IBM System Director

We currently have IBM Director 5.20.02 installed. The boss says it's too buggy and ought to be upgraded to the latest version (6.2).

I've spent 3-4 days trying to install v6.1. IBM's documentation is convoluted and from what I've read on forums, v6.x is the worst product ever and is even more unusable than 5.x.

I'm inclined to let the senior tech know that it may be best to stick with what he has.

Does anyone have any opinions on this product?

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Comments

QHalo

I used to use this at my old company. It was a complete pain in the ass. It's no intuitive at all and very difficult to setup as you've seen. I hated it. But my boss demanded it be setup for the phone home portion.

mikedisd2

Exactly, I've seen open source products documented better than this. System Director is so bad that given the choice, I would choose HP over IBM servers, solely for this one app.

I've managed to install ISD but am now snagged on configuring the LDAP file for AD. It's crashed the web UI and now shows a 404 page.

If anyone knows of any non-IBM doco's, please help me out.

steve13ad

We tried using Director 3.11 & 4.0 to manage our 6,000 client workstaions. It was a nightmare but it's still better than our current product LANDesk.

QHalo

steve13ad wrote: »

We tried using Director 3.11 & 4.0 to manage our 6,000 client workstaions. It was a nightmare but it's still better than our current product LANDesk.

Altiris Products & Services | Symantec Corp.

Been using it and administering it for 5 years. Great product, but really pricey. Sorry for the threadjack.

OP, we had a consulting company come in and help us set it up when we bought the IBM machines from them and it still didn't work. I don't know of much in the area of documentation out there. I kind of just had to wing it as much as I could.

mikedisd2

QHalo wrote: »

OP, we had a consulting company come in and help us set it up when we bought the IBM machines from them and it still didn't work.

That kinda makes me feel better. I guess I'll just keep on winging it as well. Just wish someone had put out a guide with a series of sequential steps for initial installation and configuration. The IBM red-book is like one of those "Choose your own adventure" books.

Hyper-Me

What is system directory for?

If its a monitoring system, id recommend SCOM. Infact I havn't worked with any product from System Center line 2007+ that isnt pretty darn good.

QHalo

IBM System Director is the equivalent to Compaq Insight Manager. Yeah I went old school for the comparison. It's obviously more advanced but significantly more difficult to setup and use.