I've taken typing ASCII strings into serial ports as a normal interaction for decades now. Sometimes the strings seemed like arcane incantations that made little sense to me, but seemed to do the right things (in the end) on the device that I was talking to. I've written programs and scripts that took input from a user (via a keyboard, serial port, and other inputs), and I learned to "sanitize the input", and how to parse it, and how to cough up an error if the input was something unexpected, or not in the format that I wanted.
Over the years, I've had to sift through manuals, and command-completion information screens, in order to be reminded what my options are, on this device, running that version of firmware. Mainly because it seems so familiar, overall, but the occasional command options, or the order of arguments, may have been changed.
Today, I was sifting the web, looking for information to configure the serial port settings on an Avocent CCM4850. It turns out that line had roots from Equinox, with a different command syntax from the Cyclades line (which was also absorbed into Avocent, many years ago). But It also looks like the command syntax used for Lantronix and others. And this is when I decided to write this article.
Earlier in this month, Cisco Networks announced it was going to sue Arista Networks (Cisco's announcement) over what looked like copying of their Command Line Interface structures (and a few other items). Arista posted a couple early responses (from the Legal Counsel and the CTO), and I'm curious to see where it goes, and what effect it may have on the decade-old networking company. But, part of the argument begs the question about whether you can protect your Command Line Interface syntax. Are some command lines intuitive (after decades of predecessors...), and are some "common" enough that they become open to the public domain? Would the market benefit if a vendor could lock-in a particular set of commands, while competitors had to find unique ways to configure the same settings?
It harkens me back to the days of the big re-write of the Point-to-Point (PPP) protocols in the IETF Request For Comments... there were only three RFCs then, and there was confusion among the companies trying to write compatible versions. Many companies (Microsoft, Novell, Telebit, Morningstar) were trying to work on vendor-specific adaptations, and some were trying to find a way to aggregate multiple modem links into one larger pipe. The rewrite moved us into 13 different, new RFCs, but they helped lay the groundwork for interoperability. The PPP Consortium grew monthly, as more vendors jumped aboard to make things work together. And many command strings started to look alike. A LOT alike! And, at the time, that seemed like a very good thing, since I didn't have to reference many manuals to get a link running.
So, today, I'm wondering what the downside is, if different network vendors can parse the same command line string to provision VLAN or Spanning Tree settings for a switchport. And what may happen in the Console Server world if a ruling comes out that vendors must have unique command line syntaxes. How many syntaxes would you want to support, or remember?
Happy New Year! I can hardly wait to see what's ahead.
Showing posts with label Telebit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Telebit. Show all posts
20081130
Why aren't service processors "easy to use"?
You could try to tell me that it's because serial consoles are sensitive access points to vital hardware, and that Security is inversely proportional to Ease Of Use, therefore Service Processors cannot be Easy, because they need to be Secure. And, doing my best Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear) impression, I'd tell you that "you'd be wrong".
I'll tell you that it's because most the consumers are not asking for ease of use, or for interoperability. Because it seems (to me) to be on the minds (and mouths, and blogs) of a relatively small subset of vocal customers, and the 'collective voice' of this subset is further diminished because we are asking different vendors. (That is, I ask Dell, you ask HP, she asks Sun...but darn few of us are asking more than one or two vendors.)
Security features are only just now beginning to be built-in, either already enabled, or very easy to configure, largely because the US government has tied such requirements to their purchasing rules. If you want to sell the US government a desktop computer, there is now a whole checklist of security items to tick on the list before your kit might be considered. The US government, across many departments, now speaks with a large, unified voice (through the purchasing rules and policies)
Similarly, in the early days of the Point-to-Point Protocol (the follow-on to S.L.I.P. for IP-over-modem communications), PPP would allow more computer network protocols to connect and exchange data. As a customer, you'd have thought that vendor A's PPP (the choice inYOUR shop) would talk to Vendor B's gear at some Strategic Partner's network. But you'd have been wrong. Coupled with the birth of the Commercial Internet (it wasn't just for DARPA anymore), many companies were trying to get onto the Internet, or to connect to other companies to exchange information.
There was a large dissatisfacton with a lack up interoperability. And many companies spoke with the vendors to complain. BUT, besides complaining to the vendor who supplied the kit to YOU, you also would have complained to the vendors of the other guys gear as well. You might complain to 5 or 10 vendors, between routers and modems.
As a result of the dissatisfaction of LOTS of users, 6 companies started the PPP Consortium, with a week-long meeting at Telebit Corp in Sunnyvale, CA, with the express purpose of trying to test all of their gear with each other, and test across the matrix of then-new (and still evolving) PPP protocol options. At then end of it, the scorecard wasn't too bad, and all of the participants had a list of things to fix. They also hashed out some of the ambiguities in the draft Request For Comments (RFCs) describing the options. (Many of the vendors were part of the IEEE, and were helping define the RFCs, but the meeting helped settle misunderstandings about the options.)
Because the group of six could now claim a large amount of interoperability with the others in the group, it helped their marketing. Because the customers saw progress, they harped on the vendors who were NOT part of the original group, and they wanted to get in on the consortium. Six months after the first group, I believe there were 13 members, and 18 at the next. By the third meeting, PPP was Stable. PPP 'just worked', most of the time. PPP had become "easy", and SLIP was largely relagated to antique links on old equipment.
When I look at the various implementations of BIOS redirection to the serial port, they almost exclusively presume (or require) a modem connection, which then requires hardware level wiring issues if you are using a Console Server connection. The mapping of Function Keys, command sequences, and the timing issues to invoke the commands make using them tricky on a Console Server. It makes them impractical on any link slower than 19.2 Kbps. Yet the few BIOS makers don't see a need to try to do better, let alone to work with the other vendors to provide some consistancy of user interface to their customers. Do they know whether you care?
Now that Service Processors are becoming prevalent on new servers, it's hard to get a server without one. Yet they suffer from problems very similar to BIOS. The user interfaces are different from vendor to vendor. But what about processors from the same vendor. What about within the same vendor, across a hardware platform? You'd think that a vendor might want to keep their command sequences consistent, for the sake of their customers (who might be scripting support sequences for their machines). You'd probably like to think that...but you'd be wrong. A couple vendors seem to change at will, but I'm guessing that they are just buying server designs from other companies...and those same vendors probably haven't taken the time to design that Human User Interface, they probably simply rely on the hardware maker to fulfill the tasks (power cycle the server, set the IP address of the Ethernet interface for service processor, implement a web interface with certain features), leaving the details of keystrokes to the hardware maker...and when the vendor chooses another hardware maker, they get the same latitude with the design, and make different choices. (I wonder what Donald Norman thinks about tis problem.) Do your vendors know if you care?
When you tell a sales person that you want some new feature on their next year's model, the usual response is "OK, if we can get that done, how many will you buy?". It's going to cost them labor hours, engineering and QA time, technical documentation, maybe changing part of a training class. While you may only want 6, or 12, or 40, your voice will be tallied. When they from enough of you, it's going to be worth it to make a change. But we need to tip that scale by asking, and probably tying that request to some money. (My dad would sometimes ask me to "write your request on a $5 bill, and I'll consider it", but I have seen this over and over again, from different seats in different companies. For the vendor, it's all about money.)
My point here, is that you are going to spend money on new servers at some point. Make your money count! Tie the money to your requests for easier-to-use service processors. Decide what you want, and tell your possible vendors about your requirements. They all want your money...so vote with your wallet! Reward the responsive vendors! If the unresponsive vendors don't get the order, they'll at least know why, and they'll learn that you were serious. As more of us tie our requirements to purchasing, we can make a difference.
As you get into your busy end-of-year, some of you are already going through your budget cycle for 2009. Use any slowdown you get to think about requirements to go along with those purchases. Get them on paper, and in email, so they are ready to send to your vendors with your Request for Quote. And good luck in the new year.
-Z-
I'll tell you that it's because most the consumers are not asking for ease of use, or for interoperability. Because it seems (to me) to be on the minds (and mouths, and blogs) of a relatively small subset of vocal customers, and the 'collective voice' of this subset is further diminished because we are asking different vendors. (That is, I ask Dell, you ask HP, she asks Sun...but darn few of us are asking more than one or two vendors.)
Security features are only just now beginning to be built-in, either already enabled, or very easy to configure, largely because the US government has tied such requirements to their purchasing rules. If you want to sell the US government a desktop computer, there is now a whole checklist of security items to tick on the list before your kit might be considered. The US government, across many departments, now speaks with a large, unified voice (through the purchasing rules and policies)
Similarly, in the early days of the Point-to-Point Protocol (the follow-on to S.L.I.P. for IP-over-modem communications), PPP would allow more computer network protocols to connect and exchange data. As a customer, you'd have thought that vendor A's PPP (the choice inYOUR shop) would talk to Vendor B's gear at some Strategic Partner's network. But you'd have been wrong. Coupled with the birth of the Commercial Internet (it wasn't just for DARPA anymore), many companies were trying to get onto the Internet, or to connect to other companies to exchange information.
There was a large dissatisfacton with a lack up interoperability. And many companies spoke with the vendors to complain. BUT, besides complaining to the vendor who supplied the kit to YOU, you also would have complained to the vendors of the other guys gear as well. You might complain to 5 or 10 vendors, between routers and modems.
As a result of the dissatisfaction of LOTS of users, 6 companies started the PPP Consortium, with a week-long meeting at Telebit Corp in Sunnyvale, CA, with the express purpose of trying to test all of their gear with each other, and test across the matrix of then-new (and still evolving) PPP protocol options. At then end of it, the scorecard wasn't too bad, and all of the participants had a list of things to fix. They also hashed out some of the ambiguities in the draft Request For Comments (RFCs) describing the options. (Many of the vendors were part of the IEEE, and were helping define the RFCs, but the meeting helped settle misunderstandings about the options.)
Because the group of six could now claim a large amount of interoperability with the others in the group, it helped their marketing. Because the customers saw progress, they harped on the vendors who were NOT part of the original group, and they wanted to get in on the consortium. Six months after the first group, I believe there were 13 members, and 18 at the next. By the third meeting, PPP was Stable. PPP 'just worked', most of the time. PPP had become "easy", and SLIP was largely relagated to antique links on old equipment.
When I look at the various implementations of BIOS redirection to the serial port, they almost exclusively presume (or require) a modem connection, which then requires hardware level wiring issues if you are using a Console Server connection. The mapping of Function Keys, command sequences, and the timing issues to invoke the commands make using them tricky on a Console Server. It makes them impractical on any link slower than 19.2 Kbps. Yet the few BIOS makers don't see a need to try to do better, let alone to work with the other vendors to provide some consistancy of user interface to their customers. Do they know whether you care?
Now that Service Processors are becoming prevalent on new servers, it's hard to get a server without one. Yet they suffer from problems very similar to BIOS. The user interfaces are different from vendor to vendor. But what about processors from the same vendor. What about within the same vendor, across a hardware platform? You'd think that a vendor might want to keep their command sequences consistent, for the sake of their customers (who might be scripting support sequences for their machines). You'd probably like to think that...but you'd be wrong. A couple vendors seem to change at will, but I'm guessing that they are just buying server designs from other companies...and those same vendors probably haven't taken the time to design that Human User Interface, they probably simply rely on the hardware maker to fulfill the tasks (power cycle the server, set the IP address of the Ethernet interface for service processor, implement a web interface with certain features), leaving the details of keystrokes to the hardware maker...and when the vendor chooses another hardware maker, they get the same latitude with the design, and make different choices. (I wonder what Donald Norman thinks about tis problem.) Do your vendors know if you care?
When you tell a sales person that you want some new feature on their next year's model, the usual response is "OK, if we can get that done, how many will you buy?". It's going to cost them labor hours, engineering and QA time, technical documentation, maybe changing part of a training class. While you may only want 6, or 12, or 40, your voice will be tallied. When they from enough of you, it's going to be worth it to make a change. But we need to tip that scale by asking, and probably tying that request to some money. (My dad would sometimes ask me to "write your request on a $5 bill, and I'll consider it", but I have seen this over and over again, from different seats in different companies. For the vendor, it's all about money.)
My point here, is that you are going to spend money on new servers at some point. Make your money count! Tie the money to your requests for easier-to-use service processors. Decide what you want, and tell your possible vendors about your requirements. They all want your money...so vote with your wallet! Reward the responsive vendors! If the unresponsive vendors don't get the order, they'll at least know why, and they'll learn that you were serious. As more of us tie our requirements to purchasing, we can make a difference.
As you get into your busy end-of-year, some of you are already going through your budget cycle for 2009. Use any slowdown you get to think about requirements to go along with those purchases. Get them on paper, and in email, so they are ready to send to your vendors with your Request for Quote. And good luck in the new year.
-Z-
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