, so they can be executed from
any Web browser or other software capable of executing Java applets,
says Kim Bergeron, Novell's product-line manager.
Similarly, Sun's SunSoft unit-which provides a Web interface for some
products, such as the installation tools for its Netra servers-is reworking
its Solstice product line using Java and the Java Management APIs, a set
of programming interfaces designed to provide a standard way to manage
Java applications. SunSoft plans to ship a version of its flagship Solstice
Enterprise Manager by year's end, says Brian Biles, director of Solstice
product marketing.
Though vendors' Web products may provide a more uniform interface to
management information, that doesn't automatically solve the problem of
integrating management information from different networked devices.
JMAPI is one effort that may help integrate applications. Microsoft and
other vendors announced another broad effort, called the Web Based
Enterprise Management (WBEM) initiative, late last year.
The initiative's proposals have found their way into two standards groups.
The Desktop Management Task Force, an industry group that includes
IBM, Microsoft, and SunSoft, is working on a database schema called
the Common Information Model, that it says uses a WBEM schema as its
starting point. Another component of the Microsoft-backed initiative, an
access protocol, has been proposed to the Internet Engineering Task
Force.
Regardless of whether such standards efforts come to fruition, Web
access for network management is here to stay. One reason:It may mean
lower development and porting costs for vendors. "If we can leverage
technology like the Web look and feel, it allows us to take potential
interface investment and instead put it into other areas," says HP's
Vanagunas.
Adds Foundation's Bowman, "Twelve months from now, if you don't have
a Web interface to your network resources, you'll really be missing the
boat."
Copyright 1997 CMP Media Inc.
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