Re: [cobalt-users] Features [WAS: administration - web ormanual? ]

[Jeff Bilicki <jeffb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have addressed your points about the Qube 2 below, also I have
compared the feature improvement of backup between Qube 1 and Qube 2.

> For us, the disappointments were:
> 
> * A totally useless implementation of majordomo.

I am not sure what you mean here, could you expound on the features you
want out of majordomo.

> * A very weak interface for firewalls.

Yes, creating a UI for firewalls that is easy to use but also has enough
depth to provide good security is difficult.  We definitely have room
for improvement here.   

> * No interface for managing virtual sites.

Correct there is no reason a Qube 2 can't do virtual sites, I think this
was done for product distinction.

> * Very few (any?) logs available via the interface.

You can download the web logs under Administrator Site -> Web ->
"Download Log File".  No other logs are available in the UI, what other
logs would you like to see?


> * A strange mechanism for network address translation.

This will be fixed in Qube2(EJFGC)-Update-3.0
Key
E-English
J-Japanese
F-French
G-German
C-Chinese

> * Generally unclear screens, which cover only the most
>    general options in each area.

I guess the a good manual would have helped here.

> * Made much worse by an almost complete lack of
>    useful documentation for any task beyond the obvious.
 
Cobalt was aware of this and made a concerted effort on RaQ 3 to produce
a high quality manual that wasn't refered to as a 'cartoon book'.  You
can review it if you like,
http://www.cobalt.com/support/pdf/raq3manual.pdf

Qube 1, also known as 2700WG, was shipped in March 98 (I think, I
started in May 98) while Qube 2 was shipped in Feb. 99.   For this
comparison I will take an item which Cobalt still needs to work on,
backups.

Qube 1
Web based backup, there where numerous problems with this method:
   * inability to handle large backups 
   * time-out problems (perl 5.003 was still current at the time)

All other methods required the use of telnet

Qube 2
A new selection was added to backup menu,  "All users and group files"

Incremental backups could be utilized reduce the size of data being
downloaded.

Web based backup are still in the UI, perl 5.004 helped the time-out
problem, but it still has issues:
   * limited to about 80-100 MB of data (I forget the actual threshold,
I think it depends on the browser)

Scheduled Backups eliminated the time-out problems:
   * Scheduled: daily, weekly, monthly
   * Incremental
   * Methods: FTP Server, NFS, and Window File Sharing (SMB)
( A problem exists with anonymous ftp and subdirectories, it will be
fixed in the next update) 

Added support for using Legato Networker for backups.

All other methods required the use of telnet.

I guess since I work with these products on a day to day basis, and I
used to work in support makes me VERY familiar with the, sometimes small
but important differences between product lines.  Cobalt still has
issues to address in new products as well as in existing ones.  A lack
of human resources has delayed projects, and keeps me here late at
night, if you need a job and like Linux check out:
<PLUG>
http://www.cobalt.com/about/jobs/departments.html
</PLUG>

I am going to go get some sleep.
Jeff-