This Is A Plea

This is a plea: please, please use the tools you've invested in. Nothing makes a J9 consultant sadder than to see customers throw their money away on tools and training. Second to that is to see customers try to build tools on their own when there are other options available.

Two cases in point here: HP Diagnostics and HP TransactionVision.

The Diagnostics product has been around for many years, coming into the HP fold in January 2007 as part of the acquisition of Mercury Interactive. Many customers are resistant to using this product, believing either that its overhead is extreme or that free/cheap tools can provide the same information. The truth is, Diagnostics adds very minimal overhead to any production system if it is configured correctly. It has been safely deployed in high-volume production settings to dozens and dozens of J9's customers. Many free or inexpensive tools offer point solutions, but none are capable of providing the complete environment monitoriing and historical data collection capabilities of Diagnostics.

Many customers have recently shared with us that they are so desperate for business transaction reporting and monitoring that they are considering building their own solutions. TransactionVision came to HP via an acquisition of Bristol Technologies, which had been a partner of Mercury Interactive. When we demonstrate it, the feedback is almost always a sense of relief "Thank goodness I don't have to build this for myself!" Sensors are deployed for Java, .Net, WebSphereMQ, CICS, and Tuxedo, with reporting and monitoring integrated into HP Business Availability Center.

So, please, don't build what you can buy, and if you are going to buy, please don't let it become shelfware.