What does the rest of the Zen community in Tektips think of ZCM10?
I my self only have 3 deployments under my belt, mostly due to the fact the product is very immature. Of those 3, only one remains. All others have reverted back or went to ZfD7 instead. Because of the large amount of problems with the product I my self stopped recommending to customers that they deploy or upgrade to ZCM10. Only bring it up if I know the customers uses Vista ... and who uses Vista in a production corporate environment? (looks around, hears crickets).
First deployment failure:
Client doesn't want to give any money to M$ if they don't have to. Liked the idea that ZCm ran on Linux and they have a current drive to migrate all NetWare servers to Linux, and even a few of their Windows servers as well. Only wants to have Windows on the desktop and on the terminal servers. Client didn't like the idea that a Windows box was needed in order to use the deployment functionality of ZCM to Windows servers (because Linux doesn't support WMI and WinAPI, at least Novell's version doesn't so ZCM doesn't hook into it). Got away with using an XP machine running in XEN on the same SLES server that hosted ZCM. Worked, okay. The killer, even after 10.0.2, DLU did not function on a terminal server. Client does not have AD, so DLU was a must.
- reverted to ZfD7 since DLU did work with ZfD7 on a terminal server.
Second deployment failure:
Simply went out to client site to train them on how to deploy the agent, perform simple updates, create simple reports from inventory database, and package MSI bundles. Second objective of appointment, update server from 10.0.1 to 10.0.2. Update went with out any issues. Log files are clean, everything according to the system went fine. Using the system, everything seems fine, until you go to the properties of a device. When you go to view a device, the system kicks back a java error. Worked with NTS for some time on this issue with no success, finally after a few weeks of phone tag, had NTS contact client directly and work with them on issue (was in the middle of a large vitualization project). NTS talked customer into waiting for 10.0.3 to be released since it had a huge number of fixes in it. They did, and when 10.0.3 was installed, the problem continued to occur. Next recommendation from NTS was to simple reload from 10.0.3 install media.
- Client got angry with the recommendation because they felt reloading was a Microsoft solution, not a Novell solution (have never had to reload a Novell server product to fix a problem my self). So they just canceled the deployment of ZCM and stuck with their current ZfD deployment (after updates and some add work to have it deploy the apps they wanted ZCM to deploy).
Last deployment left:
This client chose a windows 2003 server to host ZCM. Had hoped this would work a bit better since the ZCM app seems to be written with Windows in mind more than with Linux in mind. This turned out to be a wrong assumption.
Installed from the 10.0.1 media, and wanted to immediately update to 10.0.2 before deploying the agent to workstations. Required NTS involvement just to get the update downloaded and applied because the process would continually hang. The fix from NTS included a debug zenloader.jar that essentially forced the process to complete.
Then find out that the server was pushing out the 10.0.1 agent, not the updated 10.0.2 agent. Found out because the 10.0.1 agent would crash workstations through out the customers building. This made it difficult to get the agent up to 10.0.2 through the auto update feature of ZCM since the agent kept crashing. Required a customized script written by the NTS back line that integrated the 10.0.2 agent into the deployable agent files.
After many hours with NTS, fine tuning the server we got somewhat of a stable environment. Users still completed about the large amount of resources the agent sucked up on the workstation. Some Autocad type app turning into a snail opening up drawings when ZCM was installed on the workstation, and general slowness in the login process.
10.0.3 releases, woohoo!!! lots of bug fixes, git-r-applied What? that stupid nag screen is still there telling me I don't have ZAM for Unix/Linux? Server starts up and stays at 100% CPU utilization and CRM (part of BOE) never completes it's load? Logins now take 2 to 20 minutes? Wait a sec, why aren't any of the inventory scan files being consumed?
- Got some dev replacement files because the login issue was known to be caused by the remote control policy. This brought it down some, but still wasn't very impressive.
-A quick hack to the BOE setup to disable one of the database logs fixed the CRM loading problem and in turn seemed to fix the consistent high utilization and the inventory problem as well.
Found 10.0.32 got released just a few weeks later, finally the stupid nag screen is gone. Login is now under 30 seconds, but when your on a GB network and login is instant with out the ZCM client, as well as when ZfD is used, Novell still needs to fix this.
So as you can tell, my experience with ZCM has been far from pleasant. This last client is on the edge with keeping the product in their network with all the problems we have been having with it. So far every support call I have opened (about 15 now) have been refunded since it was found to be a bug in the software. I have also been directed to begin writing a script that we can use on this customer network to remove the ZCM agent from the whole network and deploy ZfD7 with ZAM and old school Patchlink. I hope it doesn't fall to this, since the customer won't be billed for it, really messes up by billable time numbers. I also do like the potential this product has, I find it much easier to use that ZfD in building application deployments, and the inventory just knocks the socks of the old ZfD inventory (woot for ZAM). I think Novell just released this product WAY before it was ready to be put on the market (damn marketing dweebs).
I've been wondering if others have also been running into these kinds of problems, and what have you done to handle it? Are you keeping the product? Does it actually work fine or you and do all you want and expect?
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Brent Schmidt SPOOOOON!!!!!![[hippy]](/data/assets/smilies/hippy.gif "[hippy] [hippy]")
Senior Network Engineer
Keep IT Simple
I my self only have 3 deployments under my belt, mostly due to the fact the product is very immature. Of those 3, only one remains. All others have reverted back or went to ZfD7 instead. Because of the large amount of problems with the product I my self stopped recommending to customers that they deploy or upgrade to ZCM10. Only bring it up if I know the customers uses Vista ... and who uses Vista in a production corporate environment? (looks around, hears crickets).
First deployment failure:
Client doesn't want to give any money to M$ if they don't have to. Liked the idea that ZCm ran on Linux and they have a current drive to migrate all NetWare servers to Linux, and even a few of their Windows servers as well. Only wants to have Windows on the desktop and on the terminal servers. Client didn't like the idea that a Windows box was needed in order to use the deployment functionality of ZCM to Windows servers (because Linux doesn't support WMI and WinAPI, at least Novell's version doesn't so ZCM doesn't hook into it). Got away with using an XP machine running in XEN on the same SLES server that hosted ZCM. Worked, okay. The killer, even after 10.0.2, DLU did not function on a terminal server. Client does not have AD, so DLU was a must.
- reverted to ZfD7 since DLU did work with ZfD7 on a terminal server.
Second deployment failure:
Simply went out to client site to train them on how to deploy the agent, perform simple updates, create simple reports from inventory database, and package MSI bundles. Second objective of appointment, update server from 10.0.1 to 10.0.2. Update went with out any issues. Log files are clean, everything according to the system went fine. Using the system, everything seems fine, until you go to the properties of a device. When you go to view a device, the system kicks back a java error. Worked with NTS for some time on this issue with no success, finally after a few weeks of phone tag, had NTS contact client directly and work with them on issue (was in the middle of a large vitualization project). NTS talked customer into waiting for 10.0.3 to be released since it had a huge number of fixes in it. They did, and when 10.0.3 was installed, the problem continued to occur. Next recommendation from NTS was to simple reload from 10.0.3 install media.
- Client got angry with the recommendation because they felt reloading was a Microsoft solution, not a Novell solution (have never had to reload a Novell server product to fix a problem my self). So they just canceled the deployment of ZCM and stuck with their current ZfD deployment (after updates and some add work to have it deploy the apps they wanted ZCM to deploy).
Last deployment left:
This client chose a windows 2003 server to host ZCM. Had hoped this would work a bit better since the ZCM app seems to be written with Windows in mind more than with Linux in mind. This turned out to be a wrong assumption.
Installed from the 10.0.1 media, and wanted to immediately update to 10.0.2 before deploying the agent to workstations. Required NTS involvement just to get the update downloaded and applied because the process would continually hang. The fix from NTS included a debug zenloader.jar that essentially forced the process to complete.
Then find out that the server was pushing out the 10.0.1 agent, not the updated 10.0.2 agent. Found out because the 10.0.1 agent would crash workstations through out the customers building. This made it difficult to get the agent up to 10.0.2 through the auto update feature of ZCM since the agent kept crashing. Required a customized script written by the NTS back line that integrated the 10.0.2 agent into the deployable agent files.
After many hours with NTS, fine tuning the server we got somewhat of a stable environment. Users still completed about the large amount of resources the agent sucked up on the workstation. Some Autocad type app turning into a snail opening up drawings when ZCM was installed on the workstation, and general slowness in the login process.
10.0.3 releases, woohoo!!! lots of bug fixes, git-r-applied What? that stupid nag screen is still there telling me I don't have ZAM for Unix/Linux? Server starts up and stays at 100% CPU utilization and CRM (part of BOE) never completes it's load? Logins now take 2 to 20 minutes? Wait a sec, why aren't any of the inventory scan files being consumed?
- Got some dev replacement files because the login issue was known to be caused by the remote control policy. This brought it down some, but still wasn't very impressive.
-A quick hack to the BOE setup to disable one of the database logs fixed the CRM loading problem and in turn seemed to fix the consistent high utilization and the inventory problem as well.
Found 10.0.32 got released just a few weeks later, finally the stupid nag screen is gone. Login is now under 30 seconds, but when your on a GB network and login is instant with out the ZCM client, as well as when ZfD is used, Novell still needs to fix this.
So as you can tell, my experience with ZCM has been far from pleasant. This last client is on the edge with keeping the product in their network with all the problems we have been having with it. So far every support call I have opened (about 15 now) have been refunded since it was found to be a bug in the software. I have also been directed to begin writing a script that we can use on this customer network to remove the ZCM agent from the whole network and deploy ZfD7 with ZAM and old school Patchlink. I hope it doesn't fall to this, since the customer won't be billed for it, really messes up by billable time numbers. I also do like the potential this product has, I find it much easier to use that ZfD in building application deployments, and the inventory just knocks the socks of the old ZfD inventory (woot for ZAM). I think Novell just released this product WAY before it was ready to be put on the market (damn marketing dweebs).
I've been wondering if others have also been running into these kinds of problems, and what have you done to handle it? Are you keeping the product? Does it actually work fine or you and do all you want and expect?
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Brent Schmidt SPOOOOON!!!!!
Senior Network Engineer
Keep IT Simple
![[neutral]](/data/assets/smilies/neutral.gif "[neutral] [neutral]")