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Technology Stocks : Seagate Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Duker who wrote (5587)	9/3/1998 5:17:00 PM
From: Bipin Prasad	Respond to of 7841

from PC WEEK: Seagate tops Intel by adding reporting abilities and NT capabilities to ManageExec 5.5 Server monitoring: ManageExec 5.5 and LANDesk Server Manager 6.0 Seagate tops Intel by adding reporting abilities and NT capabilities to ManageExec 5.5 By Cameron Sturdevant, PC Week Labs September 2, 1998 Although all specialized server monitoring applications outstrip the free software provided by server hardware manufacturers, they are not all created equal. Take Seagate Software Inc.'s Manage Exec 5.5, which stands head and shoulders above rival Intel Corp.'s LANDesk Server Manager 6.0. In PC Week Labs' tests, Intel's and Seagate's products (both began shipping this month) offer performance monitoring for both Windows NT and NetWare servers, going well beyond specialized products such as NetIQ Corp.'s AppManager Suite, which focuses only on NT. Neither product supports Unix servers. Building on its solid foundation, this release of the $895 Manage Exec wins an Analysts' Choice award for its substantially improved reporting capabilities as well as its unique ability to automatically develop a Windows NT Server performance baseline. In contrast, the $895 software-only version is unchanged from the previous version; Server Manager's only new features are found in its $995 hardware-inclusive version. However, only the most hard-pressed manager of physically remote equipment is likely to purchase the hardware version, which takes up a valuable PCI slot and is essentially an expensive thermometer and a remote on/off switch. Although Manage Exec and Server Manager each offer two things missing from vendor-specific monitoring products such as Compaq Computer Corp.'s free Insight Server Manager--cross-vendor interoperability and hierarchical consoles--managers of small, homogeneous networks probably can forgo the additional cost. Manage Exec stands tall Using any of Manage Exec's 140 new built-in performance reports was a simple matter of selecting the desired report from a menu in the product's Windows console. The only thing lacking was a utility to automatically run reports so that we could review them at the beginning of a shift, a feature found in application managers such as Boole & Babbage Inc.'s Command/Post. Manage Exec's NT Server baseline feature allows the product's server agents to track server performance and automatically adjust performance thresholds. All other server managers require these types of thresholds to be set by an administrator or left at a manufacturer's defaults. As with Manage Exec's previous version, the Web-based console, which requires either Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer 4.0 or Netscape Communications Corp.'s Communicator 4.0, allows administrators to view information such as alerts and server health measurements. Although the Web console provides access to a number of basic reports, these reports are limited to data collected about a single server. In contrast, reports provided in the Windows-based console show performance based on individual servers or groups of servers. During tests, it was no problem to get performance information on everything from CPU utilization to disk performance. In a further advance (although a baby step compared to products such as application-centric Command/Post), Manage Exec can now track performance information for Microsoft's Exchange Server, which we used to compile reports on message queue lengths. However, managers who need extensive control over Exchange Server would be better off with AppManager Suite, which not only tracks more information but can also take predefined corrective actions, such as running batch files to delete temporary files when performance thresholds are exceeded. Server Manager falls short Although Server Manager 6.0 turned in a serviceable performance, it lacks all the innovative and convenience features found in Seagate's offering. The Intel software has no Web-based interface, no supplied reports and no built-in report writer. In addition, the changes made to the hardware in this version create as many problems as they solve. The only place Server Manager surpasses Manage Exec is in its display of real-time activity. Intel's product showed us a moving graph that let us easily see the current status of the servers' disk drives and even their internal temperature. With Manage Exec, we received only static pictures. During tests, Server Manager's software performed exactly as we described in our last review (PC Week, June 16, 1997, Page 106). The hardware, however, has been rearchitected onto a PCI card, which made it much easier to install than the previous ISA-based card but takes up valuable real estate. Additionally, instead of onboard batteries that trickle-charge from the servers' power supply, Intel powered the EMC2 (Emergency Management Card 2) with an external power supply. This requires that the card's power come from a circuit separate from the server or that it be plugged into a UPS (uninterruptible power supply). Because most of the UPSes that we've seen at PC Week Labs come with software that can track voltage to the PC (and can even save files and gracefully shut down the server during a power loss), Intel's EMC2 offers few advantages. Taking full advantage of the card also required us to have a phone line, UPS and another network line running to the server.