GMS vs TMS

[mazzarak]

Hi guys

We're going to be giving both of these a trial run. Anyone else seen them both? What +ves and -ves should I be looking out for.

As always I look forward to the responses :)

cheers

Andy

[Toney]

Haven't seen the latest the version of GMS. Since we use Tandberg, we are using TMS extensively.
The last time we tested both products, we found that GMS was further advanced than TMS was. But in the past few releases, TMS has had some nice features included. I know that when we spoke to Tandberg that their TMS development team grew from like 1 or 2 people to a team of several, and growing. Tells me that they're taking TMS quite seriously. I get the impression that as they grow their product lines and add more converging services like VoIP, scheduling, webconferencing that more emphasis is being put on TMS. After all, Tandberg is a software company!
I would also be interested in hearing from GMS users.

[mazzarak]

Thanks Toney

I'll be trying to break a couple of trial versions in the near future, so I'll let you all know what I think <_<

[tom9933]

We use GMS and have been pretty happy with it. The biggest problem is that it seems to always be quite a bit behind the endpoint releases and this sometimes causes problems with profiling (loading the endpoint with a pre-defined configuration). I’m told that TMS also supports endpoint scheduling which would be a very nice feature. Polycom currently sells this separately with PCS and we haven’t purchased that product.

[mazzarak]

thanks tom

anyone ever used the gms demo version? are there limits to what you can do re: address books and software updates?

I'm having a bit of bother for both these...

[Jontracey]

As far as I am aware (been a while since i checked the latest demo) you get full funcitonality but for only 3 endpoints. I believe the demo is also limited to 90 days or so.

Best Wishes

Jon

[mazzarak]

thanks for the speedy reply...

must have broken it already (gonna make the other 87 days of the trial a bit dull if I can't fix it :lol: )

[oleg]

We use GMS about 3 years. With Polycom devices it works not bad. It helps at initial troubleshooting (the voice is present video is not present and vice versa). It is possible to look the negotiation audio/video protocols at connection of call. For VS4000/FX there is an opportunity to look jitter and audio/video packets lost. About new vsx7000, vsx3000, V500 I do not know yet.

With devices of other firms (I tried radvision ecs) it is not informative. There is an opportunity only to look the web-interface of the device is accessible.

The global address book on fast channels works normally, but on slow satellite channels there is the big delay.

Provisioning it is used only for the default configuration for all systems.

Software Update I prefer to make directly - without use GMS.

Reports are rather useful for billing, but the call by IP with use extension shows as ISDN call.

[Entropy3XD]

Originally posted by oleg@May 20 2004, 05:19 AM
With devices of other firms (I tried radvision ecs) it is not informative. There is an opportunity only to look the web-interface of the device is accessible.

If you get a chance, you may want to check out Radvision's iView. It is much more informative than ECS which is only really a gatekeeper.

[oleg]

Entropy3XD posted:
If you get a chance, you may want to check out Radvision's iView. It is much more informative than ECS which is only really a gatekeeper.


We don't have Radvision iView. I tried not only Radvision ECS, but also Radvision GW, Radvision MCU, Tandberg6000. There was all the same.

At addition of the new device I should choose type of the device (ipower, mgc, pathnavigator, viewstation and others polycom devices). For devices of other firms I can choose only type "Other" and type IP address for management URL. And accordingly everything, that I can receive from device - it only the web-interface answer:
Response String: 200 OK

I think for Radvision iView there will be the same.In order to receive more information, guys from Polycom should add more support for devices of the other firms to GMS.

While, in my opinion, GMS is only for Polycom devices.

[Toney]

Oleg, that's probably true with GMS that it's only really for Polycom devices. I found the same with TMS, that it really only supports Tandberg devices properly although they claim that TMS does in fact register other vendor devices, it doesn't really do very much else.
I'd be interested in hearing about a non-vendor specific management system. I might see if I can get a hold of this Radvision IView.

[SparkyIEEE]

I am using TMS on a 50 codec network and it works great. I am able to monitor and manage all the codecs, run diagnostics and updates across a city wide network with no problems, Scheduling is a breeze.
I also noticed an interesting byproduct of TMS not only will it manage other brand codecs it also recognised all of our network print servers our DNS server and our baystack switches and cisco routers!!! basically any device that uses SNMP and HTTP, FTP and Telnet can easily be recognised with TMS. I was told as of Version 3 they had a handfull of engineers working on it. and by the time Version 7 came out they had 70.

[seifran]

We use TMS in our organisation as well, and find that for the Tandberg endpoints it is terrific. In order for it to be useful for me, I want to be able to monitor the status of each endpoint, schedule the use of it, and recover stats about the usage of that room. By that measure, the TMS properly works with the Tandberg endpoints. Polycoms are recognised and allow monitoring, but there seems to be some quirks with the stats and scheduling. Other manufacturerers, while it does "know about" them, have almost no use as they can't be scheduled, have no statistics, and can only be monitored via the web interface in the unit (which you can do anyway without the TMS).

I have no direct experience with the Polycom product, other than getting a price quote for it - at least at the time it was substantially more expersive than the TMS.

[vtjoe]

Here are some details on TMS -

We use TMS and have been very happy with it. :D It also has a lot of nice eye candy. It does a good job of scheduling, keeping track of statistics and monitoring. As of TMS version 8, it runs on Windows 2000 (not 2003) - Internet Information Services with a SQL server database. It talks to the codecs over telnet, web, ftp and snmp. I believe GMS is similiar. Does anybody know?

Weaknesses:
The database key field is based on static IP addresses, which can be an issue in a DHCP environment or if you move a system between subnets and need to change the IP address. Changing the IP address of the codec makes TMS think it is a different codec. There is no easy way around this.

We use it almost for all Tandberg units. I think its major flaw is that it is not a gatekeeper. The VCON MXM scheduling software can initiate a call between any two codecs as long as the codecs use H.323 (without using an MCU). TMS needs to have an entire API written for each codec because it uses Telnet, HTTP and SNMP for creating and tracking calls - which is not uniform between different manufacturer codecs, unlike H.323.

Strengths:
- The guys at Tandberg did a good job of keeping data entry to a minimum. The codec figures it out.
- Different user interfaces and user permission. TMS has several levels of permissions that can be very useful. The "Scheduler" interface is easy to use so end users can schedule and setup their own calls.
- The ISDN dialing string structure is very smart and flexible.
- Handles more than just Tandberg endpoints - mainly polycom and radvision. Of course, it handles Tandberg endpoints the best.


TMS comes with four additional options (for extra $$$):

Scheduler - a simple user interface so anybody can schedule a video call.

TIM - Tandberg Instant Messaging - We don't use it. It looks like any IM with the ability to schedule a video call. I think Tandberg put this out in anticipation of the market direction and to get some practice with SIP.

See & Share - Web Conferencing. This is actually a different program that runs on a separate server. I've evaluated and it works well.

MGC Option - For a lot of money, you can use it to schedule a call with the Polycom Accord MGC

[oleg]

(vtjoe @ May 21 2004, 07:14 AM)] It talks to the codecs over telnet, web, ftp and snmp. I believe GMS is similiar. Does anybody know?

GMS doesn't talk to the codecs by snmp. It only can send snmp traps to network management station.

I think that gms better for polycom, and tms for tandberg. And what about multi-vendor management system. I heard about VCON Media Xchange Manager. In datasheet writes: "Devices that can be remotely configured
– VCON Escort and Cruiser
– VCON ViGOTM
– VCON Falcon
– VCON HD3000
– VCON HD5000
– VCON HD100
– VCON vPoint
– Polycom ViewStation
– Polycom 900 Series
– Tandberg group systems
– Sony group systems
– STARBAK Server
– RADVISION MCU
– RADVISION Gateway"

Does anybody use it?

[Jontracey]

Is anyone in a largly polycom or tandberg house using anything other than GMS/TMS, I know of some large networks that use industry standard NMS packages (Openview, Tivoli etc) but these only monitor the devices.

Also is anyone using Sonys SMS or Aethras UMS or the Forgent suite.

Your thoughts on these would be great to hear.

Thanks

Jon

[Morgan81]

I was wondering if anyone had seen any demo's of TMS 9. I know it's street date is in July but I figured it would be at some trade shows by now. I've heard that it may look slightly different due to the .NET architecture, at least I hope they got rid of that god-awful graphical monitoring view.

[mazzarak]

hi guys,

has anyone seen a demo of TMS 9 yet?

[trapehzoid]

I was wondering if anyone had seen any demo's of TMS 9. I know it's street date is in July but I figured it would be at some trade shows by now. I've heard that it may look slightly different due to the .NET architecture, at least I hope they got rid of that god-awful graphical monitoring view.

You can get a glimpse of the new look if you look at the datasheet for it on their website.