Lets get it started...
- Date: Fri, 4 Nov 94 10:17:37 +0100
Dear members of the new mailing list tts-people,
on the 19th RIPE meeting Stefan Biesbroeck initiated a BOF on Trouble Ticket
Systems. I took part in this meeting and we agreed that I would send the
short survey of TTS we did at the DFN-NOC to the list once it was set up.
Well, it seems that this is the first mail really dealing with TTS to be
sent to the list. Maybe it is a starter for some discussion on this topic.
Let me first give a few words on our situation:
We at DFN-NOC did some small evaluation of several Trouble Ticket Systems.
I append an english translation of it below the signature. However, you
should note that it is now close to one year old and there have been
developments and improvements in the meantime. So be careful and check
specific data given.
In the meantime we have some more experience and information to share:
* At the DFN-NOC we have an official test phase of the Trouble Ticket System
"Gnats" running since July 1994. This test phase should reveal errors
and troubles ;-) in using this specific Trouble Ticket System. We will
close the test phase at the end of this year and proceed to get it into
production phase in 1995. We have installed version 3.2 of "Gnats" which
is available since several months. It has some major improvements compared
to earlier versions (even though some small bugs were still left over;
however, these were easily fixed - "Gnats" is running perfectly well
at our site). The only drawback is that up to now only one fixed form
exists which must be filled in by the submitter of the ticket. There is
no way to adapt the form of the ticket. Yet, this form is sufficiently
general in its layout and therefore is suitable for the purposes of the
DFN-NOC. We also made some small adjustments to facilitate easier use
by our customers (e.g. translating it into German, building installation
scripts for the various submission ways etc).
* The main reasons why DFN-NOC decided to use "Gnats" are
- no costs arise for submitters ("Gnats" is available in the public
domain)
- "Gnats" runs on any UNIX-like system
- Trouble Tickets may be submitted in various ways
o editor and mail
o text tool "send-pr" of "Gnats"
o X11 tool "tksendpr"
o (we are now thinking of setting up a WWW interface, too)
- all communication is done via electronic mail which is the standard
communication tool in networking (submitting and querying of Trouble
Tickets, notifications all done in mail)
- the tickets themselves are easily accessible with standard UNIX tools
besides the "Gnats" interface. Therefore no additional database
management is needed (yet, "Gnats" offers a SQL interface). We very
easily installed a "finger"-interface (try: finger trouble@localhost
or finger on single trouble tickets, e.g. finger 34@localhost. However,
description is in German).
There are also three boundary conditions which should be mentioned:
- submitters are network operators of DFN customers; there is no direct
communication with the end users
- the staff of DFN-NOC is limited and therefore it should not be occupied
by continuously managing the Trouble Ticket System or any database system
- DFN-NOC did not want to have a computer running where people must login
to submit their tickets into a database (security considerations)
In the end we arrived at "Gnats". For other institutions some different
Trouble Ticket System may be more advantageous because of varying ways
of communications, other customers, other boundary conditions... . What
DFN-NOC learned from the evaluation is that an overwhelming graphical
surface and high complexity is not always useful - the functionality
counts according to your needs.
* If you are looking for further information, here are two additional sources:
- Computerworld, June 1992 (phone USA-508-879-0700): It is a magazine
and in this issue a survey of 34 Trouble Ticket Systems is given
- Moffit, M.L. and Rose, W.: Automating Your Software Support,
SSPA, Software Support Professionals Association, 16981 Via Tazonsuite,
San Diego 92127, CA (phone USA-619-674-4864). This is a handbook and
it displays more than 100 Trouble Ticket Systems. It is not regularly
available in book stores but must be bought at SSPA (costs are 145 US $
plus package plus posting)
That's about all the information I have at the moment. Please feel free to
comment on it (comments on the information comprised in our somewhat dated
evaluation below are also welcome). I hope this information is of any use
to you.
(and please: no flames on certain TTS - we chose according to our needs,
your needs and ideas may be completely different!)
One final remark: there are lots and lots of TTS - but no exchange format
(besides RIPE-063 as ASCII text file) as far as I know. This should be a
major item in our discussion in TTSs!
Best regards
Joachim
_____________________________________________________________________________
For any problem reports regarding DFN-IP, please send your e-mail to
>>>>>> noc@localhost <<<<<<
If you have any doubt about the proper delivery of your e-mail
please contact the DFN-NOC by other means (telephone, FAX)
DFN Network Operation Center Rechenzentrum der Universitaet Stuttgart
FAX +711 678 7626 (business hours) Allmandring 30
Bettina Kauth +711 685 5810 kauth@localhost D-70550 Stuttgart
Joachim Schmitz +711 685 5576 schmitz@localhost FRG (Germany)
_____________________________________________________________________________
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------ Evaluation of some Trouble Ticket Systems by DFN-NOC ------
------ at the Computer Center, University of Stuttgart, FRG ------
------ November 1993 ------
Trouble Ticket Systems
======================
A basic catalog of things needed in Trouble Ticket Systems for Network
Operation Centers has been given in RFC 1297. DFN-NOC took this RFC as a
measure to achieve some evaluation on Trouble Ticket Systems. The effort
of evaluation can not be complete and some of the conclusions may be
debatable.
* CONCERT Trouble Ticket System: available with anonymous ftp from the site
ftp.concert.net(192.101.21.1, 128.109.193.1):/dist/tickets/* (several
files). This system uses the Postgres database which is also available
in the public domain. A big warning comes with the system saying that
the Postgres database does not comply with certain security standards.
It does not say that Postgres is a bad database - it works well.
CONCERT offers a system to improve security but still warns. Besides
managing the Trouble Ticket System also the database must be maintained.
From other sources DFN-NOC heard that the searching algorithm is badly
implemented in the database.
* JvNC's NETLOG Trouble Ticket System: available with anonymous ftp from the
site ftp.jvnc.net(128.121.50.2):/pub/jvncnet-packages/netlog/* (several
files). This system does not meet RFC 1297 (some missing features like
escalation schemes). DFN-NOC does not know whether work on this system
has been postponed.
* NEARnet Trouble Ticket System: available with anonymous ftp from the site
ftp.near.net(192.52.71.37):/nearnet-ticket-system-v1.3.tar - DFN-NOC did
not test this system because it is based on the Informix database which
must be bought from some other source and was not available at the DFN-NOC
site.
* REQUEST Trouble Ticket System: available with anonymous ftp from the site
bongo.cc.utexas.edu(128.83.186.13):/source/util/request-2.1.1 (or others).
This system is used (with some adaptions) by EUnet, Germany. It is based
upon a perl script named "request" developed by the University of Cali-
fornia. To the knowledge of DFN-NOC this system does not meet RFC 1297.
More comments should be available from EUnet, Germany.
* SOFTLAB Trouble Ticket System: A newly created system by the SOFTLAB
company at Munich, Germany (version 1.0, May 1993). At the time when the
evaluation was done, no test version was available. DFN-NOC was able to
get a handbook from DANTE (which is supposed to be using this system?)
and concludes that it meets RFC 1297 at least. No further information
available.
* Help Desk Management System (HDMS): developed by the Delmarva Power &
Light Company Newark (USA), available via anonymous ftp from the site
ftp.delmarva.com(138.39.7.10):/pub/hdms/HDMS.tar.Z - this system needs
the Unify 2000 database which must be bought from some other source and
was not available at the DFN-NOC site. But even for sites where the
database system is available it seems to be questionable whether HDMS
is suitable as a Trouble Ticket System for computer network operating.
It is very specifically designed for a Power Company dealing in
electricity and not in computer network operating.
* SUN Call Tracker (SUN): This system can be bought from SUN Corp. At least
parts of it are based upon the ARS of Remedy (see below). DFN-NOC did not
include it in the evaluation because of its similarity to the ARS. There
might be deviations from ARS.
* ARS (Action Request System): ARS can be bought from Remedy Corporation,
1965 Landings Drive, Mountain View, California 94043, USA. Test versions
are available for various operating systems. The ARS is under constant
development and support by Remedy. DFN-NOC has installed a test version.
ARS is built upon a SQL database (there are interfaces included for
several commercially available database systems) and defines three
groups of persons dealing with tickets:
- administrator and dispatcher
- support staff
- user (submitter)
Each of these groups has its own working and notification tool within ARS.
The type and form of the tickets is designed by the ARS administrator and
dispatcher to his liking including filters defining notification, priority
and escalation schemes among other things. The access to Trouble Tickets
is granted according to permissions set by the administrator/dispatcher.
There are interfaces to some Network Management Systems (like SUN netmanager
or HP) to automatically generate Trouble Tickets depending on the network
status. Moreover a standardized API for further programming is available.
DFN-NOC thinks that ARS is a very far developed system with great potential
and powerful surface. Drawbacks are
- only a very poor interface exists to submit tickets by electronic mail.
Trouble Tickets can not be queried or changed by electronic mail. This
makes sense because Remedy wants to sell its clients for ARS
- to submit Trouble Tickets it is necessary to login on the computer where
the database is kept. A client solution is available but the client
needs access to the harddisk where the database is located
- the price is quite high (around 10000 US $ for the base version - however,
various conditions available) and each new client leads to higher costs
The ARS is used by the ANS-NOC in their regular work (it is supposed that
MCI uses it, too). Trouble Tickets are only opened or dealt with by the
ANS-NOC itself, the customers do not have access. One of the reasons given
for that is the sensitivity of the data, another reason is the license
pricing scheme by Remedy which increases dramatically the more people have
access to the ARS system. From what DFN-NOC has heard, ARS is therefore
used for internal TT handling within one organisation, only.
* Gnats (also known as PRMS = Problem Report Management System): This GNU
tool is available from many GNU sites - the newest version can be retrieved
via anonymous ftp from ftp.cygnus.com(140.174.1.88):/pub/gnats-3.2.tar.gz.
It was developed by Cygnus Support, 1937 Landings Dr., Mountain View, CA,
94043 (USA) and is continuously developed and maintained by this company.
Gnats uses one simple file for each Trouble Ticket (a SQL interface is
available). For the user the access to the data in the files looks the same
as if it was done in a database but no database system is needed. All
access is done by electronic mail (submitting, adding new information,
querying, notifications), only changes by the support staff handling the
tickets must be done interactively on the computer where the tickets are
kept. Groups of persons dealing with tickets are defined like in the ARS.
Tools for all functions are available including working tools, notification
and priority/escalation schemes. DFN-NOC thinks that Gnats is a very good
system which has been developed quite far and has great potential.
Drawbacks are:
- Gnats was developed for maintaining software (especially GNU software)
and is not specially designed for computer networking. Yet, its design
allows a far more wider usage
- Gnats only offers one single form to be filled in as a Trouble Ticket.
While this reduces flexibility to a minimum, the form is set up in a
very general way and can be used in other surroundings as well
- Gnats is not built upon a database system (this may also be an advantage)
- installation is more difficult than with the ARS
Advantages are
- no costs arise for submitters ("Gnats" is available in the public
domain as a GNU tool). Service contracts are available with Cygnus
Support if desired (these cost money, of course)
- "Gnats" runs on any UNIX-like system
- Trouble Tickets may be submitted in various ways
o editor and mail
o text tool "send-pr" of "Gnats"
o X11 tool "tksendpr"
- all communication is done via electronic mail which is the standard
communication tool in networking
- the tickets themselves are easily accessible with standard UNIX tools
besides the "Gnats" interface. Therefore no additional database
management is needed (yet, "Gnats" offers a SQL interface).
DFN-NOC has decided to use it as Trouble Ticket System not only internally
but also giving DFN customers access to it.
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