Re: DBA Monitoring Tools

TiborVari (tiborvari_at_aol.com) wrote:
: In article <CtAyAy.5Eu_at_world.std.com>, lparsons_at_world.std.com (Lee E
: Parsons) writes:
 

: I could give you quite a discourse on differences between Patrol and
: Ecotools. However, I will give you a bullet version.
 

: Patrol uses a proprietary script language. Eco you can use bourne, perl,
: c, korn etc.

Wrong, Patrol 2.0 use something that is very popular among sysadmins: Perl. And you can still get anykind of program you want in there, either scripts, C programs or anything else.
Patrol gives complete source to their events and recovery scripts. Eco doesn't and doesn't want to. I ran into the situation where a parameter was always giving an error. Drilling down the problem I found a bug in EcoTools that I was unable to correct on the spot, I had to rely on EcoTools and a patch. Funny enough, I ran into the same kind of situation with Patrol... I made one quick change in the action script "et voila"!

: Patrol allows corrective actions, however, you must write them yourself.
: Same for Eco except Eco supplies about 3 dozen out of the box.
Out of the box, Patrol has no recovery action that might not do exactly what you want to do. EcoTools gives correctives actions, but in either case, automatic response to events is something that you must watch carefully.

: Patrol has no chargeback feature (resource account - both unix and
: oracle). Eco has this feature.

That's right.

: Patrol has no security. A Patrol user has complete access to everything
: (could be dangerous when agents require root privleges). With Eco you
: have role based security. In other words you can assign users to run
: specific agents and on specific machines.
Somewhat wrong, a Patrol user must identify himself with a password (which is not the same has the Unix one).

: Patrol has no intelligent data points behind their graphs. With Eco, you
: can click a point on a chart and see the underlining data.
Patrol 2.0 has this feature, but not to the extent of EcoTools. Patrol can only zoom-in on a graph to show more details (more precision on the time scale) but has no correlation like EcoTools gives. For example, with EcoTools you can see all events that happend at a specific time by clicking in a graph. In Patrol you have to go in the history. But in either case, I think nearly the same functionality are available, but from a different standpoint.

: Patrol ignores many of the Motif standards. In fact, they use sockets
: communication interface (no one else is).
 

: Patrol has no process monitor capabilities. With Eco's process monitor,
: you can see whats happening on a machine. For an Oracle user you can
: drilldown and see the actual SQL statement this person is executing.
You can do that with Patrol too...

: Patrol has no command line interface while Eco has.
That's right.

: Finally, Patrol (their owner BMC), is a telemarketing firm. They simply
: send you the stuff and let you install it. Compuware (Ecotools owner),
: has local sales and field support people throughout the country along with
: a large consulting staff.
 

: Hope this helps. Recommend calling Compuware at 1-800-437-2135 or
: Ecotools at 408-252-3801 for further information.

Or BMC Software at 1-800-841-2031.

: In article <31jcht$88g_at_hsc.usc.edu>, mcitron_at_hsc.usc.edu (Mark Citron)
: writes:
 

: <<Starting price of $25,000 ... too high to take a chance on ...>>
 

: Most products in the systems management tools market start at this level.
Well, a Patrol console starts around 10K...

: <<SCO central console support not there >>
 

: Yes, you are correct. EcoTOOLS support SCO only on agent stations and not
: as the central console. There are no immediate plans to change this.

From the Unix Knowledge Module Notes sheet of Patrol 2.0, SCO 3.2 is supported without any constraints. Both console and agents are supported.

: Tibor Vari
: Eco Field Support Rep.
: 201-804-9400
I think it's fair to get someone's else opinion...

P.S. I have no relation to BMC Software or EcoTools/Compuware. I simply evaluated both products for a couple of months before making my choice. ;)

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