Operations Navigator

[frankgw@adelphia.net]

I'm curious. IBM keeps pushing it and enhancing it. Has anyone made the switch from traditional green screen use over to Operations Navigator GUI use? Was it worth the PC expense plus the retraining effort?

[Guest.Visitor]

Ops Nav is not used by everyone at our site. However, it is used by the administrators as it makes administration of multiple AS/400s easier. It is used by programmers and users to view AFP spool files. It is used by some of our users that have no green screen to view jobs and control print out.

[David Abramowitz]

According to IBM's John Sears, there are administrative functions, that are available only in the Operations Navigator, and not from a command line. Many of these functions concern things that are only in the IFS. The same question was asked of my user group, where a few people have played with Ops Nav, but no shop was using it on a regular basis. Dave

[Guest.Visitor]

David I would guess then that nobody in your user group runs much client server applications. If the user is on a green screen, I see no reason for them to use Ops Nav. If the user is on a WEB interface, I see no reason for them to use OPS Nav. However, if the user only runs client server applications, where the AS/400 is the server, OPS NAV is very usefull.

[David Abramowitz]

I hope I didn't give the impression that I didn't believe the product was not useful. The question concerned whether or not Ops Nav is being used by the AS/400 community at large. My answer was empirically based, and not meant to be critical. Dave

[Guest.Visitor]

David, I did not mean to give the impression, that you gave the impression, that you felt Ops Nav was not usefull. I am the one who gave the wrong impression. Jim

[Guest.Visitor]

Frank, I use Operations Navigator all the time. Or did you mean the GUI display emulator? I had used Operations Navigator very little prior to V4R4 for programming tasks. When I had to start running a system, I used Operations Navigator to set it up, run it, and now for programming tasks. I found that setting up things like PPP (which can only be done with Ops Nav) were much easier than the old way mainly because it put the help is better and all of the parts are together. The SQL script tool is also very nice, it makes it easy to cut and paste values directly into a spreadsheed, word, etc. David Morris

[Guest.Visitor]

>>According to IBM's John Sears, there are administrative functions, that are available only in the Operations Navigator, and not from a command line. Many of these functions concern things that are only in the IFS.

If you're interested... Here's a list of articles that we published on MC Web site (and on a few other sites) that discuss OpsNav, how to deal with it, what's available there that isn't available on the green screen (you'd be surprised), and a few other things. I offer this for general information: 1. Quick Strategies for Using AS/400 Operations Navigator: http://www.midrangecomputing.com/sho...1080&md=199911 Discusses the differences between green-screen and OpsNav functionality and suggests some strategies for dealing with OpsNav 2. Using Management Central in an AS/400 Network: http://www.midrangecomputing.com/ane...d=228&md=19995 Discusses how Management Central can be used to do some system and administrative tasks 3. Exploiting Operations Navigator's Plug-In Power: http://www.midrangecomputing.com/mc/.../9906petty.pdf An overview of how to plug in your own client/server C++, Java, and Visual Basic applications to the OpsNav tree so that you can deliver a complete client/server environment-Applications plus printer, job, and messaging management--under OpsNav. 4. Configure Your AS/400 Security the Easy Way with the New AS/400 Security Wizard: http://www.midrangecomputing.com/ane...id=49&md=19991 Discusses how to configure your AS/400 Security through an OpsNav wizard 5. Resolving Rumors: Will IBM Rewrite OpsNav to Pure Java?: http://www.midrangecomputing.com/mc/...orkHertvik.pdf Discusses the possibility of OpsNav becoming a pure Java application so that it can be run in browsers and on other platforms besides Windows. IBM is already writing new OpsNav modules in XML so... 6. OpsNav: New York to LA Enormous: http://www.midrangecomputing.com/mc/...5A_Hertvik.pdf An overview of OpsNav and how it differs from the green screen 7. Some Important Information on Operations Navigator: http://www.midrangecomputing.com/mc/...01techspot.htm A look at some of OpsNav's usability features and an introduction to Application Administration 8. Do You Have Default Passwords on Your AS/400?: http://www.midrangecomputing.com/ane...d=269&md=19996 Discusses how to use OpsNav to add users and avoid some problems that can occur when you add a user through the green screen 9. Express Client's PC5250 Application Integration Enhancements (Controlling PC5250 Functionality): http://www.midrangecomputing.com/ane/article.cfm?id=208 Talks about how to use OpsNav Application Administration to shut down PC5250 access for certain users on your system and contrasts it against using Microsoft system policies to do the same thing. You might also want to check out IBM's Operations Navigator home page http://www.as400.ibm.com/oper_nav/ and articles page http://www.as400.ibm.com/oper_nav/opnavarticles.htm for more info on OpsNav. Hope this helps... Joe Hertvik Editor-AS/400 Network Expert mailto:jhertvik@midrangecomputing.com Looking to hook your AS/400 up to the world? Breaking news, articles, tips, we post it all on the AS/400 Network Expert web site (http://www.midrangecomputing.com/ane). Get in the loop with our **free** weekly email alerts by sending an email to: mailto:jhertvik@midrangecomputing.com?subject=Subs cribe1

[frankgw@adelphia.net]

"If you're interested..." ------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, Joe, I'm interested! Thanks so much for organizing all this information together in one place.

[Guest.Visitor]

There are many functions that you can not config on green screen, other than using Op Nav, like DNS, PPP, DHCP, and so on. I use it a lot, and I think IBM really did a good job for the GUI interface. Especially for DNS and DHCP configuration, it is better than MS NT.