GUI vs. CLI

[jneiberger]

For those of you with 3300s, I'm curious to find out what you think about the GUI. Do you like it? Has it completely supplanted the CLI for you, or do you still like to use the CLI for some (or all) tasks?

 

[mitelman]

The GUI has improved a lot over the past couple years. I use it for most stuff, but still head over to the VT100 session for some things, like maintenance, and teldir. I have not installed a system since 5.0 so I have not had the chance to make uses of the new copy features in 5.2 yet. I always use the maint on VT100 to schedule reboots as I alway forget the sequence and it will prompt you there, unlike the GUI which comes back with an ambiguous errror if the command is not correct.

 

[Lundah]

Mitel Product Support will tell you not to use the CLI (aka SX-2000 style interface) to do programming on the 3300. They say everything should be done via OpsMan or the GUI, they claim using the old CLI can lead to database corruption. In my personal experience I've never had a problem, but I never got that used to the SX-2000 interface so I have no problem using the GUI instead.

 

[MitelTech]

We've corrupted databases that way Lundah. It comes down to someone being in a form via CLI, and someone else in the same form via GUI, it will corrupt, been there, done that.

 

[MitelInMyBlood]

We too have corrupted the 3300 database by programming via the CLI. Not only does Mitel Product Support warn against it, but 3300 I&M training school strongly cautions against it. The issue, as I understand it, is the 3300 has multiple operating systems, such as vxWorks, Express Messenger, sx2K call control, etc. and the GUI serves to orchestrate them all together. Programming performed via the CLI, under certain circumstances, does not get correctly propagated to the other platforms. This type of DB Corruption also does not show up in a DBMS Check, rather it manifests itself as weird unexplained problems requiring a full reinstall of software. Been there and done that.