HP includes a rock-solid discovery and layout tool, as well as a simple Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) polling engine. Although bundled MIB support is limited, OpenView's fully functional MIB browser is a powerful tool for building SNMP queries. Likewise, its event-handling function is built for a complex management console. We found a generous assortment of trap-device classes and a sophisticated trap-alarm manager. Like an alarm switchboard, it identifies and sorts traps, assigns priorities and acts.

OpenView deserves credit for having the best layout tool in this product review. It was the only manager to accurately d iscover the collapsed backbone of Syracuse University's network. However, we were disappointed to find that the discovery function lacked the ability to probe the network using multiple community strings.

In a diverse internetwork, control of manageable devices can be divided among more t han one organizational unit with each supplying its own community. In this case, OpenView must run a separate discovery process using community string to adequately map the network. This is a "feature" unique to HP's product.

OpenView's polling engine is robust, but we found it to be rather slow. Since it's based entirely on ICMP, we expected a fast polling run on our 88 registered nodes. We were disappointed to find that after starting the polling engine, it can take several minutes for all blue icons (devices with unknown status) to turn either red or green, indicating they can be reached. On a positive note, the polling engine lets you customize alarm severity for each node. This is an excellent way to keep a workstation from turning the management console red when Peggy in accounting logs off, turns off her machine and heads home.

Although OpenView's device management support is rudimentary, the SNMP manager is well-implemented. Not only does it allow easy navigation through the MIB tree, it helps build customized queries that can be added to the SNMP manager menu. The only problem we found in the interface was the Set function; you have to leave the MIB browser to perform a Set operation. However, these are mere details. Like Castle Rock, the MIB browser includes descriptions of every MIB variable--a nice touch.

HP also bundles rudimentary support for Desktop Management Interface (DMI), a new device management protocol. Although the accompanying client requires a PC with built-in DMI support, some vendors, such as 3Com, are shipping cards with built-in DMI support. To keep the interface simple, HP has included a DMI manager that virtually mirrors the functionality of the SNMP manager, extracting network data and building query macros.

Another feature worth mentioning is HP's Custom Controls, a Visu al Basic API for creating custom OpenView utilities, which requires a copy of Microsoft Visual Basic. Although it doesn't ship support for performance-data collection and analysis, HP claims that users can create Visual Basic applets to handle these and other management applications.

Dan Backman can be reached at dbackman@nwc.com..